Free World Dial-Up. The name just breathes a certain anarchy appropriate to the 30th anniversary of the Summer of Love. Which, from The Phone Company’s point of view, is exactly what it was when the world’s first IP phone network debuted in 1995.

Now FWD’s founder and sole financer Jeff Pulver – it’s not exaggerating to call him the Abraham of VoIP – has decided that it’s time for his baby to stand on its own two feet.

In keeping with Pulver’s vision of “participatory communications,” last Friday FWD users were asked to support the service as paying members, who will cooperatively set the organization’s priorities and determine its future direction.

So far the response has been promising, according to FWD president Daniel Berninger, with several hundred users signing up for the $30 individual membership and a number of business users signing up at the $300 business level. FWD has about 700,000 users, with about 30,000 online at any given time.

“Once we get on our feet and sustaining, and it’s member-driven, we can focus on members’ priorities,” explains FWD president Daniel Berninger. “One of the complaints [by members] over the years has been about support and reliability. One of our top priorities is to look at reliability and support and streamline those.”

But that’s just the beginning. Just as FWD was “disruptive” – one of Pulver’s favorite phrases – in 1995, the organization continues to advance that mission in its new incarnation.

“FWD is really about evangelism for the [VoIP] industry and ecosystem,” Berninger says. “We say to people, use FWD and all the other services out there — all the options for people, all the alternatives to the phone company. Our goal is not survive or fail on any one service.”

For businesses, this evangelism plays out to make FWD a business development platform, according to Berninger.

“The good thing today is that we have a lot more options to communicate. The bad news is that it’s really complicated. What FWD tries to do is help people navigate that complexity. The basic idea is to provide tools for people to create their own solutions.”

That’s why the FWD network was always open to any IP network, and any IP phone or ATA can be configured to work with the service.

In addition to continuing the focus on opening new alternatives, the organization is also looking at evaluating the growing number of VoIP/WiFi handsets. “We want to show that you can do some interesting things with VoIP/WiFi handsets,” says Berninger.

One thing that won’t be a focus is the PSTN. FWD began as an exclusively IP network, and while it has added some out-calling features, the service remains focused on IP communications.

“Since we were looking to provide an alternative to the PSTN, we’re not in a hurry to interconnect,” Berninger explains, calling the PSTN “the third rail” for IP voice communications because of taxes, regulation and E-911.

“We’ve had a number of requests [for PSTN connection]. But we’re trying to break people of that habit,” he says, adding, “It’s a very different world view.” You could call it disruptive.

Pass me the Alka Seltzer. Last week’s news glut left me hung over. I feel like unless I can report on Harry Potter texting he-whom-we-are-all-sick-to-death-of on his Apple iPhone, what can I possibly have to say?

But at some point we have to get back to real life.

So here’s a virtual cool compress for your forehead in the form of some news you may have missed because of last week’s SunRocket wipe-out and Harry Potter and the Deathless Hype.

Last week UK firm Communic8 launched its Emporia Life mobile handset for elderly people, with user-friendly features like extra large buttons and display, super-loud volume (including the ringer), and a big red pre-programmable emergency button. BBC News story reports that retailers are snubbing the gizmo and are being accused of “ageism” by advocates for the elderly.

AT&T’s endorsement of openness for the 700MHz spectrum that will open up when analog TV goes away shouldn’t be a surprise. It’s a shrewd move for AT&T to tell Google in effect “put up or shut up.”

AT&T has been in the communications and consumer service business for more than a century. Google’s in the…search engine and advertising business. OK, they bought Grand Central. Forwarding calls doesn’t make Google a phone company. Whatever you feel about “Ma Bell,” give them credit for understanding the mandates of the voice communications business.

Kevin McLaughlin of CMP Channel offers insight into how another software behemoth is doing in the telecom business. Microsoft’s small business phone system, Response Point, evidently left VARs at a Microsoft Partner Conference less than enthusiastic. One described it as “semi-functional.”

