Michigan Telephone, VoIP and Broadband blog

I’ve noticed that the U.S. press seems to be cautious in reporting this story, not that they’re avoiding it, but that they tend to stick to “just the facts” as opposed to saying what a lot of folks are probably thinking about this situation. That’s not so much the case down under; the New Zealand publication The National Business Review has run a story headlined “Patent troll bites Google” (their headline, not mine) that is probably as complete a summation of what is known so far as anything I’ve yet seen in the press (although I’m sure we’ll see more in the next few days). One paragraph of this article expresses an opinion about why Google has chosen to fight this lawsuit rather than attempt to settle:

By picking Google as a target, Rates Technology may have failed to understand that for a company made of little but IP, defending against spurious (or even substantive) patent infringement claims is a necessity and not an inconvenience.

To which I again add that if any company is capable of finding “prior art” that might call the validity of these patents into question, Google is probably that company.

Possibly one reason that the press hasn’t really sunk their teeth into this story yet is that they see it as simply another litigation battle between corporations. But another possibility is that the “A” team of business law reporters are away on vacation and that after the holidays are over, we’ll see a more in-depth examination of this case (and others like it) in the press. I’m still hoping this might be the case that gets people taking (and not just talking, but actualy doing something) about patent law reform, but I’m certainly not holding my breath.

Okay, let me get this straight – the cell phone industry knows that more and more people nowadays drop their landline phone service once they get cell phone service – after all, why pay for two phone services if you’re not a big talker? And they also know that people often switch from one cell phone company to another. So why on earth would a cell phone company refuse service to potential customers that don’t have a landline phone?

If you find it hard to believe that a cell company would do that, see the article “Irony and Mobile Service Requirements” at the mobile jones blog, and note the red text on the screenshot. Makes you wonder, what were they thinking???

Rich Tehrani has more on this in his blog, under the headline “RTI Sues Google for 5 Billion“:

The mainstream press will break this news tomorrow. I wonder if a 5 billion dollar lawsuit will lower the search giant’s stock. This is obviously a huge amount and probably explains why Google would rather fight RTI instead of paying.

Not only that, but Rich suggests that there might be more lawsuits in the works, for what he describes as “staggering sums.” I can only agree with that assessment. This could turn out to be one of the major tech news stories of the new year. The only way I can see any good coming out of it is if maybe this will be the thing that causes people (especially our legislators) to realize that the current patent system is seriously broken, and more than that, to actually take action to reform it (and hopefully the “cure” won’t be worse than the “disease”).

At first I thought I was reading The Onion or some similar satirical publication, but noooooo… There it was in the pages of the Detroit News, in an article entitled “AT&T will ring in ‘06 in Times Square.” Besides noting that AT&T plans to plant their signs around Times Square and to conduct a television advertising blitz in the last quarter hour of the old year, the News article also noted this:

The San Antonio-based company, which serves 3.6 million lines in Michigan, even tried to convince organizers of the annual party, watched by an estimated 1 billion people, to replace the iconic half-ton ball with the stylized AT&T globe.

They were rejected.

“We tried real hard,” said Shelley Almager, AT&T’s director of brand advertising, in an interview Wednesday with The Detroit News.

Can you believe it? I personally think corporate rebranding has gotten way out of hand in America. Where will it end? The Home Depot White House? The Viagra Monument honoring George Washington? (Sorry about that…).

And in this same article, there was also this:

Marketing experts say SBC made the right move in adopting the AT&T brand and that it needs to capitalize on the nostalgia evoked by the name while highlighting the contemporary services it offers.

