Telefonica: A Super Service Provider?

Telefonica is now standing out from the operator crowd. 

It is now rolling out TuMe (based on Jajah) acquisition, with no revenue targets. TuMe is about offering OTT VoIP by Telefonica to its customers.
"If you can't beat them, join them" is a way to say it.
Tu-Me allows Telefonica to expand its scope and serve customers anywhere.
The next step sounds even more interesting, cloud-based telco. From the story above:

The next stage, to be rolled out later this year, is called TuGo, and turns the offering much more cloudy as well as generating some revenue. TuGo users will be able to move their mobile number into the cloud service, which will route incoming calls to whatever device they happen to be using as well as permitting outgoing calls from that device to any phone - billed to the customer in the usual way. TuGo redefines the customer: they are no longer subscribing to a mobile telephone service, they're subscribing to a phone number which will drift between mobile and fixed networks as best suits them.

The really mind-blowing thing is if they are really able to separate services from network ownership. Or rather, what used to be a mobile network will be just another access network:

The vision is for service and carriage to be separated entirely, just as LoveFilm delivers video over a home broadband connection, so one could take a telephony service from O2 and cellular carriage from Vodafone or anyone else, assuming that was economically viable.

It is more than interesting to note how the open-source movement (Firefox OS) will align with the interests of the operator. A flood of HTML5 phones overtaking the market...?

The third step is also logical, ie. opening up APIs to the developers. That needs to happen however rather fast, with Twilio gaining ground in the marketplac.

To summarise:
It seems that Telefonica is looking to be a "Super Service Provider".
I know the term is a little vague and boring, but that's what we used when discussing various provider concepts when at Nokia some years ago.

VoIP: Verizon dancing with Google

Some interesting news. Verizon offering integrated VoIP with Google Apps.

From the story.

Verizon has launched a new cloud phone service for small and midsize businesses (SMBs) called Virtual Communications Express. The voice-over-Internet protocol (VoIP) service integrates with Google Apps to offer click-to-call functionality from email, calendar, and chat.

Observation 1: 

Now Google Apps, as we know, are web-based.

It will be interesting to find out about implementation of the Virtual Communications Express.

VCE needs not be based on (prereleases of) RTCWeb necessarily, but let's put it this way: would not be surprised if it was.

Observation 2:

Competitively, it appears that this is a pre-emptive move from Verizon. Better for Verizon to offer its own VoIP, rather than Google offering Gtalk (which it will of course do, sooner or later). From the story:

The devil's advocate--or, better yet, the truly bootstrapped small business--might ask: Why not just use Skype or Google Talk alongside Google Apps?

Observation 3:

It is interesting to note that Verizon value-add here is customer service.

Makes sense. I recently heard someone joke "has anyone heard of Google customer service number"...

Feature comparisons aside, Verizon apparently intends to flex its customer support muscle here. "We've found in the SMB space it's really important that there be a high touch, high customer care installation," Dalrymple said, adding that an "implementation coordinator" will be assigned to each new account to oversee the process from sale to deployment.

Observation 4:

Not surprisingly, it seems that this service has some very evolutionary elements from customer point of view. Traditional telco strongholds ie. PSTN-connectivity and numbering important:

Deployment takes seven days, according to Dalrymple; if you're porting over existing numbers, that will take about twice as long, but Verizon will issue temporary numbers in the interim.