Some quick comments on this category's winners:

Verizon's Computing as a Service (CaaS) -- We're definitely seeing a trend with all the big telcos wanting to provide the connection to the network, equipment to get you on the network, the apps to run on the network, and the storage to lock away the work created by using all those apps. Verizon seems to have packaged and marketed the capabilities better than anyone else to date.

Comcast Corp.'s 100-Mbit/s Business Internet Service Bundle -- I'm a sucker for big bandwidth and this bundle seems like an impressive offer, but also a good deal, too, as it includes lots of software applications and tools that businesses our size usually pay too much for.

Telx Group Inc. 's Telx Video Exchange -- An impressive entry to address a fundamental problem with all the different Telepresence systems on the market today. Now there's a place that can connect any system to any other system and help companies see the real benefits of TP -- fewer hours spent traveling and lots of dollars, time, and fuel saved by avoiding airports.

Equinix Inc. (Nasdaq: EQIX)'s Carrier Ethernet Exchange -- Stan Hubbard of Heavy Reading says these guys are impressive and we agree. They already specialize in interconnecting carriers and now they're taking on the challenge of providing a third party, neutral carrier interconnection site for Ethernet service delivery. Looking forward to hearing more from them at Ethernet Expo in a few weeks.

Here's a late-ish entry from Reliance:

I'd like to nominate Reliance Globalcom's managed services for consideration in your Top Picks "Business Services" category.

Reliance Globalcom understands that the business needs of large enterprises/multinationals cannot be met by prescribing a single network technology. Similarly, no single carrier will have the capabilities necessary to meet the customer's range of performance and technology requirements per-site across a global network. Reliance Globalcom's managed services address these pressing issues - and the greater IT climate today - where CIOs and IT managers are re-evaluating their existing network design to:

• Reduce the supplier base

• Reduce network spend

• Leverage new technologies to increase low-cost bandwidth

• Establish strong network presence in strategic global markets and low-cost centers worldwide (e.g. India, China, Russia, Eastern Europe, Africa and South America)

• Support future growth opportunities and market recovery.

Our managed services are comprised of flexible service bundles consisting of Layer 2 and Layer 3 technologies that we deploy on a site-by-site basis worldwide. At our disposal: a) the world's largest "per country" VPLS backbone for scalable, resilient, high-capacity reach to critical sites in key destinations in India, the Middle East and Asia; b) 700+ carrier partnerships that we manage through common SLAs and c) expertise in carrier management for redundancy across the access layer and the carrier backbone, as required.

Reliance Globalcom's managed services are underpinned by this carrier- and technology-neutral approach to network provisioning.

It's almost too big of an entry, frankly. All their managed services? They do so many, as do all of the big multinational carriers. What really stands out? What's something you would invoice a customer for that the customer could rightly say: "I can't get this anywhere else."

Some additional thoughts from Telx, who couldn't be bothered to use our message boards:

"Phil,

1. Customers: The Telx Video Exchange is a new service. We have our first customer signed up - a large law firm - but I cannot release the name yet. Customers like this come to us because they need two things: a secure place to put their video bridges/equipment and to be able to use different networks to make "calls". In this case we are both colocating this company's Tandberg bridge and other equipment and connecting together video "calls" some originating on ISDN and some on another service provider's Ethernet network. Tough for a single carrier to do this.

2. Telx Difference: Telx is a carrier neutral provider. Today hundreds of service providers have their equipment located in Telx locations. One of our main businesses is to connect service provider networks together. The Telx Video Exchange follows from this. Telx is the only video exchange that is equipment vendor neutral and carrier neutral. We can connect together equipment from Tandberg, Cisco, Polycom, etc. and any carriers Masergy, Savvis, Verizon, etc. Another clear benefit is our video management platform - Insight. Insight gives customers an end to end view of the video call including all the equipment in-between. This make trouble shooting much easier. Our VPN-NAPs ( virtual private network - network access points) form a Global Virtual Video transfer point for all carriers and end customers. Traffic can come off and go onto private networks as well as public networks - cross carrier with address transliteration, QoS, and security. The Telx exchange is a true carrier neutral exchange it is not simply an overlay network. Telx exchange can handle all types of traffic on and off converged private networks and has internetworking between IP and ISDN as well as IP intercarrier, internetworking.

