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Category: voip

  • Vonage Announces Successful Completion of Refinancing

    Vonage has announced the successful completion of its planned refinancing. According to the company, the new $200 million, five-year term loan facility provides Vonage with "a more efficient capital structure" and is the result of the its solid financial and operating performance highlighted by EBITDA and free cash flow generation of $150 million over the past twelve months.

    The company completed the refinancing on December 14, 2010, replacing its first, second and third lien debt totaling $194 million which carried interest rates ranging from 16% to 20%. The new lower cost facility will be accretive to 2011 net income by approximately 45% and will reduce interest expense by $20 million from 2010 (assuming constant LIBOR).

    According to Vonage, the new loan bears interest at LIBOR plus 8%, with a LIBOR floor of 1.75%, and carries far less restrictive covenants than those under the prior facility, providing the company with "enhanced operating and financial flexibility to invest for future growth and value creation." The new facility is pre-payable at par, allowing the company to retire debt with cash from operations at any time.

    Total interest expense savings from the Vonage’s recapitalization efforts throughout the year, which include prepayment at par of $41 million in debt, totals $116 million if the loans were outstanding to maturity. Vonage exits the refinancing with a clean balance sheet, low leverage of 1.5 times debt to last twelve months EBITDA and more than $70 million in cash.

    "Today’s announcement of our successful refinancing begins a new and exciting chapter in Vonage’s history," said Marc Lefar, Vonage’s Chief Executive Officer.

    "This transforming event, combined with our strong cash flow and the stabilization of our customer base, provides a very strong platform on which to continue to build the future of Vonage," he added.

    Vonage also said that upon completion of the refinancing, all third lien notes were converted into 8.3 million shares of the company’s common stock. The remaining charges associated with the retirement of the first, second and third lien debt, totaling approximately $60 million, will be recorded in the fourth quarter.

    Banc of America Securities LLC acted as lead arranger and bookrunning manager for the term loan Facility. Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. and Citigroup Global Markets Inc. acted as co-arrangers for the term loan facility.

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  • Fring Launches Dynamic Video Quality Mobile Calling

    fring announced the rollout of its network-optimized DVQ mobile video calling technology. The company’s proprietary DVQ (dynamic video quality) technology adjusts video bit rate and frame rate according to the specific device to match current network bandwidth during a call, delivering the best possible video picture quality for available bandwidth between call peers.

    Where network capacity is constrained, fring’s DVQ technology dynamically adapts the video picture quality, rather than losing the video call while providing the best possible audio quality. In addition, with an integrated DVQ indicator, fring intelligently notifies users of changes in their network strength in real time.

    According to fring, mobile eco-system resources are "core" to the company’s product’s design and its use: DVQ technology adjusts to match bandwidth at every point of every call. This adaptive nature allows for changing call conditions and network availability which translates into more connected calls and fewer dropped calls. Importantly, users enjoy rich video calling according to network congestion and in step with operator’s bandwidth availability – at all traffic hours.

    “In the year since pioneering mobile video calls, we’ve seen that users network conditions change dramatically during and between video calls. That’s the nature of mobile experiences in heterogeneous networks,” said Alex Nerst, Co-Founder & CTO of fring.

    "DVQ lets users make the best use of the peer- to- peer network capacity available at any moment during a video call, regardless of if they’re stepping into an elevator, commuting on a train or simply walking away from their WiFi hub," he added.

    DVQ technology is compatible with all mobile data bearers: 3G, 4G, WIMax and WiFi and is currently available from the iPhone App Store and the Android market.

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  • KDDI to Deliver Video Conferencing Service

    Vidyo has announced that KDDI, a carrier headquartered in Japan will deliver a video conferencing service based on Vidyo’s multi-point, telepresence-quality solution. VidyoConferencing enables carriers, service providers and unified communications vendors to offer SVC-based video conferencing technology that delivers telepresence-quality over the Internet or general purpose IP networks.

    KDDI’s service will be available in Japan in January 2011.

    According to Vidyo, its architecture is the first in a new generation of software solutions that leverages the H.264 Scalable Video Coding (SVC) video compression standard enabling a video stream to be broken into multiple resolutions, quality levels and bit rates. Utilizing this capability and Vidyo´s intellectual property, VidyoTechnology eliminates the Multipoint Control Unit (MCU), and offers unprecedented error resiliency enabling natural, high quality video to work over the Internet, LTE, 3G and 4G networks.

    Because Vidyo’s solution is software-based, it can easily be expanded, upgraded, and customized for customers’ individual Enterprise and vertical market video conferencing needs.

