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Category: voip

  • Biz-News.com: A Retrospective of 2009

    Dear VoIP.Biz-News.com Reader,

    Yet another year of hard work with great rewards has gone by.

    This year Biz-News.com has brought new features that we hope have enhanced your reading experience.

    We have realized 85 exclusive interviews with C-Level executives who have introduced their companies to us and have explained how their innovative ideas are changing the Tech sector.

    We have partnered with 70 sector events worldwide and have covered major events like GSMA Barcelona, IFA held in Berlin, The Canalys Mobility Forum in London and the European Tech Tour Web & Mobility Summit held in Switzerland. Our video footage on the events and video interviews with companies showing their newest product launches have been a great success amongst our readers.

    We have also been chatting to followers through our biz_news Twitter account and have generated interesting discussion topics across various LinkedIn groups.

    This year we will, for second year running, award the “Biz-New.com Product of the Year 2009” for the VoIP, Smartphone, HDTV and Storage categories. Voting is open to the public, you choose your winner, voting closes on February 15th 2010.

    During 2010 Biz-News.com plans to keep our readers on top of the news, maintaining journalistic standards and bringing you the latest updates on the industry. Keep reading us for sector updates, interviews with expert analysts, one to one interviews with industry leaders and exclusive video coverage at mayor events.

    We wish you a wonderful holiday season and a successful start of 2010!

    Best wishes,
    The Biz-News.com Team

    https://smartphone.biz-news.com
    https://voip.biz-news.com
    https://storage.biz-news.com
    https://hdtv.biz-news.com

  • VoIP Options for Small Businesses

    VoIP, or Voice over Internet Protocol, is a method of holding voice conversations over a broadband connection without the need to incur any kind of call charges.

    It has been around for several years in various forms, but is now extremely popular amongst both business and home users as broadband speeds have increased and VoIP has become widely used. VoIP services still require an analogue audio signal, but this is translated into a digital signal by a computer and then sent via a broadband internet connection rather than a Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN).

    In many cases people use simple headsets with microphones attached in order to communicate using VoIP. However, there are several devices which look and behave exactly like traditional telephone units but are in fact designed for use with VoIP to ensure that the experience is as familiar and easy to pick up as possible.

    It is not just larger businesses that can benefit from VoIP services, as there are many companies and operators who cater specifically to the requirements of small and medium enterprises. If you want to switch your entire telephone system over to VoIP you can choose a full package from a variety of sources.

    A standard package will usually include a VoIP phone unit, supplied by one of the major electronics manufacturers and you should be able to specify the number of these that are needed. You will also be supplied with a telephone number via which you can be contacted.

    One of the best things about VoIP is that calls can be made between VoIP and traditional analogue telephone services without any hassle, though any non-VoIP to VoIP calls will be charged in a similar way to most landline telephone calls. Some VoIP services for small businesses will come complete with inclusive calling credit to cover the cost of such calls.

    In essence, if you choose a VoIP package provided by a third party for your business you should expect it to allow all of the same capabilities as a normal business telephone system, but with all of the benefits and conveniences of VoIP.

    However, if you wish you go it alone it is possible to set up VoIP for your business extremely cheaply, which is especially desirable if you are a home worker or have one or two employees. Services like Skype, which allow for VoIP users to sign up and create accounts for free, are simple to use and also allow instant messaging and video conferencing.

    The final VoIP consideration that small business owners should make is in relation to mobile VoIP. Several mobile network providers now offer VoIP services via their high speed mobile networks. This allows for extremely cheap calling whilst you are out and about using the same VoIP technology as you would be able to access in the office.

    Obviously choosing the right VoIP service or provider can be difficult, but like mobile broadband comparison it pays to shop around and consult with experts in the field before you commit. Serious savings can be made by small businesses which pick up VoIP packages.

  • Requestec Provides Bell Mobility with 3G Mobile Video Calling App for Facebook

    Requestec, an Adobe Flash-to-SIP telephony provider, announced their key involvement in the release of Bell Mobility’s, Bell Video Call application built on the Facebook platform.

    The application allows Facebook users to visit the profile page of a Bell subscriber that has added the application and click on their Bell Video Call tab. From here, calls can be made from anywhere in the world to the Bell subscriber’s HSPA Video Calling handset; all at no cost to the caller.

    The company claims it’s the first video calling application in North America that is fully integrated into Facebook.

    The application is available to Bell Mobility subscribers with video calling capable phones on the new HSPA network.

    “We were approached by Bell Mobility about the possibility of incorporating video-calling functionality into Facebook. This was our chance to show the world our technology within the Internet’s leading online community, Facebook,” said Requestec’s CEO, Marek Zwiefka-Sibley.