3. This is a totally different model from Tata - a single carrier overlay. Yes, a few carriers may do NNI's between themselves but even then it does not solve the addressing conflicts from private networks. They will have to get customers into a new addressing scheme which will not be palatable to the majority of customers and in effect will still be an overlay network. A carrier like Tata could turn out in the future to be a potential customer of the Telx Video Exchange. 4. Another way to say this is that the Telx Video Exchange fulfills the role that STP's do for intercarrier SS7 signaling in the voice world with added functionality like the address transliteration, QoS mapping and security which are not required in the SS7 world.

Let me know if you have any other questions."

Another TP-related entry, this time from Tata Group.

Again, the key is that they're touting a way to make several different TP systems work together. In general, it does seem that buying TP from a service provider is much more sane than getting it straight from a vendor.

ph

Tata Communications, a part of the $62.5 billion Tata Group, has developed an industry leading managed telepresence services portfolio and has built the world's largest open telepresence ecosystem.

In July 2008, Tata Communications became the world's first provider of Public Telepresence services, with a global network of Public Telepresence Rooms which customers can access on a pay-per-use basis.  Partnering with the Taj Group of Hotels, Tata Communications deployed Public Rooms in Mumbai, Bangalore, London, and Boston.  A further four rooms were added in partnership with the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and Cisco extending the footprint in Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad and Gurgaon (New Delhi).  These rooms are available on an hourly basis to walk-in customers, and can also be directly accessed from privately owned telepresence rooms of any customer on Tata Communications' managed services network, at very affordable rates of about Euro 300 per hour. 

Tata Communications plans on expanding its public, private and exchange network of managed telepresence services to major global business centers in US and EMEA and emerging markets in APAC regions. The recent Tata Communications-Starwood partnership will provide Starwood and its guests with access to a managed telepresence service that enables an "in person" meeting experience with remote participants. In the initial roll out, Tata Communications and Starwood Hotels plan approximately 10 Cisco TelePresence Suites across the Americas, Europe and Asia Pacific. The first telepresence suites in Starwood properties planned include the Sheraton Centre Toronto, the W City Center, Chicago and the Westin Los Angeles.

Tata Communications enables partners to quickly and efficiently launch telepresence public rooms in their properties providing additional value added services to existing customers and capture additional revenue streams by partnering with Tata Communications and joining their public room network.

Tata Communications' role as a Managed Telepresence Service Provider, however, is by no means limited to its Public Room business.  In 2008 the company also launched a comprehensive suite of services to help enterprises manage their entire internal Telepresence solution, while maintaining a very low total cost of ownership.  From deploying rooms and setting up of the overall network, to remote monitoring and management, helpdesk, concierge, and scheduling, Tata Communications serves as a single point of accountability, allowing customers to focus on their meetings, not their technology. Tata Communications' managed telepresence services provide its customers with expanded and seamless interconnectivity options through the public rooms and the recently introduced Telepresence exchange service.

As a global network operator and a leading provider of voice interconnection services to other carriers, Tata Communications' goal in the telepresence space is to enable any-room-to-any-room interconnectivity, just as exists today in the telephony world.  To that end, Tata Communications has launched its Global Meeting Exchange services in the coming year, which will enable meetings between any two Telepresence rooms subscribed to the service, regardless of the network service provider. 

Driving a concept it calls "Open Exchange," Tata Communications also intends to offer this service not just to its own network and managed services customers, but also to customers who use other service provider networks and managed services, or who may manage their own telepresence infrastructure.  The Global Meeting Exchange service will also enable such customers to access Tata Communications' public rooms network from their own private rooms, further expanding the reach of, and increasing the return on, their telepresence networks.  

I like this entry, which came in a few days ago. I like it because I'm hearing that a lot of TP systems aren't at all compatible, which causes problems if you have a range of suppliers and customers you want to meet with, but don't want to fly out to go see.

