TMCnet News
Tuesday Evening Keynotes: AT&T's Eric ShepcaroEditorial Director, INTERNET TELEPHONY Magazine
Tuesday evening’s keynoters represent a vast cross section of the industry. AT&T, arguably the most recognizable carrier in the world, Pingtel, a provider of open source SIP-based PBX technology, and General Motors, a behemoth enterprise consumer of telephony services. As I sit here waiting for them to begin their discussions I am struck by the variety of keynoters and the variety of conference attendees. I guess it remains as true today as it was when we began publishing Internet Telephony magazine and putting on the Internet Telephony Conference & EXPO events: Magazine readership helps drive the attendance to the conferences. And so long as we serve a cross section of the industry with the industry’s number 1 magazine, we will continue to attract a cross-section of attendees to the events as well.
On to the keynotes…
Eric Shepcaro, AT&T
Eric Shepcaro led off the afternoon session. Shepcaro is Vice President of Business Strategy and Development at AT&T, serving as AT&T’s chief strategist.
Shepcaro led off with a very lighthearted — and well done — three-minute video where the protagonist asked a number of New York City denizens the following two questions: ‘Do you know what the term IP is?’ and ‘Do you know what the term VoIP is?’ Apparently in NYC, nobody knows what VoIP is, save for one elderly woman. Obviously the video was a lighthearted stab at the need for further education. As for a more realistic look at adoption of VoIP, Shepcaro asked, “Why now? The pieces are clearly coming together, he said. “Over the last five years, we’ve seen lots of hype, but now we’re seeing deployments, driven in part by broadband penetration.” He presented some statistics to support his position. One slide showed 63% broadband penetration. Of course it could and should be more, but it’s certainly helping drive VoIP and convergence. Another stat showed that 53% of households subscribing to VoIP services have completely replaced their landline phones. And, cost savings remains the key driver. The ability to simplify and improve voice communications are a close second. In third, come the applications: Collaboration, Unified Communications, IP Video, Audio Conferencing… these are all applications driving customers towards VoIP. “Web services and service oriented architecture WILL define collaboration,” said Shepcaro. “It’s unacceptable today to offer standalone voice services. It is unacceptable to have my voice mail stored separately from my e-mail, forcing me to check it in several different places.” Some of the salient points of Shepcaro’s speech all dealt with the same concept: Services over IP, or as he referred to it: XoIP, for all things over IP. Here are some “soundbites” from Shepcaro’s speech: “AT&T is delivering the “dynamic IT environment.” “AT&T is trialing WiMAX, we think it has explosive opportunity.” “Security has to be built in at every layer of convergence.” “Convergence is starting to deliver the benefits that customers are starting to expect.” -----
Greg Galitzine is editorial director for Internet Telephony Magazine. To see more articles, please visit Greg Galitzine’s columnist page.
|