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  • Verizon VoIP Services Show Strong Growth at 10-Year Mark

    Verizon Global Wholesale‘s VoIP minutes of use grew more than 200 percent in 2009, compared with the previous year. This trend continues a growth trajectory that began with the launch of Verizon’s VoIP portfolio in 2000, as the company informed.

    "Since we launched our VoIP portfolio 10 years ago, we’ve seen steady growth reflecting customer desire for reliable, cost-effective IP voice services," said Mike Millegan, president of Verizon Global Wholesale.

    "And, as this market grows, we continue to add new VoIP services while enhancing our existing portfolio."

    As VoIP services become widely accepted, new applications such as high-velocity, short-duration calling systems used by call centers and mass notification systems find VoIP to be the platform of choice.

    Verizon informed that new VoIP enhancements planned for 2010 include the deployment of more robust VoIP network interfaces in Europe.

    Other VoIP features planned in 2010 are support of Caller-Provided CLI (Caller Line Identity) and greater integration into customer portals. In high demand by wholesale customers that support call centers, Caller-Provided CLI is a caller ID feature that allows a main phone number to appear as the called ID even when a call is made from an extension, branch office, or home-based agent. This feature allows businesses that have staff at more than one office to present a more uniform presence when communicating with their customers.

    Verizon also says that by the end of the year, wholesale customers outside the U.S. should have the ability to "go green" by electronically accessing their call detail records and directly downloading their monthly invoices – as opposed to receiving paper invoices.

    Verizon has a base of more than 700 wholesale VoIP customers. Recent company’s enhancements to the wholesale VoIP service portfolio include adding IP capabilities to Advanced Toll Free Service and enhancing security options with IP Security Tunnel.

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  • T-Mobile USA CEO Robert Dotson to Leave Company in May 2011

    Robert Dotson, president and CEO of T-Mobile USA, has informed that he plans to leave the company in May 2011, after 15 years of service with T-Mobile.

    According to T-Mobile, “in order to ensure a smooth transition of leadership,” Dotson has committed to stay actively engaged in the business until May 2011.

    His designated successor is Philipp Humm, an experienced DT executive and former CEO of T-Mobile Deutschland. Humm is currently responsible for sales and service in Europe as chief regional officer Europe. After a period of transition with Dotson, it’s the intention that Humm will take over as CEO of T-Mobile USA in February 2011, while Dotson will remain on as a T-Mobile USA non-executive board member until May 2011, as the company informed.

    "For 15 years it has been a privilege to lead the talented T-Mobile USA team in its journey to become a leading U.S. wireless provider. The time is right to ensure a thoughtful leadership transition to position T-Mobile USA for the next 15 years of opportunity," Dotson said.

    "It has long been my intent to step away from the business at this stage in my life in order to devote more time to family and to take on entirely new and unique challenges. That change can only be made possible if a suitable successor is in place. Over the next year, it will be my relentless focus and responsibility to work closely with Philipp to ensure marketplace success, and to enable a seamless leadership transition," he added.

    Before joining Deutsche Telekom, Humm worked for ten years for a number of U.S.-based companies including McKinsey & Company, Procter & Gamble, and Amazon in senior level positions. Humm has since served as CEO of T-Mobile Deutschland from 2005 until 2008. He was responsible for the successful market introduction of the iPhone in Germany in 2007.

    Humm said, "It is a privilege for me to take over the reins from an established leader such as Robert. I look forward to working with him and the T-Mobile USA team during the transition phase, and I relish the prospect of leading such a proud company as T-Mobile USA – a force to be reckoned with in one of the largest markets in the world. It is a great challenge, and I am grateful for having been given the chance to make a difference."

    Rene Obermann, CEO of Deutsche Telekom, said, "I sincerely regret Robert’s decision to leave, however I absolutely respect his decision, and am most grateful that he has offered to stay on for another year in order to work with Philipp to ensure continuity in running the business."

  • Sony Develops a "Rollable" OTFT-driven OLED Display

    Sony announced today that it developed a super-flexible 80 μm-thick 4.1-in 121 ppi OTFT-driven full color OLED display which can be wrapped around a thin cylinder.