    "As the first SVC-based solution to eliminate the transcoding MCU, Vidyo reduces the latency in the video stream so our customers will enjoy superb, natural, telepresence-quality solution over KDDI’s Wide Area Virtual Switch Service, even over the Internet or wireless networks."said Yasuhisa Yamada, General Manager of Data Network Product Planning Department at KDDI.

    Ofer Shapiro, co-founder and CEO of Vidyo, said: "Carriers today need enterprise-ready, highly scalable, telepresence-quality solutions that can address both desktop and room system requirements. By leveraging our patented solution, KDDI is able to provide their customers with a communications service that is on the leading edge of video conferencing with bandwidth guaranteed circuits and best-effort network. KDDI’s service is further evidence of the growing worldwide interest and support we’re seeing today from service providers for our SVC-based video communication solutions."

  • Junction Networks Announces 10,000th Account

    Junction Networks has announced that MBLM NYC has become the company’s 10,000th customer of its hosted VoIP services. Following a merger, the New York-based branding firm chose to deploy OnSIP Hosted PBX service to "quickly deploy a complete communications solution and save on upfront investment."

    "When we merged with a larger company and needed to quickly deploy an additional 16 workstations, we decided to move from a PSTN Gateway service with Junction Networks to OnSIP, in order to save on upfront cost and get up and running quickly," said Olaf Kreitz, Partner, MBLM NYC.

    "We love that the service was easy to set up and also offers such a robust feature set. We did a lot of shopping around and found OnSIP to be the best value. The My.OnSIP feature has also become a fast favorite for us, as it allows each individual employee to manage their extension in so many ways," he added.

    OnSIP is available at an industry low average cost per user monthly of under $20 and offers a complete Unified Communications solution: hosted HD calling and conferencing, voicemail-to-email, instant messaging, presence, and more.

    "The addition of our 10,000th customer is a tremendous milestone for OnSIP and Junction Networks. OnSIP is quickly becoming the go-to hosted VoIP service for small businesses because it’s simple to use, a cinch to set up, and extremely cost effective," said Michael Oeth, CEO of Junction Networks. "We will continue to increase our service offerings and keep costs down to provide small businesses the benefits of an enterprise phone system for a fraction of the cost."

  • Demand Up, Prices Down for Carrier VoIP and IMS Equipment

    The total service provider VoIP equipment market, including trunk media gateways, SBCs, media servers, softswitches, and voice application servers, decreased 9% from 2Q10 to 3Q10, to $511 million, according to Infonetics Research. While revenue is down for the quarter, shipments for almost all segments in the market are up sequentially.

    The research firm has just released its third quarter (3Q10) Service Provider VoIP Equipment and Subscribers and IMS Equipment and Subscribers market share and forecast reports.

    The raport finds that Asia Pacific is the only region expected to post year-over-year revenue growth in 2010 for service provider VoIP equipment and that in 3Q10, GENBAND leads the combined carrier VoIP and IMS equipment market for worldwide revenue.

    “The number-one story that will come out of 2010 for the IMS and carrier VoIP equipment markets is China, where conditions are driving volumes up and pushing prices down. There are large network transformation projects underway in China, so demand for equipment is very strong, but at the same time, vendors are willing to push the pricing limits to get into strategic accounts,"noted Diane Myers, directing analyst for VoIP and IMS at Infonetics Research.

    "In the third quarter of 2010, every product category except media servers was impacted by pricing pressures, so while shipments were up for most segments, total worldwide revenue took a hit. Looking at the long-term prospects, the network elements that are best poised for solid growth are those that facilitate the migration to all-IP networks, such as session border controllers (SBCs),” she added.

    According to the report, the worldwide IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) equipment market, including IMS core equipment and application servers, grew 4% in 3Q10, on the heels of a 34% jump in the previous quarter.

    In 3Q10, the 4 top vendors, Alcatel Lucent, Ericsson, Huawei, and Nokia Siemens Networks, continue to fight it out for new deals and replacement RFPs. Ericsson and Nokia Siemens saw revenue growth with CSCF in a relatively flat quarter.

    Overall, the IMS equipment market is experiencing strong and healthy growth, driven in the near-term by the continued adoption of VoIP services and service provider migration of VoIP services to IMS networks.

    Longer-term, the IMS market will get a boost from the push for enhanced mobile services, with LTE being the most significant driver, as the analysts claim.

  • Unified Communications Market Has Strongest Quarter Since 2008

    Dell’Oro Group reported that the Unified Communications market expanded to its highest level since 2008 in the third quarter this year. Strong second half seasonality helped offset weakness in Europe as the Unified Communications market expanded 7 percent sequentially.

    “The market rebounded strongly in the third quarter due to robust seasonal quarters from several of the larger vendors, especially in North America, which was able to offset weakness in Europe” commented Alan Weckel, Director at Dell’Oro Group.