    According to Bell, its the new HSPA network (launched last month) covers 1.2 million square kilometers, reaching approximately 20,000 Canadian towns and cities and 93% of the population. It offers mobile speeds of 21 Mbps.

    Over the last 4 years Requestec has been focusing on developing Adobe Flash-based telephony solutions built on the Zenon Telecommunications platform. In 2008, the company launched Voixio, one of the world’s first web-based no-download Flash-to-SIP telephony services.

  • VocalTec Acquires Outsmart

    VocalTec, a provider of carrier-class multimedia and voice-over-IP solutions, announced that it has acquired substantially all of the assets of Outsmart, a provider of telecommunications convergence solutions.

    The Outsmart assets acquired by VocalTec included Outsmart’s technology and intellectual property, as well as its primary customer and partner contracts. The company says the engagement by VocalTec of certain Outsmart personnel “is intended to enable the continued development and support and an uninterrupted transition to all Outsmart customers and partners.”

    VocalTec provides trunking, peering and residential/enterprise VoIP application solutions that enable deployment of next-generation networks.

    Outsmart is a mobile solutions provider of convergence technologies. Its flagship product, the Plug ‘n Talk solution allows mobile operators to reach out across national borders to tap into new user segments.

    Based on its Smart Convergence Platform, Outsmart enables operators to converge between mobile and VoIP.

    According to VocalTec, Outsmart’s mobile VoIP and Intelligent Network products are a strategic addition to VocalTec’s existing portfolio of VoIP solutions. The combined portfolio positions VocalTec as a provider of VoIP solution and applications to both fixed line and mobile service providers.

    "Fixed & Mobile carriers are repeatedly forced to lower their rates. The competitive field is becoming so crowded that the only solution they have is to “go IP” in order to lower their cost. VocalTec is a dominant player providing VoIP end-to-end solutions to service providers," said Ilan Rosen, Chairman of the Board of Directors at VocalTec.

    Jacob Bros, CEO of Outsmart, claims VoIP technology will play a major role in revolution in providing cross-geography services. “And as such teaming up with VocalTec will position the technology of Outsmart in the forefront of the industry," he said.

  • VoIP Investment Remains Strong, IP Line Penetration Rose to 40% in Q3

    According to the recent Canalys report on IP telephony, investment in enterprise telephony remained restricted in EMEA in Q3 2009, with call control line shipments down 17.5% compared with the same period in 2008.

    The research shows volume declined 21.5% in Q1, while Q2 was down 18.6%. In total, 4.8 million lines were shipped in the quarter, a 4.4% sequential increase. IP line penetration increased to 40%, up from 35% one year earlier, as businesses continued to replace aging TDM infrastructure and expand trial projects.

    Canalys claims aggressive cash-back, fixed price, minimum spend and competitor trade-in promotions, as well as 0% financing offers have helped prevent greater reductions in shipments during 2009.

    Alcatel-Lucent, Siemens and Aastra continue to lead in EMEA, with Cisco gaining ground.

    ‘Alcatel-Lucent has been a stable performer in the region over the last eight quarters, overtaking Siemens as the market leader in 2008,’ said Alex Smith, a Research Analyst at Canalys.

    ‘During the recession, it has managed to maintain its market share, though its Q3 shipments were hit by the holiday season in its core markets, particularly France, Spain and Italy,’ Smith added.

    Siemens remained the second largest vendor with a market share of 13.5%, though this has steadily eroded over the last two years. Overall, Siemens is continuing to invest in growing its indirect business, but shifting direct accounts to the channel will take time, according to Canalys.

    In September, it announced plans to accelerate this process by selling its direct sales organisations in 27 non-core countries to Netlink, a deal worth €204 million ($308 million), more than the original €175 million ($275 million) the Gores Group paid Siemens AG for its 51% stake in the overall business.

    Aastra was the third largest vendor in the region, with a market share of 13.0%. During the quarter, Aastra benefited from competitor cash-back trade-in promotions in France, while investment in direct-touch activities helped it improve its German business, finds the report.

    Cisco continued to grow its market share during the recession, primarily driven by gains in Western Europe, particularly in Germany where it has invested heavily in marketing and sales resources. It accounted for 11.6% of total shipments, compared with 11.2% in Q2 and 10.3% in Q3 2008.

    Avaya, which grew its shipments by 4.2% over Q2 with strong sales in the UK, catalysed by the release of IP Office R5, won the auction for the Nortel Enterprise business. Canalys says new entity has the potential to emerge as the leading vendor in EMEA.

    ‘Shipments for the final quarter of 2009, typically the largest in EMEA, are expected to grow sequentially but will still be down annually as many businesses set budgets earlier in the year when economic conditions were worse. Year-on-year growth is expected to resume in 2010, though volumes will still be lower than in 2008 as economic recovery is expected to be slow after the worst recession for decades,’ said Matthew Ball, a Senior Analyst at Canalys.