    To create the display, Sony developed OTFTs with an original organic semiconductor material (a PXX derivative) with eight times the current modulation of conventional OTFTs. This was achived due to the development of integration technologies of OTFTs and OLEDs on an ultra-thin 20 μm thick flexible substrate (a flexible on-panel gate-driver circuit with OTFTs which is able to get rid of convetinal rigid driver IC chips interfering roll-up of a display) and soft organic insulators for all the insulators in the integration cuircuit.

    By combining these technologies, Sony successfully demonstrated the world’s first OLED panel which is capable of reproducing moving images while being repeatly rolled-up – around a cylinder with a radius of 4 mm – and stretched.

    The company will unveil the results of this development on May 27 at "SID (Society for Information Display) 2010 International Symposium" in Seattle, WA (May 23-28).

    This is the world’s first demonstration of an OLED display with an integrated gate-driver circuit with OTFTs. The improvement of the OTFT described above enables integration of a flexible gate-driver circuit with OTFTs on a display panel. The roll-up capability is possible because the rigid driver IC chips has been removed from the display.

    Sony informed they will proceed with the development of the solution / print based process which manufactures display devices from organic materials that are easily dissolved in common solvents. This process requires fewer steps, and consumes materials and energy more efficiently – thus has a smaller environmental footprint – compared to the conventional high temperature vacuum semiconductor process which use inorganic, silicon materials.

    The company will continue to improve the performance and reliability of its flexible organic displays because the application of these developments are expected to yield thin, light-weight, durable and mobile devices with enhanced form-factor.

  • AIRCOM: LTE Not the Only Option for Mobile Operators Today

    Deployment of HSPA+, set to save operators from costly CAPEX investment, deliver five times current network performance and open up new pricing models, says AIRCOM.

    In its recent analysis, AIRCOM, a network planning and optimisation company, highlights why HSPA+ could make short-term commercial sense to a wide range of 3GPP operators contemplating their mobile broadband network migration strategies. ROI (return on investment) and new pricing models are the key factors.

    According to Aircom, as operators continue to address the rapidly increasing demand for mobile data, further attention and financial investment has been committed to upgrade existing network infrastructure. “With peak download speeds above 100 Mbps being suggested, LTE has been widely hailed as the panacea for operators’ congestion troubles,” as the analysts say.

    Based on analysis of network infrastructure requirements, AIRCOM identifies HSPA+ as a compelling alternative for operators’ mobile broadband strategies.

    Available today, the technology offers up to 21Mbps without any additional antenna infrastructure or second carrier – allowing users to experience mobile broadband around five times faster than the current average of 3.6Mbps.

    HSPA+ also allows mobile operators to control service provisioning and prioritisation, delivering Quality of Experience (QoE) and Quality of Service (QoS) guarantees.

    “Fundamentally, deployment of HSPA+ offers significantly reduced CAPEX investment compared to LTE. Reduction for a UK operator could be as much as £345 million in 12 months; as much as $1.19 billion for a US operator,” claims Aircom.

    AIRCOM Services Director, Fabricio Martinez, responsible for providing the industry with the ‘cost of LTE’ reality check in late 2009, said: “There is great pressure on operators to upgrade their networks and improve the level of service they deliver to consumers and enterprise customers. The so-called ‘iPhone effect’ is piling pressure on to existing infrastructure. There is a real and immediate need for operators to upgrade their networks, but LTE is not the answer – today at least.”

    HSPA+ is able to meet – and exceed – current data demands, delivering a theoretical maximum of 21Mbps and an average experience of around 16Mbps. “With average mobile broadband users experiencing around 3.6Mbps, this is a significant increase,” said Martinez.

    According to him, the increase in speed enables operators to do two things: to combat price erosion, and to offer sophisticated service provisioning. “As operators are able to prioritise data traffic and users, QoE can be assured, data speeds can be controlled, and we will see a tiered pricing model emerge, mirroring the fixed line broadband business,” the analyst claims.

