Business News Holding

Category: voip

  • Alcatel-Lucent Takes Over Number Two Spot From Juniper

    Synergy Research Group announced the publication of the 4Q11 Carrier Infrastructure Market Share report that  provides quarterly market shares for Service Provider Core Routers, Edge Routers, and Carrier Ethernet Switches.

    According the the report, the fourth quarter of 2011 saw carrier infrastructure revenues hovering around the $3 billion mark for the third successive quarter. Full-year 2011 revenues showed a 3.5% uptick from 2010, although 4Q11 revenues were actually down almost 10% against 4Q10, when the market spiked upwards.

    Cisco finished 2011 with a 51% market share in the final quarter and a 50% share of full-year revenues.

    One of the big stories in the quarter was Alcatel-Lucent zipping past Juniper to take over the number two spot in the market share ranking — a feat it has managed in only twice in the last four years. While Alcatel-Lucent grew its revenues strongly from the previous quarter, Juniper's revenues declined substantially, giving Alcatel-Lucent a clear market share lead of 2.7 percentage points in the quarter. For the full year Juniper did maintain its number two ranking, with a market share of 18.2% versus 16.8% for Alcatel-Lucent.

    "Digging into the details, Alcatel-Lucent can thank much of its quarterly revenue growth to a strong performance in the EMEA region, where it increased its market share to over 25%. Juniper can also thank the EMEA region for providing it some bright sparks in a tough quarter — it saw both sequential and year-on-year revenue gains to achieve a 22% regional market share in the final quarter," said Jeremy Duke, Founder & Chief Analyst, Synergy Research Group.

    "Conversely Cisco saw its EMEA market share drop to an all-time low of just 43%. However, there was plenty of good news for Cisco in the quarter, including a market share gain in the high-growth APAC region, increasing its share of the worldwide service provider core router market to almost 65%, and increasing its share of a declining North American edge router and switch market — to levels it hasn't achieved in over three years," he said.

  • Yowie Adds Group Video Chat to Its Platform

    Yowie has announced it is now offering enhanced group video chatting for consumers, competing against the likes of Skype, Google Hangouts and Tiny Chat. Yowie, known for connecting fans with celebrity chat hosts such as Colin Farrell, Amy Poehler, Interpol and presidential hopeful Gary Johnson, now compete head to head in hot consumer video chat space.

    "By working with some of the biggest names in entertainment over the past year, we've learned that people with similar offline interests are looking to authentically connect online," said Yowie founder and president Jamie Snider. "With the new Yowie, we're making it simple and safe to not just video chat with a celebrity, but with anyone around almost any topic."

    Yowie claims it is the first online destination to combine social interaction and a controlled environment for video chat. What makes Yowie different?

    • Reputation scoring system: Yowie's proprietary reputation scoring tracks on-site user behavior, including how and why users are being kicked, banned or reported for abusive behavior. Yowie surfaces all of that information on each user's profile so that Yowie users can make informed decisions about whom they engage with online.
    • Multimedia content: Have a cool new video that you want to chat about? Anyone can play YouTube or Vimeo media during their Yowie group chats, and new video and audio content partners — both live and recorded — are being added.
    • Categorized topics and search features: Group chat organizers are asked to tag a conversation so Yowie can aggregate chat rooms by topic. Popular chats will be showcased to users based on their personal preferences, or users can proactively search for specific topics.
    • Experience points: Users will be rated by experience points and earn badges as they use new site features (like playing media, or sharing the room with friends on social networks), encouraging people to use Yowie as a visual and social way to connect around common interests.
    • Public or private: Group chat organizers will be able to designate whether a conversation can be made public or private. This means no worrying about eavesdropping on your private conversation.

    Free and nothing to download: Yowie is a browser-based video chat service, so you have nothing to download. You can quickly start your own free chat room as long as you have a webcam and an Internet connection.

    Other new features with Yowie group video chat include:

    •     Embed the full group chat experience on any Internet destination.
    •     A Facebook application for group video chatting that mirrors the vast majority of Yowie's on-site functionality.
    •     Send a recorded video invite to your Facebook friends to join you in a chat room.
    •     Custom room skinning for chat room sponsors such as fan clubs or meet up groups.

