Unified Communications » Opinions »

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    Minchin's madness

    I'm in a bind. I can't work out whether Senator Nick Minchin is plain mad, or there is method to his madness. I'm leaning to the former, though, because of the shadow communication minister's actions since the Federal Government announced its plans to force the structural separation of Telstra. Put simply, they have been nothing more than reckless political opportunism.

    Written by Trevor Clarke • 24 Oct. 09 09:00
  • 5

    Talk about IT - underground vs overhead cable debate

    As the NBN construction chugs along in Tasmania, debate on the mainland continues as to whether laying the fibre optic cables underground is more advantageous than putting them in existing overhead infrastructure. Many industry experts have weighed in on the debate, what are your thoughts?

    Written by Computerworld Staff • 15 Oct. 09 15:13

  • UC security: When the shoe won't fit, compress the foot

    If your security model is location-centric and depends on keeping things separate, how do you respond to a disruptive technology like unified communications? This is a pattern that keeps repeating in many different areas: the security paradigm looked good until a technology comes along, changes the assumptions and reveals the inadequacy of the model.

    Written by Andreas M. Antonopoulos • 15 April 09 05:06

  • What's an ISP? (That's not a trick question)

    As President-elect Barack Obama begins fleshing out his agenda, one promising sign is that he considers Internet infrastructure to be key, judging from both his stated goals and the caliber of people he's asking to advise him on policy.

    Written by Johna Till Johnson • 26 Nov. 08 09:34

  • Facing the Sundance reality

    There's a lot of interesting stuff going on in every industry, if you define "interesting" as the kind of thing that a practitioner of the space will jump for joy at the prospect of reading.

    Written by Thomas Nolle • 12 June 08 10:32
  • 6

    A cheap VoIP alternative: magicJack

    Last week I started to enumerate my phone numbers and I wound up discussing Google's GrandCentral telephony service with considerable enthusiasm. While some people, such as reader and fellow Twitterer Allen Clarkson, are big fans, not everyone is quite as enthusiastic.

    Written by Mark Gibbs • 16 April 08 08:55

  • Bandwidth costs, real and virtual

    Being a pundit, like being in love, means never having to say you're sorry, right? Wrong. Besides, that's got to be one of the dumbest lines in history -- from what I can tell, loving someone means acknowledging your mistakes early and often, and making reparations as best you can.

    Written by Johna Till Johnson • 03 April 08 10:23

  • What those oceanic cable cuts mean to you

    Forget the Super Bowl. Ignore the presidential primaries. For network geeks, the really big news recently was the cable outages in the Mediterranean, which disrupted Internet connections to Europe and the Middle East. The outages have raised a host of questions about the vulnerability of the Internet and the action plans enterprises should have in place to protect themselves from the consequences. Here are some frequently asked questions -- and the answers.

    Written by Johna Till Johnson • 08 Feb. 08 09:28

  • A new bandwidth breakthrough

    We all realize that technology can change human behavior. If you don't quite know what I mean, just ask television network executives who have seen the erosion of their audience and ad dollars as more and more people log on to the Web for information and entertainment.

    Written by Ephraim Schwartz • 09 Jan. 08 11:56

  • Illegal wiretapping is a dangerous wedge

    The phrase "the thin end of the wedge" is a good description for those things that, if allowed or tolerated, enable other things that are bigger or worse to happen.

    Written by Mark Gibbs • 07 Dec. 07 10:09

  • Will Google Wireless carry the day?

    Looks like the Goo-goo-googlers are going to bid for a swath of the 700 MHz spectrum after all.

    Written by Robert X. Cringely • 21 Nov. 07 09:29
  • 1

    Wiretapping, whistleblowing and IT ethics

    Recently a retired AT&T employee named Mark Klein announced at a Capitol Hill press conference that he had evidence that "An exact copy of all Internet traffic that flowed through critical AT&T cables ... was being diverted to equipment inside the secret room."

    Written by Mark Gibbs • 09 Nov. 07 08:16

  • Carriers clueless on net neutrality

    I've written several pieces pointing out that the issue of net neutrality is more nuanced than either proponents or opponents want you to believe. But with their characteristic cluelessness, providers have pretty much succeeded in reducing the debate right back down to a sound bite -- and positioning themselves on the wrong side.

    Written by Johna Till Johnson • 09 Nov. 07 11:38

  • VOIP security industry: Guilty as charged

    We in the IT security industry are collectively guilty for allowing a fundamentally insecure system such as VOIP to be launched into the market.

    Written by Paul Simmonds • 07 Nov. 07 11:36

  • I guess truth is not an option for telcos

    If I wanted network neutrality laws passed I could not think of a better pair of allies than Verizon Wireless and Comcast. By their duplicitous behavior, both have been doing a very good job of showing lawmakers just why such laws may be needed.

    Written by Scott Bradner • 01 Nov. 07 10:27

  • Comcast into the fires of hell

    It seems Comcast has been caught playing with its subscribers' naughty bits. In the latest scandal to spread like kudzu across the blogosphere, Comcast has been accused of killing off Bit Torrent file sharing, according to tests by geeks at the Associated Press.

    Written by Robert X. Cringely • 26 Oct. 07 08:16

  • iPhone would be even better if it were more open

    Last week my mother admonished me for having published two columns about the Apple iPhone before it was released, but not a word since. She, of course, is right. I should have said something, but I've been trying to figure out what bothers me so much about the product.

    Written by Scott Bradner • 29 Aug. 07 11:50

  • Unified communications - battle royal

    For me the recent VoiceCon show in San Francisco gave new meaning to the words "unified messaging." As I made my rounds to close to two dozen analyst meetings, almost every executive was focused on laying out their company's "Unified Communications" strategy and/or its upper-stack cousin, "Communications-enabled Business Processes." UC and CEBP were certainly the stars of the show but how we'll get there is not at all clear and a big battle is brewing.

    Written by Kevin Tolly • 29 Aug. 07 10:57

  • Airing a sensible global telecom policy prescription

    Every now and then, life brings you a pleasant surprise. I got one last week when a senior executive at a telecom equipment vendor made a prescription for global telecom policy that -- drum roll, please -- actually made sense.

    Written by Johna Till Johnson • 23 Aug. 07 08:16

  • Hunting down dark fibre

    The speed of optical-grade broadband is beginning to reach our homes, at least those lucky enough to live in areas covered by Verizon's FiOS (fiber-optic service) or similar offerings.

    Written by Mario Apicella • 20 Aug. 07 11:08
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