    “Despite pockets of weakness reappearing, we believe that the Unified Communications market will expand significantly in 2010 as existing vendors continue to invest and expand their software offerings and Microsoft begins to actively push Lync,” Weckel added.

    Also, according to the report, vendors continue to migrate their installed base over to IP lines, although the process may take another decade to complete. The top eight vendors in the quarter that accounted for more than 80 percent of IP line shipments were: Aastra, Alcatel-Lucent, Avaya, Cisco, Mitel, NEC, Shoretel, and Siemens.

  • Avaya Expands Business Collaboration for Small and Medium Enterprise Market

    Avaya introduced the new version of Avaya IP Office—the company’s flagship communications solution for small and medium-sized enterprises.

    According to the company,  Avaya IP Office Release 6.1 delivers a host of business collaboration and customer service enhancements "that can improve ease-of-use and worker productivity for SME workers, and generate significant new efficiencies for businesses."

    Avaya IP Office has been recognized for its total cost of ownership (TCO) benefits, delivering savings of approximately 25% in acquisition and ownership costs when compared with a competing vendor solution.

    The new version of Avaya IP Office expands upon its TCO strengths by enabling installation via a single DVD containing the open standards-based Linux operating system (OS) and key communications applications. Formerly, the OS and IP Office applications had to be installed via several sources and multiple DVDs.

    "This new approach can cut down software installation times by as much as 75%,2 saving on labor costs while simplifying installation. Additionally, when compared to other OS environments, Linux does not require user licenses, driving further savings for Avaya IP Office users," as the company claims.

    Other advancements introduced by Avaya include:

    * Flexible Avaya one-X Portal for IP Office: The solution’s dynamic Web-based desktop communications interface for remote, mobile and office workers features a newly-designed, customizable interface with drag and drop application gadgets. The solution—which lets users manage calls, instant messages and e-mails from one PC-based portal—is more flexible, allowing users to place gadgets (i.e. Directory, Call Log, etc.) wherever they want on their screen. Further customization includes ‘skins’ and branding with a business’ name.

    * Improved Contact Center Reporting: Now, an SME can gauge the success of a customer campaign through location-based business intelligence that analyzes the calls flowing into a contact center, and makes them viewable on a geographic map. This capability provides a visual report of the volume of customer interaction based on each customer’s location.

    * Expanded Video Options: Avaya IP Office expands upon its videoconferencing capabilities, going beyond Softphone-based video to now offer more advanced multi-point HD videoconferencing with up to 4 parties.3 Additionally, it enables video integration with selected third-party SIP phones.

    * Multi-site Management: SME owners can now manage multiple office sites using one consolidated interface and a single log-in. This lets users view and manage all of the key communications parameters (i.e. user rights, hunt groups) of multiple locations (up to 32).

  • China Sourcing Report: VoIP Products 2010

    Traffic upswing in the mobile VoIP sector in China is expected to exceed 100 percent annually till 2014, according to Research and Markets’ recently released "China Sourcing Report: VoIP Products 2010" report.

    The research shows that China suppliers of VoIP equipment are boosting output and exports and at the same time strengthening product development under efforts to sustain growth in the line. Makers are taking advantage of the opportunities brought about by the recent financial crunch to highlight the cost advantages of an IP-based communication setup, especially among SMEs.

    According to the analysts, the upturn in recent months, in fact, resulted from the migration of more enterprises to VoIP channels to leverage improving quality and reduced expenditure compared with traditional technologies.

    The strong market penetration of wireless standards is providing additional impetus. Mobile VoIP in particular is seen as a key growth area. Traffic upswing in this sector is expected to exceed 100 percent annually till 2014.

    The report also finds that under efforts to boost competitiveness and widen market reach, suppliers in China are underscoring high-value models. Several makers provide a broader selection of VoIP equipment to position themselves as a one-stop sourcing solution.

    The report form Research and Markets covers the key VoIP devices manufactured in China, namely routers, gateways, phones, PBXs and ATAs. Wired and wireless equipment is also discussed. You can find the full version of the report here.

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  • Freescale Introduces Comprehensive Solution for Multi-Service Business Gateways

    Freescale has introduced a comprehensive silicon and software solution for the rapid creation of multi-service business gateway (MSBG) equipment combining services such as data, security, voice and fax.

    Based on the QorIQ P1020 processor, the solution integrates Freescale’s VortiQa Security Application Software and D2 Technologies’ embedded vPort VoIP software, as well as virtualization support from Green Hills Software.

    Designed to help OEMs speed and simplify the development of MSBG equipment, the Freescale solution also works with the P1020 and other QorIQ products to serve as a reference design for a range of additional applications such as unified threat management (UTM) appliances, secured routers, IPS/IDS appliances, VPN routers and secured switches.