The IPTV smorgasboard peeking over the horizon may be the oncoming train of an out-of-bandwidth Internet backbone. Wes Thompson of TVtechnology.com offers analysis.

Mobile email is the next big cash cow for service providers and network operators, according to joint report by open source software company Funabol and Frost & Sullivan.

Industry analyst Infonetics has a bouquet of free whitepapers including ones on indoor cell phone coverage and the evolution of VoIP over wireless LAN in the enterprise.
http://www.infonetics.com/services/green.shtml?whitepapers/whitepapers.shtml

Picking up the SunRocket pieces: VoIPVoIP is offering a BYOD pay-as-you-go deal for SunRocket refugees.

Patent Trolling: Rates Technology is now suing Qwest over VoIP patents. The Long Island company already has Vonage, Nortel, and Google feathers in its troll cap.

I can’t close without a Harry Potter comment. So here goes: Philip Pullman’s trilogy — His Dark Marterials, the first book of which, The Golden Compass, appeared contemporaneously with the first Potter book — is far more complex and compelling than Rowling’s septet. And it ends before your interest in it does.

Just in case you wonder if the NSA is watching you, let me clue you in on your real not-so-secret sharer.

Forget your electronic diary, your business deals and double deals, and the fifth wife you’re hiding in the apartment around the corner. Harris Interactive researchers have homed in on one of your most tender and intimate moments. And they understand you so well, they’ve coaxed you into telling all.

Harris figured out that the whole point of screwing your backside into that delicious squinchy spot on the couch — the spot from which you can both read the subtitles and reach the beer on the coffee table — is that you are settling in for a few hours of uninterrupted detachment from your real life.

You know, that real life in which real human beings call you, some good (buyer for your house), some not so good (third wife). And just as you have completely identified with that stud on the screen — whom you didn’t look like even ten years ago — just as he is boldly going where you’d like to go, the phone rings.

Is it the call you want, or the call you don’t want?

Wouldn’t it be nice if your caller’s name flashed across the TV screen, letting you if it’s worth your while to break up your happy little moment of…revery. Not necessary, not vital, not even something you’d necessarily want other people to know you’re lazy enough to use, but wouldn’t it be nice?

According to Harris’s study for Targus, it’s nice enough for two thirds of “all US adults” to tell the Harris Interactive researchers that they’d like that to happen and for half of them to say they’d like it enough to pay for it.

That’s a pretty special moment. According to Targus, about $5.00 special. So who could cash in on that moment?

The next most special moment involves the thing you think is Caller ID on your cell phone or other mobile device. Your cell rings and you look at its display: there’s your fifth wife’s name and number. You decide to let it go to voicemail and wait to hear the message until after you’ve mailed the check so your voice will have that strong ring of conviction when you tell her it’s in the mail, that same ring of conviction that worked in the fateful back seat of the car when both of your voices rang with a different emotion.

But it’s not Caller ID that’s throwing that warning up on the little display. It only shows up because said wife’s number is already programmed in your cell’s contact list. You just get a number with no name or even a restricted number notice if your cell’s contact memory doesn’t already have your caller’s information.

Harris crunched some numbers on this one, too. If nearly two thirds of Americans are couch potatos, nearly 80 percent are at least “somewhat interested” in having real Caller ID on their mobiles. And half of them would go so far as to offer cash, with the figure hovering around $4.00 for the same level of Caller ID they have on their landline phones.

Now, unlike some wireless carriers who view caller name delivery to mobile phones as an expense item with no payback in revenue, Harris is saying different. And that could be very good for TARGUSinfo.
TARGUSinfo’s Caller Name Services has telecom companies supply the full name associated with a caller’s telephone number for consistent Caller ID display on any communications device, including phones, wireless devices, PCs and TVs. It’s also amassed a repository of upward of 250 million caller name records. Therefore TARGUSinfo is pretty much alone in being able to offer a caller name solution that aims at the those very special moments Harris pinpointed.
To check the survey or TARGUSinfo’s prices and per-subscriber pricing models, go to www.TARGUSinfo.com.