    He believes that the most important factor in deciding a future network technology is ROI. “Due to the low CAPEX investment and new revenue opportunities, deployment of HSPA+ will allow operators to see ROI in three years; perfect timing to upgrade to LTE, when that technology’s ecosystem has matured, devices have come to market, and equipment prices have reduced,” he said.

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  • Ooma Bluetooth Adapter Integrates Mobile and Home Phones

    Ooma has released the Ooma Bluetooth Adapter that allows Ooma Telo Premier subscribers further integration of their mobile phones with their home phone systems.

    This handy little device allows customers to pair their Telo systems with compatible, Bluetooth-enabled mobile phones and headsets, letting users answer inbound mobile phone calls on any home phone connected to an Ooma Telo. Also, the customers that are using the Telo handset can transfer their call to their Bluetooth headset and be hands-free.

    “Now, customers at home can plug their cell phone in for charging and experience the convenience and quality of answering their mobile calls throughout their home on their home phone system,” according to the company.

    The device enables to use Bluetooth earpiece to talk on the home phone – with up to 30 feet of transmission range. It also enables to pair up to 7 mobile phones or Bluetooth headsets.

    "Ooma is bringing together the functionality of smart phones and the home phone for a simplified user experience," said Tami Bhaumik, Vice President of Corporate Marketing at Ooma.

    "Today’s announcement further demonstrates the power of the Ooma Telo, by integrating the mobile phone into the home phone via Bluetooth technology, offering our customers both money and time savings," he added.

  • TwinStrata Improves Its CloudArray Cloud Storage Software

    TwinStrata and TriCore Solutions announced customer validation of cloud storage solutions for Microsoft Exchange 2010 and Oracle RMAN based on TwinStrata CloudArray software.

    CloudArray is the industry’s first purpose-built architecture and software solution that enables intelligent storage clouds to help companies address challenges related to protecting and managing the growth of business application data.

    CloudArray customers are realizing many benefits from transitioning to an adaptive IT storage infrastructure including the ability to better map business objectives to IT, respond quickly to changing needs, optimize IT operational efficiency and improve IT cost controls.

    CloudArray features include cloud storage provider management across private and public storage clouds and Compute Anywhere technology that delivers business agility and increases data availability for business applications. It also features intelligent caching where cloud storage appears and performs like local iSCSI or file storage.

    CloudArray operates as a virtual appliance and supports all market-leading hypervisors: VMware ESX/ESXi, Citrix XenServer, and Microsoft Hyper-V. CloudArray also operates in the cloud supporting Amazon EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud). CloudArray enables IT solutions for data replication, backup/restore, data archiving, disaster recovery and business continuity, and Compute Anywhere application accessibility both on premise and in the cloud

  • HyperOffice Releases New Version of Cloud-Computing Collaboration Software Suite for SMBs

    HyperOffice made the new version of its award-winning, cloud-computing messaging and collaboration suite widely available to small and medium-sized businesses.

    The release brings to an end a successful beta test program that spanned six months, thousands of users, and continuous enhancements – including innovations guided by a customer-driven Product Development Committee that helped to refine the user interface as HyperOffice reinvented the entire suite.

    The software-as-a-services suite makes it easy for company owners, employees, customers, partners and suppliers to run and grow a business by working together, planning projects, sharing documents, scheduling meetings, and more.

    HyperOffice integrates a range of software-as-a-service business applications over the Internet — shared online calendars and contacts, business class email, document collaboration, project management, web conferencing, databases and web forms; forums, polls and group wikis; project and task portals, Intranets and Extranets; user rights, versioning, commenting, backup, and more.

    HyperOffice builds into the new edition of its namesake web-based collaboration software nearly 10 years of expertise and experience working with small and medium-sized businesses with 5 to 250 employees – and delivers the new edition of the suite after two years of research and development with customers worldwide.

    Under the hood, rebuilt from the ground up, Ajax and an array of Web 2.0 technologies power improvements in performance, scalability and security.

    Where the business user meets the screen, the new version introduces a streamlined, intuitive interface that is instantly familiar to any user of what now becomes the "classic" edition of HyperOffice – yet far more flexible.