     "This flexibility helps to extend R&D value and shorten time to market. Since the QorIQ family scales from single to many cores, the solution addresses a broad range of performance and energy efficiency requirements," as the company claims.

    Acording to Freescale, their QorIQ processors deliver "ultra-high" performance to enable the flexibility and scalability to run a large number of services simultaneously. Products based on the MSBG solution can run security applications on one core while running office applications on a second core, giving service providers the flexibility to easily add or subtract office features.

    “Freescale’s MSBG solution brings together the elements a small office needs to function – e-mail, fax, print, conference, WLAN and other capabilities – and then integrates those elements with traditional security and gateway functionality,” said Sathyan Iyengar, vice president of Software Products for the Freescale Networking and Multimedia Group. “Our suite of pre-integrated office services is optimized to take advantage of multicore technology. It helps hardware providers speed time to market and enables a more cost-effective and flexible business model.”

    D2 Technologies’ embedded vPort software allows the solution to deliver the high voice quality, efficiently tuned system implementation and broad OS support necessary for manufacturers to incorporate state-of-the-art VoIP capabilities in their MSBG products.

    “The introduction of the joint Freescale-D2 MSBG solution to the market is timely, as an increasing number of small- to medium-size businesses are choosing to deploy a single, integrated device to replace legacy equipment,” said Doug Makishima, chief operating officer for D2 Technologies. “Additionally, market studies are showing a steady increase in the SMB market’s migration to VoIP technology. OEMs and ODMs looking for a rapid and cost-effective way to tap into these trends now have a solution based on multicore processors that shortens the development cycle for high-performance and economical offerings.”

    Freescale’s MSBG solution includes:

    * The QorIQ P1020 processor, which provides cost and performance scalability to support different product SKUs and multiple users; the low-power operation of the QorIQ product also enables simplified, fanless thermal design for higher reliability and low system-cost end products
    * VortiQa software with Stateful Packet Inspection Firewall and NAT
    * VortiQa performance optimized IPsec Virtual Private Network (VPN) with Quality of Service (QoS) and Traffic Management (TM)
    * D2 Technologies optimized voice features such as G.711, G.729AB, G.726 Voice Compression, G.168 Echo Cancellation, Packet Loss Compensation, Tone Detect/Generate and Jitter Buffer
    * D2 Technologies advanced telephony features such as 3-Party Conferencing, Call Forwarding, Call Waiting/Caller ID, Call Return, and Speed Dial

  • IPsmarx Announces Completion of Interoperability Testing with 360networks

    IPsmarx has announced a referral arrangement with 360networks, a full service wholesale provider of Private Line Transport, VoIP, IP, and Local Access (T1/DS3) services on its wholly-owned fiber optic backbone. Through this arrangement IPsmarx will recommend 360networks’ IP and Toll Free Origination services to complement IPsmarx Class 5 and IP-PBX Solutions.

    According to IPsmarx, following the successful completion of interoperability testing between the two companies, IPsmarx’ existing entrepreneurial and calling card operator customers can now utilize 360networks’ Wholesale VoIP Origination services to "grow into new markets, offer more services and decrease the initial investment to get started."

    Steve Cardwell, vice president of sales at 360networks, stated, “We are excited to have completed interoperability testing with IPsmarx so their customers can now easily deploy our wholesale VoIP services in conjunction with IPsmarx’ award-winning solutions.”

    “This interoperability relationship with 360networks furthers our mission to fully support our clients as they enter the VoIP market,” says Andrea Lopez, Technical Sales Representative for IPsmarx. “Giving our clients many options for DID providers and termination suppliers allows them to expand their businesses and become more competitive.”

    According to IPsmarx, their solutions are "modular, scalable and flexible." This gives clients the opportunity to customize solutions to their needs or offer multiple services from one platform. IPsmarx helps service providers minimize the risks of entering a new market by providing security, technical training, support and a reliable billing platform.

    Meeting IPsmarx’ specifications, 360networks is compatible with IPsmarx’ SIP Based Calling Card solution that helps entrepreneurs and existing calling card operators manage and grow a successful calling card business. Features include; a variety of recharge options, home services to set up customer accounts and an E-store site to sell services on-line. Service providers can also offer a Class 5 Solution which provides value-added services to become a residential IP phone service company with features such as conferencing, voicemail and calling packages.

    The IPsmarx Multi-Tenant IP-PBX Platform empowers VoIP Providers to deliver robust VoIP services to their SMB and enterprise clients. With abundant features and streamlined customer management, IPsmarx’ IP-PBX Platform integrates billing, call routing, and e-commerce into one unified solution.