I may be wrong, but this seems like a service that could help out. Would love to know who is using it and what they've done that the vendors themselves can't/wouldn't do to make TP work for everyone.

ph

Company: Telx

Website: www.Telx.com

The market for enterprise video and Telepresence equipment is growing significantly. However, one problem which limits this growth is that different vendor gear and different service provider private networks do not talk to each other. Also, video calls between customers on different networks cannot be seen end to end which makes troubleshooting very difficult. Telx has a solution.

Telx Video Exchange

Telx's Video Exchange (T-VEX) is an inter-connection service for real-time telepresence and videoconferencing traffic that allows enterprise, carrier, and telepresence and videoconferencing managed service providers to securely connect to their joint venture partners, vendors, and customers on disparate networks while maintaining the Quality-of-Service required for real-time telepresence and videoconferencing.  The service is powered by IP-V Gateways who invented the business of inter-connecting real-time telepresence and videoconferencing traffic and is currently matching QoS tags between 30+ global networks.  This service relies on the secure colocation and carrier neutral interconnection services provided by Telx.

The Telx Video Exchange Provides:

·         The connectivity+ platform to solve video related problems including:

o   Creating extranets that enable traffic to get securely from one private or public network to another

o   Enables protocol translation: SIP, H.323, H.320 thru hosted bridges

o   Does standards-based addressing, security and quality of service transliteration

o   Provides an end to end view of the video "call", simple to read dashboard and easy to run diagnostics

·         A secure space for colocation of video equipment including gateways, bridges, gatekeepers and other video equipment.

·         Interconnection to and between service providers in a secure carrier rich environment with QoS priority preservation end to end

·         Access to 24x7 personal to troubleshoot and resolve problems.

Telx offers carriers, managed service providers, and enterprise customers a unique proposition:  Carrier-neutral colocation with the ability to rapidly and cost-effectively provision connectivity among the 700+ carriers and IP application providers that meet in Telx's carrier-class collocation and meet-me facilities.  This unique differentiator allows organizations to park their Telepresence and videoconferencing infrastructure along with PBX and VoIP gear, servers/storage equipment and networking gear in secure facilities where they can cost-effectively buy bandwidth, network connections, applications, and other IP services from the other customers in Telx's facilities.  Connectivity can be quickly and cost-effectively provisioned, upgraded, and/or changed because there is no need to provision local loops to connect to networks or service providers.

Telx supports both buyers and sellers of network services. Telx provides the greatest number of global opportunities to terminate a customer's Telepresence, videoconferencing, and voice traffic, deliver their content, or access public IP. Telx interconnects a variety of enterprise and telecom companies ranging from telepresence and videoconferencing end-users requiring inter-connection with partners with true QoS and MPLS tag transliteration, to the leading global Tier 1 service providers buying and selling on a wholesale level.

Who is Telx?

Telx is a carrier-neutral, data center and interconnection provider that runs 15 facilities in North America providing equipment colocation, meet-me facilities and value added services to customers . Over 700 leading telecommunications carriers, ISP's, content providers, video managed services providers and enterprises connect at various Telx facilities in metro New York City, Atlanta, Chicago, Clifton, NJ, Dallas, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Santa Clara, Miami, Phoenix, Charlotte, and Weehawken, NJ.  

These services can be confusing as a lot of companies have entered the market. Routing a phone call over IP is fairly easy these days, so there is a low barrier to entry.  The things that differentiate most are feature set, reliability, ACD queuing.  However, the new Virtual PBX iVPBX plan is different. It is targeted at VoIP users who are using SIP compliant phones instead of requiring a proprietary IP phone from the same vendor that supplies the PBX service, or putting all calls onto PSTN lines, which can be very expensive. iVPBX allows customers to use their existing SIP/VoIP phone and tie it with our hosted PBX service.

This means that typical VoIP users can now have a business-class phone service without changing phones or paying high fees.  The cost of iVPBX with, say, a Gizmo phone is about a fourth of the cost of a traditional hosted IP-PBX.

With more and more entrepreneurs sprouting up all of the time, most are turning to VoIP since it is a cheaper alternative to traditional phone lines. But, these entrepreneurs also want the business-class that is associated with an 800 number.

When evaluating a PBX provider, some key differentiating factors to consider include:

·         Disaster recovery plans: Virtual PBX has what we call PBX Parachute. It's a remote backup system for businesses that acts as a hot standby PBX that mirrors your phone system the instance your on-site PBX fails (ideal for those that face natural disasters such as hurricanes or tornados). This is a unique offering from Virtual PBX.