  • Skype For SIP Now Available in Beta

    Skype announced that it is opening up the Skype for SIP beta program. It allows businesses to utilize Skype for SIP with their existing SIP-based PBX or Unified Communications systems.

    Skype for SIP beta enables businesses to receive and manage inbound calls from Skype users worldwide on SIP-enabled PBXs by either connecting the company Web site to the PBX via Skype click-to-call buttons or purchasing online Skype numbers.

    It also lets companies manage Skype calls using existing PBX or UC system features, such as call routing, conferencing, phone menus and voicemail (without additional downloads).

    Skype Business Control Panel, a Web-based tool, allows a company to control its Skype usage from a single point and enables centralized billing, allocation of Skype Credit, subscriptions and online numbers to users. It also gives companies the ability to manage internal employee accounts.

    Companies using Skype for SIP must purchase a monthly channel subscription from Skype based on the number of concurrent calls being made or received. Each channel allows for one inbound or one outbound call at any given time.

    Incoming Skype calls to the SIP-enabled PBX or UC system are free of charge to the Skype user. Calls to landlines and mobiles made using Skype for SIP are billed at Skype’s standard per-minute calling rates.

    The company informed that they have created special introductory price for the monthly channel subscription of $6.95 per channel.

  • XO Unveils New Enterprise SIP

    BroadSoft and XO Communications announced a new enterprise-class, multi-site SIP trunking solution offered by XO.

    XO Enterprise SIP is an enhanced SIP trunking service offering for large enterprises, that enables them to transform their distributed PBX/PSTN interconnection to a “more centralized and cost-effective” VoIP solution.

    According to the companies, enterprises can deploy a centralized IP-PBX in one or several primary locations and deliver VoIP services to other sites across their network. Businesses can also configure trunk capacity across their network, providing each site with on-demand access to unused call capacity.

    “This will greatly reduce capital expenses and operating costs of managing voice services and equipment at each location,” says BroadSoft.

    Based on the latest release of BroadWorks, XO Enterprise SIP uses Enterprise Trunking feature set of the BroadWorks VoIP application platform to “simplify management of VoIP services” and ensure business continuity across an enterprise’s network.

    It provides support for multiple, redundant SIP trunk groups per PBX/IP PBX, enterprise-level call capacity and "bursting" in support of multi-site enterprise environments, new caller ID screening features for enterprise least-cost-routing and improved interoperability with non-SIPconnect compliant IP PBXs.

    XO Communications currently uses BroadWorks to support its flagship XO IP Flex and XO SIP integrated access service offerings targeted at the small and mid-sized business market.

    The companies say large enterprises with multi-site locations such as banks, international financial institutions, retail stores and professional services firms, have unique requirements when it comes to SIP trunking deployments.

    “It is often the case where a single, large IP PBX provides for an entire 50,000 person organization; therefore, loss of PSTN connectivity can have a major impact on business operations,” they claim.

    "SIP trunking is a strategic decision for large enterprises today. Supporting more than half of the Fortune 500, XO Communications required a solution that could not only meet the stringent reliability and diverse topology requirements of their large enterprise customers, but also provide cost certainty and dynamic, on-demand scalability," said David Bukovsky, vice president of products at BroadSoft

    Vince Margiotta, vice president of product marketing at XO Communications assures that XO Enterprise SIP eliminates the inefficiencies of legacy voice services in a managed IP network environment.

  • fring Brings World’s First Video Calls to the iPhone

    Just a week after fring brought world’s first video calls over IP to mobile, the company announced “the first ever” mobile video calls over internet for the iPhone.

    fring video enables users to conduct video calls with other users as well as with Skype contacts over their device’s Wi-Fi or 3G internet connection, with support for mobile-to-mobile and mobile-to-desktop calls.

    The company says this is the first video over internet service on the iPhone or iPod touch.

    The new fring version with video calls support is currently available to users with iPhone/ iPod touch OS 3.0 and selected Nokia Symbian S60 devices (Nokia X6, N97 mini, N97, 5800, N95 8G and N95).

    For the iPhone only incoming video-stream is available (due to the location of the camera). 2-way video streaming is available for Symbian devices.

    “We were the first to bring mobile voice over internet to mobile devices, the first to bring iPhone/ iPod touch users the choice to make free Internet calls, the first to enable cost-saving mobile twitter over internet, and now we’re proud to continue leading the field of rich mobile-internet communication by bringing users the world’s first fring video calls over internet for the iPhone and iPod touch,” said Avi Shechter, Co-Founder & CEO of fring.

