European Utility Telecom Conference, Rome, 27 October 2006 - As utilities look at ways to maximise their communications infrastructure in an effort to become alternative Telcos, or UTelcos, Mason Communications warns of underestimating the impact that moving from being a supplier of telecoms for internal users to supplying an external, public market has on utilities.

The advice came from Max Khan, principal consultant at Mason prior to the annual European Utility Telecom Conference in Rome.

"Telcos have great appeal since utilities typically have huge capital already invested in their telecoms infrastructures, which can consist of a rich mix of fibre and transmission equipment and consequently the cost of providing capacity over existing networks can be marginal," says Khan.
While encouraging senior ranking officials, board members and government ministers to factor telecoms into their strategic thinking, Khan also outlined the challenges facing utilities wanting to make the transition. He pointed to the difficulties experienced by some utilities in Western Europe who shared similar thinking in the wake of liberalisation in the 1990s.

"The transition often creates tremendous tensions within utilities, from the skills shortage to deal with the transformation - for instance where will the specialist sales, marketing and customer service people come from -to the implications for the continued provision of telecoms on internal businesses. In an attempt to deal with these tensions, utilities have adopted a variety of ownership models and organisational structures, but many have proved less than optimal," explains Khan.

"The regulatory regime has a huge impact on a UTelco, but countries in the process of deregulating their energy and telecoms sectors, are likely to have an evolving regulatory environment for the foreseeable future because it is not possible to deregulate everything at once. This creates opportunities for UTelcos, in parallel with uncertainty, that need to be managed."

According to Khan, a `multiple perspectives` approach to UTelco strategy development is needed to avoid common pitfalls as experienced by UTelcos in others markets across the globe.

"This approach takes into account not only deep telecoms market opportunity analysis but also assesses a broader range of factors such as; organisational culture, operating/delivery models, stakeholder conflict, attitude to risk, asset ownership/cross-charging and management of new internal relationships that can exist between a utility and a UTelco," Khan says.

"Mason has used this approach across numerous consulting assignments with UTelcos. By using this approach, you ensure the development of compelling, but at the same time pragmatic, strategies that achieve greater acceptance and all-round buy in. Essential ingredients to ensure that a utility develops a successful UTelco whilst at the same time protecting the core business."

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Conference Discusses Asterisk Tutorials and Implementations for Enterprises, Call Centers, Carriers and Developers

AstriCon 2006, the only conference dedicated to Asterisk, the industry’s first open source PBX, is set to take place October 24 through October 27, 2006 at the Westin Central Park in Dallas, Texas. In its third year, Asterisk developers and users meet at the AstriCon conference to gain insight from Asterisk case studies and hear the latest on innovative solutions.

“This year’s AstriCon conference in Dallas marks the conference’s third anniversary, which we view to be a success for the open source industry,” said Mark Spencer, creator of Asterisk and founder of Digium. “In the last three years, Asterisk has gained tremendous notoriety and we’ve seen our community and business growth explode. We are looking forward to celebrating many milestones at this year’s conference.”

AstriCon 2006 will be host to new conference features such as dCAP (Digium Certified Asterisk Professional) testing, Polycom training and the Asterisk Speech Pavilion where attendees can experience Asterisk-powered Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) and Text-To-Speech (TTS) applications first-hand, among others.

The conference will provide tutorials for beginners, developers and high availability/clustering; industry focus tracks for Enterprises, Carriers/ITSPs, Call Center Operators and Developers; and keynote addresses and industry perspectives from leaders in the Asterisk community. Over 50 speakers will be presenting at the conference; some of the highlighted speakers include:

• Mark Spencer, Digium
• Stephen Uhler, Sun Microsystems
• Kelly Deurr, Aspect
• Mark Summer, Inveneo
• Gerd Graumann, LumenVox, LCC

“We anticipate the largest AstriCon turnout yet this Fall,” said Steven Sokol, president of Sokol & Associates, the event producer. “Attendees will have great networking opportunities and will not only learn how others are using Asterisk, but have the opportunity to experiment with the code themselves, as part of The Code Zone.”

You Can Discuss This News in Voice Over IP Forum.

Conference Discusses Asterisk Tutorials and Implementations for Enterprises, Call Centers, Carriers and Developers

AstriCon 2006, the only conference dedicated to Asterisk, the industry’s first open source PBX, is set to take place October 24 through October 27, 2006 at the Westin Central Park in Dallas, Texas. In its third year, Asterisk developers and users meet at the AstriCon conference to gain insight from Asterisk case studies and hear the latest on innovative solutions.

“This year’s AstriCon conference in Dallas marks the conference’s third anniversary, which we view to be a success for the open source industry,” said Mark Spencer, creator of Asterisk and founder of Digium. “In the last three years, Asterisk has gained tremendous notoriety and we’ve seen our community and business growth explode. We are looking forward to celebrating many milestones at this year’s conference.”

AstriCon 2006 will be host to new conference features such as dCAP (Digium Certified Asterisk Professional) testing, Polycom training and the Asterisk Speech Pavilion where attendees can experience Asterisk-powered Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) and Text-To-Speech (TTS) applications first-hand, among others.

The conference will provide tutorials for beginners, developers and high availability/clustering; industry focus tracks for Enterprises, Carriers/ITSPs, Call Center Operators and Developers; and keynote addresses and industry perspectives from leaders in the Asterisk community. Over 50 speakers will be presenting at the conference; some of the highlighted speakers include:

• Mark Spencer, Digium
• Stephen Uhler, Sun Microsystems
• Kelly Deurr, Aspect
• Mark Summer, Inveneo
• Gerd Graumann, LumenVox, LCC

“We anticipate the largest AstriCon turnout yet this Fall,” said Steven Sokol, president of Sokol & Associates, the event producer. “Attendees will have great networking opportunities and will not only learn how others are using Asterisk, but have the opportunity to experiment with the code themselves, as part of The Code Zone.”

You Can Discuss This News in Voice Over IP Forum.