How old were these marketing geniuses? I’m guessing under 35 at least. They probably do not remember AT&T at the height of her monopoly, when customers paid through the nose for everything from long distance to extension telephone rental. I suppose that if they felt they had to pick between SBC and AT&T, AT&T is the logical choice, but please spare us the “nostalgia” crap – for many of us who actually lived through the time when AT&T was big, bad Ma Bell, nostalgia is not exactly the word we’d use to describe out feelings toward AT&T. Back then, many people hated the phone company – remember Ernestine the Operator on the old Laugh-In show, as portrayed by Detroit native Lily Tomlin? Remember her famous line – “We don’t care. We don’t have to. We’re the Phone Company!” That is sort of how many of us remember the “old” AT&T. “Nostalgia” my … (never mind).

I’m sorry, but no amount of money spent on marketing is going to make me have warm, fuzzy feelings for SBC, or as they are now known, the “new” AT&T. There’s a phrase that comes to the back of my mind (something about putting lipstick on a pig) that seems appropriate in this situation, but that’s just my opinion.

Apparently a company called Rates Technology thinks that the VoIP portion of the Google Talk program infringes two of their patents, according to an article on the SearchEngineWatch blog. Other bloggers who probably understand the legalities of this better than I are looking into this, but I will just say that I would think that if you have a patent that could possibly be invalidated by “prior art” (and I have no idea whether that might be the case here), Google would be the very last company you’d want to sue. I mean, if (just as an example) someone posted essentially the same ideas that are expressed in the patents in a Usenet News post back in 1993 (just to pick, out of the thin air, a year prior to the filing of the patents in question), Google would doubtless be able to locate that post.

Edit: Canadian blogger Mark Evans has a different take on this – he believes that “… Google would be wise to settle quickly to make RTI [Rates Technology Inc.] go away.” But then he adds this:

From a bigger-picture perspective, do you think the activities and RTI and NTP will build momentum to look at how the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office issues patents. In particular, it seems like there could be a backlash against the broad patents the USPTO grants, which have given many patent holder enormous legal clout because defendants have such a difficult time demonstrating they aren’t infringing them. The key issue is whether these broad patents will deter innovation if patent “trolls” can easily solicit licensing fees out of companies developing new technology.

About a week ago, BusinessWeek Online published an article entitled “Cutting Through the Patent Thicket“, and subtitled “The current U.S. system is harming innovation. A simplified process with stronger patents would encourage economic growth.” You should probably know that the writer of this editorial is himself an inventor, but he (and a growing number of others) believe that the current system of protecting “intellectual property” is broke.

I have said for many years now that the real problem with “intellectual property” laws are that first of all, the person or persons who do the actual work are often not the ones who reap the bulk of the rewards for their efforts, and that second, it allows some entities (usually corporations) to profit over and over from work that was only done once. I realize that’s probably a gross oversimplification, but the point I am trying to make is that most people only get paid once for the work they do, whereas for “creative” people it can be a real crap shoot – they may work very hard and not make a penny, or they may get lucky and come up with something that will make even their great-grandchildren wealthy. But more often than not, somewhere along the way a corporation will acquire the “rights” and they will be the ones to profit repeatedly. To me, something seems terribly unfair about that, but then I’m not an inventor nor a lawyer, so maybe there’s something I’m missing here.

I feel honored that Jeff Pulver gave me and this blog a mention in his blog this morning. Jeff has been very instrumental in the growth of VoIP and has probably done more to help keep VoIP out from under onerous government regulation than any of us will ever fully appreciate.

I first met Jeff on the Internet back about a decade ago, around the time when he was helping lead the fight against a petition by a trade association called America’s Carriers Telecommunication Association, which was filed with the Federal Communications Commission in an effort to essentially kill VoIP in its infancy. If only the competitive long distance carriers had realized then that the real future threat to their business model would be the loss of UNE-P, and that VoIP companies would actually start to become their customers in another five years or so, I think they might have focused their efforts in a different direction. Today many CLEC’s either already have their own VoIP offerings, or are contemplating them.