Packet8 has inked a deal to be the preferred replacement for SunRocket subscribers left high and dry when SunRocket abruptly shuttered its business operations this week.

The deal was signed, according to the press release, with “with an organization managing the wind down of SunRocket, Inc” — presumably Sherwood Partners LLC, the company named in other news stories about the defunct VoIP provider. SunRocket subscribers can port their numbners to Packet8’s $24.99/month unlimited calling with a free month of service and no start-up or equipment costs.

In a change from the disgraceful way the company has handled its end-of-life so far, SunRocket will be calling and emailing subscribers about Packet8’s offer.

SunRocket generates more interest dead than alive. The VoIP pure-play’s skulking exit has garnered attention from MSNBC, the International Herald Tribune, The New York Times and the Washington Post, just to name a few.

Other VoIP companies are wasting no time offering special packages to stranded SunRocket subscribers. Vonage is offering two months free service. Nuvio today announced a special $199.99 plan for former SunRocket customers. As I wrote yesterday, VoicePulse has been quietly helping SunRocket subscribers stay online.

Packet8 is also rolling out its own “no startup cost” plan for SunRocket customers — offering equipment, start-up, shipping and one month of service at no cost with its $24.99/month unlimited calling plan.

“We think we can port those customers fairly quickly because we use many of the same underlying carriers,” says Huw Rees, Packet8 Vice President of Sales and Marketing.

I confess, I like this story because it contradicts the Silicon Valley catechism, where it’s an article of faith that the race is to the swift despite the received wisdom of our ancestors.

In fact, it’s looking more and more like our ancestors were right, and the fastest and most aggressive don’t necessarily get the trophy. And they don’t for reasons that are yawningly simple and straightforward.

The first is that other people’s money is not a substitute for revenue — you need to sell your product for at least as much as it costs to deliver it. The second is that controlling your own product is a more secure foundation than reselling other people’s technology.

VoIP pioneer Packet8 presents an object study in these pedestrian principles, and it’s apt that SunRocket’s sunset coincides with the dawn of Packet8’s 20th year in business and its 10th year as a publicly traded company (NASDAQ (CM): EGHT).

A longtime developer of communications chips — Packet8 components were used in AT&T ‘s Picturephone — Packet8 offered one of the first consumer VoIP services in 2002.

“Since we launched our service, we charged customers a fair price, one that lets us cover our costs and make a small profit,” explains Rees. “We priced it so it’s a self-supporting business.”

Faced with cut-throat competition like SunRocket’s $199 pre-paid two-year service deal, “we decided not to compete,” continues Rees. “We know the costs of delivering service and it was obvious that the costs were greater than that.

“We focused more marketing effort on the small business market. Once you get that right, it’s a higher margin of profit. It really bolsters the bottom line.”

That strategy paid off. With about 8,000 Virtual Office subscribers, Packet8 is the number one U.S. provider of hosted PBX services for small businesses, according to a 2007 study by telecom analyst AMI Partners.

At the same time, Packet8 never lost sight of the consumer side of the business.

“We have 100,000 consumer [accounts] and those are key because that base provides us with economies of scale — for example, PSTN termination.

Internally-developed technology is another key to Packet8’s stability — a contrast to SunRocket which licensed its technology from other companies.

“We have 68 patents in this [VoIP] technology,” Rees explains. “We co-invented the technology. Because we control the technology, [we control] quality, reliability, scalability. Over the long term, it’s helped us reduce our cost base because we don’t have to pay anybody for anything.”

All of which leaves Packet8 sitting pretty. “Last March we were close to cash flow breakeven and we’ve been improving that quarter-by-quarter,” Rees reports. “We’ve got over $12 million in the bank, $54 million in revenue last fiscal year — 67 percent over the previous year.”

Even with the SunRocket promo, Rees adds, “we’ll still make a profit and that should be good news for customers because we’ll still be in business.”