Most people are aware of the age-old adage – if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. In the world of Telecommunications, those who are negatively impacted by False Answer Supervision (FAS) – from carriers to end-users – know this all too well. If a rate offered by a supplier to a destinations sounds too good to be true, it probably is. The supplier (or their far-end provider) often introduces FAS as a way to subsidize their profit margin.

Suppliers who are benefitting from the profits generated by the fraudulent billing are able to offer carriers tantalizingly aggressive pricing. The suppliers also garner arbitrage revenue through activities such as call duration rounding (most carriers settle with minimum increments above one second).

While the suppliers win, the international wholesale voice carriers unfortunately lose. Carriers often unwittingly passing along FAS termination on their network. They are also the ones to absorb the impact of being overcharged by suppliers.

We are taking a multipronged approach to combating FAS. We are working proactively to identify and eliminate FAS on our network, often before customers are impacted. We have also implemented a four-step process which ultimately ends in termination of service for those suppliers who are unable to meet our strict guidelines. Working together is paramount to eliminate this critical industry-wide problem and we look forward to teaming with other carriers to protect the integrity of our services.

VoIP has many advantages over TDM technology – it is cost-effective, flexible, efficient, and has a much lower start-up costs. These positive attributes, along with telecommunications deregulation in most markets, have resulted in a large increase in the number of available suppliers for suppliers to choose from. Unfortunately, the increased competition has resulted in some carriers using unethical business practices to remain competitive. Perhaps the most notable of these is False Answer Supervision (FAS).

FAS consists of charging the calling party for a call that was never connected, is re-routed, or overcharging for a connected call. FAS is a rapidly growing problem for the telecom industry, though it has garnered little attention.

FAS has a domino effect – financially impacting the entire value chain from end-user to retail carrier to service provider. FAS is a wide-reaching problem that we believe requires a collaborative solution. Tata Communications is embracing and leading the initiative. We hope you will join us.

The popularity of peering business models among carriers can be explained by a concept known as Metcalfe’s Law. Popularly attributed to Robert Metcalfe about Ethernet investments, Metcalfe’s Law states that the value of a telecommunications network is proportional to the square of users connected to it.

For carriers, Metcalfe’s Law suggests that each peering connection becomes an asset simply because it increases the number of users that can be reached. Within an IPX framework, dense interconnections will mean that providers offering new and innovative services will easily be able to reach a substantial audience of end users.

The network effect is particularly important for new technologies such as Telepresence, which require a large upfront investment from the end user. The more Telepresence users any one company can connect to, the more valuable their investment becomes and the faster they achieve ROI.

One of the promises of IPX is the ability to simplify and make more cost-efficient existing interconnection procedures by replacing them with a combination of public and private peering. As more potential peering relationships become commercially viable, carriers will be able to leverage the power of Metcalfe’s law to drive speedier service growth.

When our G20 leaders met in Pittsburgh last week, stimulus and recovery were foremost on their minds. Needless to dwell on the ravages of sub prime lending and outsized bonuses rewarding dismal performance. It is good to see that, in today’s global economy, Information Technology is recognized as a major driver of economic growth and quality of life. A recent OECD report puts 2008 telecommunications revenues of the thirty members at 1.2 trillion dollar or 3% of GDP. Looking at the G20 countries, they allocated 2 trillion US dollars in general stimulus including over 100 billion in IT according to the September ITIF newsletter. Ranking at the top of IT spending as percentage of their stimulus plan are Korea with 24%, France with 17% and Japan with 12%. As % of GDP we find Japan, Korea and the USA making the largest IT related stimulus investments. In absolute dollar terms this translates into the USA as number one with 41 billion dollar, Japan with 32 billion and France with 5.5 billion allocated to IT stimulus.

Canada’s 36 billion stimulus package (2.9% of GDP) includes 3 billion for IT. Herein we find 790 million dollar for smart grid technology and 500 million for a ‘health infoway’. In the meantime our cousins to the South allocated 11 billion for smart grids out of their 41 billion IT package. Not to be outdone, the European Union will spend 5 billion dollars on smart grids.

Networks requiring vast amounts of sensors such as intelligent buildings and smart grids have long been considered ideal environments for Greenfield IPv6 deployment. The timing of the Cisco announcement linking IPv6 and smart grids is certainly no coincidence. There is a money trail to be followed and IPv6 will ride the smart grid coattails.

An Industry Roundtable at APEC-Tel 40 last week, in which I had the pleasure to participate, saw Verizon and AT&T address the topic of smart grids from a telecom provider perspective. An IPv6 workshop was also part of the program

Just provide an abundance of routable IP addresses and things big and small will communicate. To let the internet run out of IP addresses is just not an option, the stakes are too high. The IT activity sector is expected to spawn a sizeable employment multiplier and new wealth generation effect, further compounded by important broadband access stimulus initiatives. We can expect to see IPv6 play a modest, largely unsung, but essential role in the big scheme of things.

This post orginally appeared on CircleID.

One of the crucial features of the pending IPX specification are the three proposed public peering points: in Asia, Europe and North America, where all IPX providers would connect and be able to peer, regardless of service type.

However, potential IPX participants have also articulated a strong value to maintaining existing interconnections, which may not happen to be located at the preferred peering points. For carriers with hundreds of bilateral connections already in place, many of which have already been migrated to IP, the costs associated would be significant.

As a result, the IPX specification now includes provisions for both public and private peering arrangements, depending upon the needs of the service providers involved. By introducing greater flexibility in the type of peering arrangements allowed, the specifications are designed now to speed the addition of reachable destinations, increasing the value of IPX as a whole.