While the ACTA petition was ultimately thwarted, thanks in no small part to Jeff Pulver’s efforts, the big phone companies are today making their own efforts to kill, or at least slow the growth of independent VoIP, and Jeff is still helping to lead the fight against these new initiatives. Just today, Jeff published a list of his Top Policy-Related Blogs of 2005, which is just another indication that he’s still very much involved in the interaction between government and VoIP.

Looking back almost ten years, it now seems bit odd that a CLEC trade association would try to stop VoIP dead in its tracks. I hope that ten years from now, we will think it equally odd that the big phone companies thought that they could put the brakes on independent VoIP.

Ever wonder how people get their identity stolen? Sometimes it’s an opportunistic criminal that holds a position where he has access to people’s personal information, and can pick his victims – except that there’s always the risk that he’ll pick the wrong guy, who will hunt him down despite all the odds.

But then again, sometimes it’s just people being stupid. Not just a little stupid, but incredibly, mind-bendingly stupid. Sometimes, people are just asking to have their identity stolen, as in the case described in this blog entry.

Parents, you talk to your kids about staying away from strangers, and the dangers of drugs and other harmful things, and about how to make the proper choices in life. Do you also teach them to guard their identity and their financial information? The story linked in the previous paragraph should send a chill down the spine of any parent with teenagers!

From alarm:clock comes this post about ScanR, which allows you to “take camera phone pix, phone email it to ScanR and you’ll get a clarified PDF back.” The post shows a sample output and gives several suggested uses for this service, but the basic idea is that if you need to save anything from a whiteboard presentation to a sheet of notes to, well, any sort of written material, this may be the ticket. Of course, TechDirt points out the obvious: “What’s wrong with the original photo? Can’t you do the same with the original photo the cameraphone takes?” Which is doubtless true, but I guess that ScanR makes the output look better. It appears that they’re handing out free trial accounts right now, so maybe this would be a good time to give them a try.

If you have switched your e-mail over to Google’s Gmail service and you are using it for anything that you consider critical, I suggest you read this BusinessWeek article entitled When Betas Go Bad. We tend to forget that to Google, Gmail is just a beta project, although that point has apparently become painfully obvious to some Gmail users in recent days.

Note that I’m not saying that any of the other free e-mail services are any better. But sometimes it seems that the larger Google gets, the less responsive they become to the users of their services. I hope that’s just the appearance and not the reality, because it would be a real shame if the culture at Google is changing so that they just don’t give a rip about their users anymore.

Hope you all have had a Merry Christmas and an enjoyable holiday season, and that you got to be together with friends and family. And also I hope you got just what you wanted!

Kansas City InfoZine is carrying an article (or perhaps it’s a press release about the article, I’m not quite sure) from the December, 2005 issue of Consumer Reports magazine, that talks about all the benefits of VoIP. But, never let it be said that Consumer Reports missed an opportunity to be critical. Here are a few quotes:

…..According to the January issue of Consumer Reports, consumers are saving $20 to $50 or more a month by using VoIP and enjoying many more features and capabilities. But the experts at Consumer Reports note that consumers who use VoIP phone services may also have limited access to emergency 911 services and for this reason, Consumer Reports strongly recommends that consumers keep a basic landline even if they get VoIP for day-to-day use…..

…..Consumer Reports notes that with VoIP, there may be potentially serious limitations with access to emergency 911 service. VoIP isn’t yet a reliable replacement for landline emergency service for many consumers…..

…..Consumer Reports urges consumers to keep a corded phone (requiring no power) and a landline plan for emergencies…..

Now, bear in mind that this is from the December issue – I don’t know what sort of lead time Consumer Reports has, but one would think that by the time that issue was wrapped up, they would have known that there was a FCC mandate for VoIP providers to provide 911 service. But if they did know about it, they sure didn’t mention it (at least there is no mention of it in this online article), and in neglecting to do that they gave ammunition to the incumbent phone companies that would like to scare their customers into keeping their traditional phone service.