    “As the mobile VoIP trail-blazers since this industry’s inception, we have a responsibility to continue breaking the mobile-internet barriers, and bringing users all the choices, richness and always-on connectivity that internet communications on mobile can deliver,” he added.

    The new video feature is embedded within the popular fring application that enables free voice calls to other fring, Skype and GTalk users as well as friends on regular phone lines via Skype-Out and SIP services.

  • Paessler AG Introduces PRTG Network Monitor to Safeguard VoIP Transmission Quality

    Admitting that VoIP technology has revolutionized corporate communications to become one of the most efficient, flexible and affordable solutions for day-to-day business communication, Paessler AG released the PRTG Network Monitor that allows corporate network administrators and VoIP service providers to keep a watchful eye on the quality of these services to ensure “continuous and reliable delivery of VoIP service.”

    Employing specially-developed quality of service (QoS) sensors and probes to collect and analyze network performance data, PRTG Monitor provides continuous monitoring of VoIP infrastructure to safeguard transmission quality.

    The company says an uninterrupted flow of data is essential to the reliable performance of VoIP and video streaming; even minimal changes to QoS parameters can have significant effects on these user datagram protocol (UDP) services. If UDP packet transmission quality suffers, so do the sound and image quality of the individual applications too.

    “The new QoS sensor introduced with PRTG Monitoring Tools version 7.2 keeps tabs on the performance of VoIP connections to measure various QoS parameters such as jitter, package delays or losses etc.,” said Dirk Paessler, CEO of Paessler AG.

    According to him, by analyzing performance against these parameters, as well as recording a log of packages that are lost, requested again or duplicated, PRTG can “dramatically reduce the risk of failures in connectivity or quality of service.”

    Performance measurements are made by sending UDP packages between two installed remote probes to monitor the transmission quality of VoIP and video applications at each ‘end’ of the connection.

    By analyzing the performance data, network administrators can troubleshoot the network to determine potential sources of error responsible for poor quality of service interruptions. And, when major problems occur, PRTG delivers an instant alert to the administrator immediately, via e-mail or SMS for example.

    PRTG Network Monitor 7.2 also includes a sensor that captures IP SLA data, the preferred method for checking the quality of VoIP applications. IP SLA is based on active network traffic monitoring technology, and therefore provides a reliable method for measuring performance.

    With PRTG at their disposal, administrators who work with appropriate routers and switches have the ability to analyze IP service levels for different IP applications.

  • Kineto Announces Combined VoLGA / IMS Client for Voice Over LTE

    Kineto, an innovator and supplier of solutions that enable delivery of mobile services over broadband, announced what it claims to be the industry’s first software client that supports both VoLGA (voice over LTE via Generic Access) and IMS voice for LTE handsets.

    An important requirement for any LTE handset is concurrent support for both the interim VoLGA and longer-term IMS voice solutions. Operators around the world will adopt IMS voice on different timelines, so LTE handsets must support the interim approach along with IMS to provide an effective roaming solution.

    Kineto says its combined client is the industry’s first to provide this comprehensive solution.

    According to the company, the new client enables handset manufacturers to easily integrate a combined VoLGA/IMS voice client and accelerate LTE handsets to market.

    In addition, the client can be upgraded over the air through standard procedures to support new and evolving functionality, providing operators, as well as subscribers, a future-proof solution, as they assure.

    Stéphane Téral, principal analyst with Infonetics Research, claims this is an important step for bringing LTE networks to market faster. “The evolution to mobile IMS voice will take longer than many expect, and a combined voice client which can be field upgradeable removes some of the risk associated with LTE rollouts,” he said.

    Kineto’s combined VoLGA/IMS voice client is compliant with the VoLGA Forum’s release 1.0 specifications and is planned to support the recently announced “One Voice” IMS telephony profile.

    VoLGA is defined specifically to pave a smooth migration path to IMS voice. It utilizes many of the same connection protocols defined in IMS voice, including RFC 4867 and RoHC (robust header compression).

    VoLGA works with IMS data services, like the Rich Communications Suite (RCS) over LTE, enabling operators to begin their IMS deployments with new revenue-generating applications while laying the foundation for IMS voice.

    “Kineto’s innovative client architecture, with field upgradeable software, helps operators and handset vendors overcome the complexities of bringing new voice solutions to market,” said Mark Powell, vice president and general manager of Kineto’s client software business unit.

    Uwe Janßen, senior vice president of core networks at Deutsche Telekom said, “While the long-term approach for LTE voice remains IMS, many operators will require an interim voice solution, and we see VoLGA being the best approach, by far. As both are based on the same radio mechanisms, there is a natural evolution from VoLGA to IMS, which is nicely demonstrated by the integrated client.”