·         TrueACD Queuing: With ACD queuing, callers who don't know the exact extension of the party they wish to reach will be connected to the appropriate queue and calls are then distributed to the agents that are logged into the queue.  This is also a service that is only offered by Virtual PBX.

·         Easy management: Virtual PBX's service is hosted, meaning we take care of all the maintenance and management.

·         Reliability: Virtual PBX has integrated simple options that ensure you'll never miss a call (or a voicemail) with features that proactive give you more voice message space and phone/email/web and pager notification of calls. Never will your callers get a busy signal with Virtual PBX.

·         Customization: Virtual PBX offers a myriad of cool features unlike any other PBX provider. Holiday jingles for call waiting? Call conferencing? Follow-me-calling? Advanced Caller ID and Call Screening (that allows you to listen in on voicemails in real-time and interrupt them in real time) - all standard features with Virtual PBX.

·         Price: Virtual PBX offers the lowest price on the market with plans starting at $9.99 a month. And, when using a Gizmo5 phone (a Virtual PBX partner), clients get unlimited  minutes for free.

- Greg Brashier, COO of Virtual PBX (www.virtualpbx.com)

From Virtual PBX:

Dear Light Reading Editorial Team,

I want to nominate the Virtual PBX iVPBX product for Light Reading's Top Picks for 2009, except that no category really fits. Here is quick description of the product and company and how it's a game changing innovation for anyone who's ever used VoIP technology.

VoIP has emerged as a mainstream technology as more and more users turn to the Internet to place and receive calls. In business, more companies need a cost-effective way to let their dispersed workforces communicate, from telecommuters to satellite offices. Traditional phone services are expensive, and VoIP has emerged as an ideal solution to keep bills down.

Commercial applications for VoIP began taking a foothold in 2004 and VoIP-based hosted PBX services quickly followed. However, as with most new technologies, these services were limited, rigid and proprietary. As VoIP continued to evolve, VoIP-based PBX services slowly followed, but never truly broke free from its proprietary nature, essentially locking customers into inflexible solutions that never allowed them to mix and match their services with the best available hardware to mesh with their specific and unique needs.

Last year, San Jose-based Virtual PBX (www.virtualpbx.com), the pioneer behind the creation of the entire hosted PBX market, saw an opportunity to make yet another game-changing move and introduced Open VoIP Peering. In doing so, the company has ushered in the next generation of VoIP-based PBX services, giving customers what they had been clamoring for - choice.

Virtual PBX's offering gives businesses unparalleled flexibility to mix and match a VoIP network with any SIP-compliant phone. By freeing users of proprietary technology, they are able to reduce costs, improve service and reap the benefits of features that are included in any of Virtual PBX's plans, such as auto-attendant (virtual receptionist), true ACD Queuing, voicemail with Web and e-mail delivery, day and night modes, virtual FAX (receive and forward), call preview, conferencing, and voicemail interrupt. Additionally, if users chose a Gizmo5 phone, they are given unlimited minutes for local inbound numbers.

Simply put, no other company provides as many benefits as Virtual PBX's offerings, nor can they allow users the ability to choose the exact configuration they require to address their ever-changing needs.

I have to admit, these virtual phone services are all pretty much sounding the same at this point. I know it's critical stuff, but I just can't seem to distinguish them.

Anyone have a pointer on what they would like/hate about a vPBX? 

Or, better question: What kind of company would you NOT buy a virtual/hosted phone service from?

I didn't want to put a big telco in here, but I don't think I can ignore something that suggests a trend so obviously as does Computing as a Service.

http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=177517

http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=181159

I don't care at all about the cloud computing as a buzzword. But the concept of ringing up one company and getting everything -- the connection, the computer, the application, and the storage to accommodate it all -- is sort of a nice shorthand definition of "the new telco." 

Old telcos sold connections. New telcos sell a connection, the apps to run on top of the connection, and the capacity to store what's created from those apps.

There ya go.

Any arguments against?

Okay, thanks. Very intriguing. Much more interesting now than it was at first glance.