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    Vidyo First to Achieve 100 HD Rate Matching Ports on a Virtualized Machine
    VoX Communications Partners with LightSquared to Launch Mobile Voice and Video Services
    Telesphere’s VideoConnect Makes HD Business Videoconferencing a Reality

  • Vidyo First to Achieve 100 HD Rate Matching Ports on a Virtualized Machine

    Vidyo announced it has virtualized the first video conferencing infrastructure and delivered an HD video conference on over 100 concurrent lines. To date, virtualization in the video conferencing market has been limited to call control. Vidyo has now virtualized media processing, enabling service providers to offer unlimited multipoint scalability and low latency rate matching capability on demand to accelerate the adoption of high quality, universal video conferencing on any endpoint.

    "Vidyo's virtualization of the media plane is as significant to the video conferencing industry as VMware's virtualization of the compute plane was to the data center," said Ofer Shapiro, co-founder and CEO of Vidyo.  "Vidyo has already enabled service providers to offer telepresence calls at pennies instead of dollars per minute. Today's technology announcement marks a new era of virtualized video conferencing with unprecedented scalability, flexibility and affordability by providing media processing when and where it is required. Hardware-based solutions are not scalable and have limited capacity for multipoint video conferencing, requiring costly MCU devices that have to be pre-provisioned in data centers instead of providing availability on-demand."

    "Virtualization has affected almost every aspect of IT, and network infrastructure is the last untapped bastion," said Zeus Kerravala, Principal Analyst, ZK Research. "Vidyo is the first company to demonstrate the impact of virtualized video conferencing in terms of scalability and economics on the most expensive part of the network infrastructure. There is no longer a reason for video conferencing to be a hardware investment; customers need to select a software-based architecture today that can address tomorrow's future growth needs."

    Multipoint media processing mixes multiple video streams, a function traditionally performed by a transcoding multipoint control unit (MCU) which is not scalable.  Expanding video conferencing services from hundreds of thousands of rooms to hundreds of millions of mobile and desktop endpoints requires a new approach for multipoint scalability. Leveraging virtual machines allows service providers and enterprise companies to scale video conferencing capacity on demand by creating a virtual machine and running a VidyoRouterTM, with no incremental hardware required.  Companies still get all the benefits of Vidyo's patented Adaptive Video LayeringTM technology, which provides the most efficient bandwidth utilization, local error correction, and real time video optimization for unprecedented video quality over the Internet. 

    The Vidyo Difference

    The Vidyo communication and collaboration platform is software-based, highly flexible and can be easily customized for individual enterprise and vertical market video conferencing needs. The patented VidyoRouterTM architecture introduces Adaptive Video LayeringTM, which dynamically optimizes the video for each endpoint leveraging H.264 Scalable Video Coding (SVC)-based compression technology and Vidyo's IP. Adaptive Video Layering eliminates the MCU and offers unprecedented error resiliency and low latency rate matching thus enabling natural, affordable, high-quality video to work over the Internet, LTE, 3G and 4G networks. The platform allows users to quickly leverage the latest hardware innovations and new consumer devices, making it uniquely attractive to partners. Vidyo has been active driving H.264 SVC and SIP videoconferencing interoperability in various standards bodies since 2005.

  • 4PSA Enhances VoIP Suite with Cloud Telephony Service

    4PSA, known for its VoipNow Unified Communications platform, has announced the public availability of Cloud Telephony, the flexible, next-generation SIP trunking service that "can be provisioned within minutes."

    The new service delivers access to the telephony network using the SIP protocol and features unlimited concurrent incoming and outgoing calls. Moreover, it is possible to choose local phone numbers in over 30 countries around the world with best rates for domestic and international calls. Using VoIP technologies and the Cloud Telephony service, it is not necessary to install physical phone lines and incoming calls are always free.

    "The Cloud Telephony solution is designed to deliver great value to a wide variety of customers, from small businesses to enterprises and also service providers. We cover a wide range of expectations and requirements." said Mike Ross, 4PSA's President. "With the addition of Cloud Telephony to our VoipNow Cloud Instance and Unified Communications suite, the go-to-market time for these services has been greatly reduced." Mr. Ross also stated.

    The new service is part of 4PSA's strategy to bring the cloud flexibility to resources that traditionally required complicated provisioning processes. Cloud Telephony follows cloud Unified Communications and cloud software licensing as a way to simplify the deployment of traditional telephony services.

    Cloud Telephony can be used with any communication system that implements a VoIP SIP interface. When paired with VoipNow Cloud Instance that already offers software, infrastructure and support, it is a complete solution for service providers so that they can start delivering services to their customers immediately, and also for businesses that are looking for a turn-key Unified Communications solution.

    "Some customers prefer to host VoipNow® on their own infrastructure and choose their favorite carriers. VoipNow Professional is already the optimal solution for these customers with its comprehensive set of features, its flexibility and ability to scale. The new Cloud Telephony helps these installations too because it provides additional carrier services that reduce costs and improve reliability," added Mr. Ross.

