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The 2006 O'Reilly Emerging Telephony Conference: The Future Is Calling

November 28, 2005

Sebastopol, CA--Routing calls over the Internet is old news. Today's real telecom stories are the applications built on top of IP telephony. Where are these applications going, how can we manage them for the good of consumers and the enterprise, and what tangible benefits can we get from IP telephony applications today? To address these issues--and to bring together the different perspectives of both the business and developer communities who are directing the future of the industry--O'Reilly Media is planning ETel, the O'Reilly Emerging Telephony Conference. ETel happens January 24-26, 2006 at the San Francisco Airport Marriott. Registration is now open, and early pricing is in effect until December 5.

"It's now as easy to create a voice application as it is to create a web application, and many of the same technologies are used in both application areas," observes Surj Patel, ETel program co-chair. "This creates tremendous opportunities for enterprise users, carrier providers, developers, and consumer-servicing entrepreneurs."

Adds co-chair Nathan Torkington: "We believe that the work of the 'alpha geeks,' the innovators at the edge of what's possible, show us what's in store for an industry. We've assembled technology showcases from R&D labs, academia, open source, and startups, so attendees can see what's coming and get that valuable first-mover advantage."

Pioneers who have made VoIP deployments, built voice applications, and migrated to IP telephony platforms will discuss how they integrated new technologies, what worked, and what didn't in their quest for better service, more features, and lower prices. Notable speakers and topics at ETel include:

  • Peter Cochrane, Former British Telecom Research futurologist and now an executive at ConceptLabs
  • Norman Lewis, head of Wanadoo research, Europe's largest ISP, shares his vision for where this industry is heading
  • Amritansh Raghav of Microsoft Voice Applications shows hot new lab innovations and prototypes
  • Gary Clayton, chief creative officer of Tellme and a Grammy award winning record producer, leads a master class on how to produce effective phone applications for specific audiences that enrich the customers experience on the phone
  • Tom Hale, senior SVP, Telecoms, outlines Macromedia's plan to empower developers to create new communications apps
  • Srikanth Raju, senior evangelist of Forum Nokia Americas illustrates how new technologies for handset development, together with things like SIP support on handsets will create new opportunities for wireless products
  • David Beckenmeyer of Televolution and co-founder of Earthlink talks about his new startup and platform for voice services and apps
  • Michael Robertson, CEO of Linspire / Gizmo discusses his goal to promote open directories for IM providers and open standards to make an interoperable world
  • Mark Spencer, president of Digium and the "father of Asterisk"
  • Brian Capouch, St. Joseph's College
  • Joe Heitzeberg, "Ruby on Rails Meets Asterisk"
  • Scott Lawrence, Pingtel: "SipX as the Asterisk Challenger"
  • Kevin Lenzo of Cepstral and a voice recognition pioneer, "Voice Recognition, Finally Ready for Prime Time"
  • Peter Nixon, Suntel: the victories and disappointments of building a telco network in Baghdad using Open source software
  • Mark Summer, Inveneo: how a bicycle-powered, Linux-based VoIP system helped bring a developing community into the 21st century
  • Brian K. West, open source developer:"What's Next After Asterisk?"
  • Jim Van Meggelen, Core Telecom Innovations, and author of "Asterisk: The Future of Telephony" (O'Reilly)
  • Ted Wallingford, author of "Switching to VoIP" and "VoIP Hacks" (both from O'Reilly)
  • Roberto Tagliabue, "Design as a Strategic Tool"
  • Brian McConnell, "Designing Multimodal Interfaces" (voice and text)
  • In addition to two days of rapid-fire plenary sessions from experts and industry leaders, ETel will devote a full day to in-depth workshops where attendees can get a comprehensive understanding of an underlying technology, or get ahead of the curve with more advanced topics. In addition to structured workshops, all attendees are welcome at the Hacker Cafe, an informal space for meeting up and brainstorming. Since some of the most innovative uses for a technology aren't from the big players, but from garage inventors who have real problems to solve, an evening ETel Fair is planned to showcase the below-the-radar excellence that heralds the future of VoIP applications.

    Come to the first O'Reilly Emerging Telephony Conference to hear the latest word on the wire around voice applications. ETel is the only conference that clearly and concisely shows what's really going on at the tipping point where telephony merges with the Internet.

    O'Reilly conferences include: ETech, the O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference; the MySQL Users Conference, co-presented with MySQL AB; Where 2.0 Conference; OSCON; the O'Reilly European Open Source Convention; and Web 2.0 (co-hosted by Tim O'Reilly and John Battelle, and co-produced with MediaLive International). O'Reilly conferences bring together forward-thinking business and technology leaders, shaping ideas and influencing industries around the globe. For over 25 years, O'Reilly has facilitated the adoption of new and important technologies by the enterprise, putting emerging technologies on the map.

    Additional Information:

    Other upcoming O'Reilly conferences:

  • O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference, March 6-9, 2006 in San Diego, California
  • MySQL Users Conference, April 24-27 in Santa Clara, California
  • Where 2.0, June date to be announced in the San Francisco Bay Area
  • O'Reilly Open Source Convention, July 24-28 in Portland, Oregon
  • O'Reilly European Open Source Convention, fall 2006
  • Web 2.0, fall 2006 in the San Francisco Bay Area
  • About O’Reilly

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