Interview with Rich Terani

Jim Dalton was recently interviewed by Rich Terani, the CEO of TMC. The text of that interview is below.

Rich Terani: What is the most significant trend in communications today? Why?

Jim Dalton: The growth in apps for mobile phones is the most significant trend. Mobile apps on the Internet are providing more value than just plain old voice service. Users are finally realizing the benefits of the data network, not just a wireless voice networks. As a result, it will be harder for carriers to resist the demand from customers for simple IP bandwidth instead of services that are bundled with the network.

RT: What is the one product or service the market is most in need of?

JD: A security mechanism that was decoupled from the network. For example, e-mail is totally non-secure and VoIP suffers the same problem. The market needs a secure way to authenticate the parties with whom they communicate. Relying on fax as the only secure way to transmit documents is ridiculous. The technology to solve the problem (public key cryptography) has been around for years, but no market mechanism has been able to drive wide spread adoption.

RT: Nearly every phone manufacturer is now incorporating support for wideband codecs. Will we finally see widespread HD voice deployments in 2011?

JD: No, wideband codes will have to be widely deployed for 3-5 years before they are be used. Adoption always lags availability by several years.

RT: What are your thoughts on the viability of mobile video chat or conferencing?

JD: Mobile video chat and conferencing are inevitable.

RT: Which wireless operating system (Android, iOS4, Microsoft, etc.) will see the greatest success over the next three years? Why?

JD: Android—because it is the most open OS.

RT: Some have suggested wireless networking will soon replace wired networks in the enterprise. Do you agree? Why or why not?

JD: There will always be a mix of wired and wireless networks. I cannot foresee wireless completely replacing wired networks.

RT: What impact has the growth of cloud-based services had on your business?

JD: No impact.

RT: If you had the opportunity to decide the net neutrality debate, how would you rule?

JD: If you want the internet to grow and be vibrant, then it must be completely competitive and everyone must be able to make money from traffic that traverses their network. Networks must offer equal access to all other networks and must be able to charge those networks for the traffic they generate.

The critical challenge is to make certain that pricing is applied equally to all participants with no subsidies or price discrimination.

RT: You are exhibiting at ITEXPO West 2010. What is the most exciting thing attendees will see at your booth?

JD: We will be releasing OSPrey-32 at the ITEXPO West 2010. OSPrey-32 is the 32-bit version of our commercial routing and CDR collection server.

OSPrey-32 is a free software package and it perfect for enterprises that need a centralized routing and accounting platform to manage an enterprise VoIP network with multiple branch offices. OSPrey-32 is a really powerful package for enterprise VoIP managers, it is easy to use—and its free.