    4PSA's Cloud Telephony is available in three packages – Starter, Business and Service Provider, which offer free credit every month and require no commitments.

  • VoX Communications Partners with LightSquared to Launch Mobile Voice and Video Services

    LightSquared, a nationwide wireless broadband network, announced that it has signed a multi-year wholesale agreement with VoIP provider VoX Communications. VoX is culminating its strategy to add mobile functionality to its existing IP network platform by launching new mobile services and applications, including voice and video, on LightSquared's network.

    VoX has also informed that it plans to offer high-speed data and satellite services to its existing and new customers. According to the company, the combination of wholesale economics and business model, open platform, 4G–LTE network and growing device ecosystem is the key reason why VoX chose to partner with LightSquared to deliver its innovative services.

    "We've been closely following the rapid increase in mobile VoIP users, and determining how our company could take advantage of this new reality," said Mark Richards, president and chief information officer of VoX. "We believe that the LightSquared network and business model are creating a transformative moment for the industry, and will allow us to expand our portfolio so we can deliver a broad range of affordable and innovative mobile services to our customers."

    Sanjiv Ahuja, chairman and CEO of LightSquared, said: "When we think of the types of partners that would benefit from the LightSquared network, VoX Communications comes to mind. VoX is already redefining VoIP performance and services, and we look forward to helping them do the same with a new portfolio of innovative wireless services."

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    Cisco Reports Fourth Quarter and Fiscal Year 2011 Earnings
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    Telesphere’s VideoConnect Makes HD Business Videoconferencing a Reality

  • Cisco Reports Fourth Quarter and Fiscal Year 2011 Earnings

    Cisco has reported its fourth quarter and fiscal year results for the period ended July 30, 2011. The company reported fourth quarter net sales of $11.2 billion, net income on a GAAP basis of $1.2 billion or $0.22 per share, and non-GAAP net income of $2.2 billion or $0.40 per share.

    "We've made significant progress on our comprehensive action plan to position ourselves for our next stage of growth and profitability, while delivering solid financial results in Q4," said John Chambers, chairman and CEO, Cisco. "As we start our next fiscal year, you will see a very focused, agile, lean and aggressive company, that is laser focused on helping our customers use intelligent networks to transform their businesses."

    Other Financial Highlights from Cisco's report:
          
            —  Cash flows from operations were $2.8 billion for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2011, compared with $3.0 billion for the third quarter of fiscal 2011, and compared with $3.2 billion for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2010. Cash flows from operations were $10.1 billion for fiscal 2011, compared with $10.2 billion for fiscal 2010.
           
            —  Cash and cash equivalents and investments were $44.6 billion at the end of fiscal 2011, compared with $43.4 billion at the end of the third quarter of fiscal 2011, and compared with $39.9 billion at the end of fiscal 2010.
           
            —  During the fourth quarter of fiscal 2011, Cisco repurchased 95 million shares of common stock under the stock repurchase program at an average price of $15.85 per share for an aggregate purchase price of $1.5 billion. During fiscal 2011, Cisco repurchased 351 million shares of common stock at an average price of $19.36 per share for an aggregate purchase price of $6.8 billion. As of July 30, 2011, Cisco had repurchased and retired 3.5 billion shares of Cisco common stock at an average price of $20.64 per share for an aggregate purchase price of approximately $71.8 billion since the inception of the stock repurchase program. The remaining authorized amount for stock repurchases under this program as of July 30, 2011 was approximately $10.2 billion with no termination date.
           
            —  Days sales outstanding in accounts receivable (DSO) at the end of the fourth quarter of fiscal 2011 were 38 days, compared with 37 days at the end of the third quarter of fiscal 2011, and compared with 41 days at the end of the fourth quarter of fiscal 2010.

            —  Inventory turns on a GAAP basis were 11.8 in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2011, compared with 11.1 in the third quarter of fiscal 2011, and compared with 12.6 in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2010. Non-GAAP inventory turns were 11.4 in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2011, compared with 10.3 in the third quarter of fiscal 2011, and compared with 12.1 in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2010.

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    Vonage Reports Record High Net Income of $22 million
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  • Vonage Reports Record High Net Income of $22 million

    Vonage Holdings announced results for the second quarter ended June 30, 2011. The Company reported record high net income of $22 million and record high adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (“EBITDA”) of $44 million.

