Level 3 Communications Blog
Formally, I’m responsible for voice product global strategy here at Level 3. Informally, I’m that guy that runs the Friday donut club.
Don’t tell Mark Taylor, but I enjoy watching linear TV. Call me a creature of habit, but I relish the ritual and simple pleasure of having a set date and time to watch my shows. Thursday nights it’s Elementary, Sunday nights it’s Game of Thrones and lately, on Mondays, I’ve picked up this new series [...]
Resistance to change is natural. We all have that yearning for the familiar and distrust of the unknown. The changes we resist are a function of our beliefs, knowledge andassumptions. What we resist (and how strongly) often varies based on our level of familiarity with the subject of the change. I am reminded of a [...]
Try using the words Telephony (i.e. voice services) and Innovation in the same sentence and you’re bound to get some strange looks. This de-facto oxymoron is the byproduct of the industry’s focus on other areas mixed with the notion voice services have been around for over a century (so what could possibly be new under [...]
Once upon a time, back in the days when Level 3 was deploying its North American nomadic E-911 network for VoIP, I was often struck by the complexity of the task. Thousands of Public Safety Answering points served by hundreds of Selective Routers using SS7 or CAS DS-0 “trunks” which had to meet a disparate [...]
Geico’s recent car insurance taste test commercials (a spoof on the Pepsi challenge) got me wondering about the amount of power that brands wield on telecom B2B buyers and influencers. Specifically, what’s a brand’s role in cloud-based unified communications? If Level 3 were to host a unified communications service using a particular session border controller, [...]
Driving 75 MPH up the Rocky Mountains, it does not take me long to pass that Winnebago doing 40. You know the one. Car and bicycles in tow. Satellite dish on the roof. Older couple up-front, jovially chatting while staring into the horizon, hot cocoa mug in hand. Suddenly, I feel a touch of jealousy [...]
They say you learn everything you need to know in kindergarten. I have a confession to make: I never attended. As a result, I never learned the secret handshake or whatever else it is you kindergarten grads pick-up at those hallowed halls. Word has it that amongst these valuable life-skills, kindergarteners learn that sharing is [...]
Kodak’s bankruptcy got me thinking: In these final years of circuit-switched telephone service, are there some lessons we can learn from the world of film? What lessons can the world of photography hold for telephony? If you think about it, plain old telephone service (POTS as we acronym-obsessed telecom folk call it) is not all that [...]
Ask a teenager how long they’ve been dating and, chances are, the answer is just as likely to be denominated in days as it is to be in months (assuming they’re dating, that is). I should know. As the father of two teens I am mildly amused when I hear things like “I can’t be [...]
With 2012 quickly approaching, I figured I’d dust-off the old crystal ball and make a few predictions regarding the world of voice telephony over the coming year. 1. Mayan long-count calendar will be re-set to 2018 To the dismay of the hoards who had anticipated the final day next year (as preliminarily predicted by the Maya), [...]