Question: Why did they not suggest that customers keep a cell phone handy for making emergency calls, in the event they can’t use their VoIP line to make 911 calls? Since many of their readers presumably already have cell phones, it may not make sense to keep a landline around just for 911. I thought Consumer Reports was supposed to be all about saving money for their readers, but in this case they are suggesting what might be an unnecessary monthly expense for many of their readers.

Wonder which incumbent phone company will be the first to use quotes from this article?

For quite some time now, John Lodden and Telesthetic have operated a group of local access numbers throughout the state of Michigan, such that at least one of those numbers is very likely a local call no matter where you live in Michigan. Once you dial into that number, you can then place a call to a user of Free World Dialup, SIPphone, or IAXTel, or you can access a free conference bridge.

As of today, many more VoIP users are now reachable through these numbers. If you or someone you know has VoIP service with a provider that has a “SIP-code” listed on this page at SIPbroker.com, then they can be called using one of the Telesthetic dial-in numbers. Just pick the number nearest you (if you are not in Michigan, try Southfield or Pontiac because those are closest to the switch), call it and when you get the answering message “Moving to VoIP…”, enter the provider’s SIP-code (with the leading *) and then the number you want to call. In most cases you will probably have to enter the entire number including the country code (that’s the leading “1″ in the U.S., Canada, and parts of the Caribbean) but that may not be universally true – some providers may only want the area/city code and number. You may have to experiment a little to find out what works.

EDIT: To call ENUM numbers that have been registered at e164.org, and possibly other registered ENUM numbers, *013 is the default SIP-code to use.

As you can see, quite a few overseas VoIP providers have a “SIP-code”, as do some companies that offer free “private network” VoIP. Unfortunately, some of the largest U.S. providers apparently don’t accept direct incoming SIP calls from outside their own network, so they can’t be reached in this way. If you see a red slash symbol next to a providers “SIP-code”, that means they probably are not accepting incoming off-net calls.

One other point is that if you have a switch that accepts incoming SIP traffic and for some reason you would like to receive calls in this manner, you can use the form at the top of the aforementioned page on SIPbroker.com to get your own “SIP-code.”

If you are a telecommunications professional and you’ve never been to SIPbroker’s home page you might do well to go have a look around and see what they offer. Anyone that can access SIPbroker (either directly, or via a gateway from another provider) can place free VoIP calls to users of any of the VoIP providers shown, as well as to those who have registered . Depending on your situation there may be ways you can take calls that you’re now paying toll charges on and convert them to totally free calls, by bypassing the PSTN entirely.

Also, there are many more places in the world where there is local access from the PSTN, many of which are shown on this page (including an additional number in Grand Rapids, Michigan number provided by Timmins Technologies, LLC). But John Lodden’s numbers offer nearly complete coverage of the state of Michigan, and I for one appreciate him making this access available.

According to an article in the South Bend Tribune, AT&T (formerly SBC, formerly Ameritech) is planning on cutting directory assistance operator positions in the first or second quarter of this year. In Michigan, 101 positions are to be cut (other state totals are: Indiana, 43; Illinois, 151; Ohio, 57; and Wisconsin, 33).

AT&T says that directory assistance service has been on a continual decline, which is doubtless true, but the article sort of glosses over one other possible motivation for these cuts:

Some possible options include offering retirements or transferring workers to other facilities.

But that still could leave some workers out of a job, said Ed Bonczynski, president of Communications Workers of America Local 4802, whose entire membership is composed of the 43 operators [in Indiana].

To qualify for other jobs in the company, there are “certain hoops we have to jump through,” Bonczynski said, including tests to qualify for new positions. [Emphasis added]

I really don’t suppose that it bothers AT&T a whole lot that this union’s membership will be cut significantly. I wonder if the situation is the same in the other states where this is happening.

This blog is intended to complement the Resources for Michigan Telephone Users web site and the MI-Telecom mailing list. As with every blog, there has to be a first post and since I’m just testing this out, that’s all I’m going to say for now.