    Vonage generated record high adjusted EBITDA of $44 million, up from $41 million in the year ago quarter and $43 million sequentially. Income from operations increased to $31 million from $24 million in the year ago quarter and $30 million sequentially.

    Net income increased to a record high $22 million or $0.10 per share, up from a net loss of $1 million or $0.00 per share in the year ago quarter, which included $12 million in charges relating to the Company's prior debt.  This increase was driven by a $7 million increase in income from operations and a $7 million reduction in interest expense. Net income increased from $21 million or $0.10 per share sequentially. 

    Revenue was $218 million, down from $225 million in the year ago quarter due to a $3 million decline in deferred revenues related to discontinuation of activation fees and lower customer equipment and shipping revenue.  Revenue declined from $220 million sequentially, primarily due to lower activation revenue and Universal Service Fund ("USF") fees. These factors contributed to a decline in average revenue per user ("ARPU") to $30.28, down from $31.21 in the prior year and $30.45 sequentially.

    Telephony services ARPU was $30.14, down from $30.71 a year ago due primarily to impacts from lower deferred activation revenue.  Telephony services ARPU decreased sequentially from $30.23 due to lower deferred activation revenue and USF fees.

    New Products

    Vonage announced two new products during the past week:  Extensions and Time to Call.

    Extensions, a free enhancement to the Company’s flat rate, unlimited international calling plan, addresses the needs of international long distance callers by extending the value provided by Vonage’s home service plans to additional phone numbers and devices including smartphones and feature phones.

    Time to Call provides low-cost, easy to use international calling on smartphones around the world.  According to the company, it is the first downloadable mobile application that allows pay-per-call international dialing to more than 190 countries. To promote its global launch, the Company is providing a free international call to everyone that downloads the application. This mobile application, designed for iPhones, allows consumers to make international calls of up to 15 minutes while avoiding high prices and roaming fees charged by traditional telecommunications carriers. The service is available in 87 countries around the world.  Time to Call provides direct payment through iTunes.

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  • Telesphere’s VideoConnect Makes HD Business Videoconferencing a Reality

    Telesphere recently announced the launch of VideoConnect, a cloud-based videoconferencing service for businesses of every size. Today the company announced that VideoConnect is the first worldwide commercial deployment of Broadsoft’s BroadCloud Video, an enterprise-grade videoconferencing and telepresence service that incorporates Polycom’s standards-based HDX systems and VVX 1500 business media phones, along with CounterPath’s Bria softclients.

    In packaging together the combined capabilities of BroadCloud Video, CounterPath and Polycom, Telesphere now offers businesses of any size enterprise-grade videoconferencing that employees can connect to ranging from room telepresence environments, desktops and the rapidly expanding user base of video-ready smartphones and tablet devices.

    By using the BroadCloud Video call-bridging technology that is powered by the Polycom UC Intelligent Core software platform, Telesphere’s VideoConnect offers support for up to 12 simultaneous meeting participants across various videoconferencing platforms, endpoints and protocols during a single HD videoconference. According to the company, this protocol- and vendor-agnostic approach allows participants using a wide variety of room-based videoconferencing systems, videophones and softphones to all see, talk with and hear one another immediately.

    “VideoConnect makes video conferencing easy for every employee to use and extremely cost effective for every size business to deploy,” said Telesphere CEO Clark Peterson. “By working with BroadSoft, CounterPath and Polycom, Telesphere can now deliver enterprise-grade, cloud-based video communications to every conference room, office, business desktop and laptop in the world.”

    In November 2010, Polycom extended its relationship with BroadSoft with the announcement of BroadSoft's BroadCloud Video service. This cloud service is a hosted infrastructure that integrates with Polycom’s UC Intelligent Core software platform to enable leading service providers like Telesphere to lower the cost and complexity of delivering videoconferencing and unified communications services.

    Leslie Ferry, vice president of marketing, BroadSoft, said: “Telesphere VideoConnect is exactly the type of service-provider offering BroadCloud Video was designed to enable – HD videconferencing that supports multiple devices and integrates seamlessly with key unified communications services, and can be offered with a pricing structure compelling to cost-sensitive and underserved mid-market enterprises. We applaud Telesphere’s innovation in bringing a CapEx-free videoconferencing solution to market that we believe can accelerate adoption of video.”

    VideoConnect features an intuitive user interface with a nearly flat learning curve for employees, as its producer claims. For example, when employees place a call from a videophone or a webcam-equipped personal computer using a softphone such as CounterPath’s Bria, Bria for BroadWorks, Telesphere’s infrastructure detects whether the called party also is video-enabled and, if so, automatically sets up a one-to-one video call. This design eliminates the need for employees to maintain separate videophones, additional numbers or special addresses for colleagues, clients and business partners.

    Direct one-to-one video calls are free, while charges for group videoconference calls using the BroadCloud Video bridge are based on minutes and port usage.

    Additional key VideoConnect features and functionality include:

    ·      BroadCloud Video-enabled support for HD video quality at up to 1080p and connection via SIP, H.264, H.263, H.323 and H.320.
    ·      Employees within the same company can use four-digit dialing for video calls.
    ·      BroadCloud Video-enabled seamless integration of videconferencing with additional or existing enterprise and unified communications services such as web collaboration, IM & Presence and HD voice.
    ·      An intuitive UI that automatically displays the video feeds from the six most recent speakers, with the current one in the center pane.
    ·      For videoconferences with more than two parties, a Telesphere-provided video attendant welcomes each participant to the bridge, requests a passcode and places them in a virtual waiting area if the conference hasn’t begun. This feature enables any size business to provide a highly professional, concierge-level user experience.
    ·      Real-time monitoring that automatically moves participants back to the waiting area if the moderator unexpectedly drops.

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  • Viber 3G VoIP Mobile App Coming to Android

    Viber, a mobile application that offers users free phone calls and text messaging to other Viber users over 3G and Wi-Fi, announced the official launch of the Android version of the app, bringing Viber to millions of additional users.

    Viber also announced that it has acquired over 12 million active users (last 30 days) and has an impressive call traffic volume of over one billion minutes of calls per quarter.

    Viber was released for iPhone just seven months ago and it now has over 20 million registered users and 12 million active users who currently talk on Viber for 11 million minutes every day, with an average of 6 minutes per call.

    The Android version of Viber features the same easy setup process and high-quality calls that drove its success on the iPhone. The Android version of Viber includes several exclusive features:

    • Full call screen whenever a Viber call is received;
    • Popup text message notification, which lets users respond to text messages without having to open Viber;
    • Tighter integration with the phone, which allows users to see their regular call logs and messages within Viber;
    • A default dialer setting that enables users to use the Viber dialer for all their phone calls, not just for Viber calls.

    "We have been looking forward to launching our Android app, especially after having received a staggering number of requests from Android users asking us to bring Viber to the Android market. Our latest user numbers are the best indicator of how much our users love to talk and send messages for free with Viber," said Talmon Marco, Viber CEO.

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  • Ciscos Cius Tablet Coming to Verizon LTE

    Cisco Cius, the first Android tablet aimed at enterprise customers will be launched by Verizon Wireless later this summer. According to Verizon, the company is combining the power of its 4G LTE network with the Cisco Cius to improve "Mobile Enterprise Collaboration."

    The Cisco Cius will be available to Verizon enterprise and government customers around the world later this summer, and those located domestically will be able to combine the device with a Verizon Wireless 4G LTE mobile hot spot.

    Designed for the enterprise, the Android-based Cisco Cius combines voice, video, collaboration and virtualization capabilities on one device. When powered by Verizon's 4G LTE network, mobile workers will be able to easily use bandwidth-intensive video applications – including between devices – for more effective collaboration.

    "Mobile applications over intelligent high-speed networks will continue to eliminate barriers in the workplace," said Mike Smith, vice president for Verizon enterprise communications, network and mobility sales. "We're forecasting a perfect storm where advanced enterprise tools such as the Cisco Cius mesh with the speeds made possible by 4G LTE to make the virtual office a more robust reality than ever."

    Putting Tablets to Work

    In general, industries such as retail, financial services, healthcare and government can employ tablets to change the pace of their business.

    Retail: Sales associates can employ tablets while out on the floor to look up product and inventory information for customers, in addition to processing transactions on the spot.

    Financial Services: Bankers and financial advisors can take advantage of the video capabilities of tablets for face-to-face meetings with clients, saving the time it takes to meet up at physical locations.

    Health care: Medical professionals can use tablets to collaborate on patient care and speed critical decision-making.

    Government: Tablets can increase productivity of government users – from military to civilian government field workers to emergency first responders – allowing them to enter information or share it quickly with remote offices to complete the business of government more efficiently.

    Through Verizon's Managed Mobility portfolio, enterprise customers can securely deploy a wide range of devices to employees. Capabilities include device management; expense tracking management; lock and wipe features for protecting sensitive data; and mobile delivery of popular business and consumer apps from the cloud. In addition, the company offers a full suite of professional services to help organizations create policies and design mobility programs to suit varied requirements.

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