    For users ready to migrate online from Microsoft Outlook, SharePoint, Exchange and other conventional, expensive desktop and server email products, HyperOffice provides free support by email and phone, webinars and an array of free, online and custom training options.

    Hosted online, the HyperOffice suite delivers to smaller and medium-sized businesses the power and productivity of costly enterprise collaboration software – for a low monthly subscription fee of about $7 per month, per user, secure, and hassle free.

  • IDC: Mobile Payments Will Take Longer To Bear Fruit than Most Observers Hope

    IDC Financial Insights recently released a new report, which analyzes the mobile payment and mobile banking space in the Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) region.

    The research group highlights that the mobile commerce payments market still has a long way to go before any serious impact will be felt by consumers or by the retail industry.

    “Steady moves by card issuers to increase the adoption of contactless cards and the increasing acceptance of mobile banking as a channel are prerequisites for the emergence of any meaningful, full-sized mobile payments market in Western Europe,” say analysts.

    IDC estimates that the share of contactless/mobile/remote payment transaction in 2015 will be no more than $125 billion with less than 13% of European mobile handset users registered to use a payment service.

    According to the report, the mobile payments industry must focus less on the use of advanced technology to partially replace existing payment methods, and more on the more practical (and sometimes mundane) application of the technology to specific processes.

    A close analysis of the industry shows that over the next three to five years the lack of a positive business case for all players will hamper many mobile payments projects. IDC also predicts that mobile banking (account info access and alerts) will blaze a trail over the next two to three years, laying the foundations for mobile payments.

    According to IDC analysts, key foundations for the success of retail mobile payments in Western Europe lie in the advancement of contactless debit/credit cards POS infrastructure.

    "Mobile payments are still an emerging technology capability that will take significantly longer to bear fruit than most industry observers hope," said Trevor LaFleche, senior research analyst, with IDC Financial Insights’ European banking practice for EMEA.

    "Shifting technological foundations of what constitutes a mobile device will confound industry purists, as has often happened when a technology does not take off as predicted. The varied nature of existing infrastructure and consumer need will continue to split the EMEA region into three distinct segments, which will need to be uniquely served to improve the penetration of the correct payment service to the correct market," he added.

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  • Google Brings Web to TV, Announces Google TV

    At the Google I/O developer conference in San Francisco, leading industry players announced the development of Google TV – an open platform that adds the power of the web to the television viewing experience, ushering in a new category of devices for the living room. Intel, Sony, and Logitech, together with Best Buy, DISH Network and Adobe, joined Google on stage to announce their support for Google TV.

    Over the past decade, the internet has created unprecedented opportunity for innovation and development across the world, but so far the web has largely been absent from living rooms. With Google TV, consumers will now be able to search and watch an expanded universe of content available from a variety of sources including TV providers, the web, their personal content libraries, and mobile applications.

    Search across TV, Web, and Apps

    Google TV is based on the Android platform and runs the Google Chrome web browser. Users can access all of their usual TV channels as well as a world of Internet and cloud-based information and applications, including rich Adobe® Flash based content – all from the comfort of their own living room and with the same simplicity as browsing the web. When coupled with the Intel® Atom™ processor CE4100, Intel’s latest system-on-a-chip designed specifically for consumer electronics, the new platform will offer home theatre quality A/V performance. Sony and Logitech said they would be delivering products based on the new Intel Atom processor and running Google TV later this year. While Google TV is designed to work with any TV operator, at launch the user experience will be fully optimized when paired with DISH Network.

    Google TV expands video choice from the hundreds of channels available today through a pay TV provider to the vast storehouse of video content available through the web and streaming videos. The Google TV experience is complemented by the ability to watch streaming video from leading content platforms, including Netflix, Amazon Video On Demand, and YouTube. Google TV will also have the capability to run apps from the Android Market.

    To navigate the array of content that will now be available through a single device and on a single screen, Google TV introduces an integrated search experience to help viewers easily find relevant content across over-the-air and pay-TV channel listings, DVR, and the Internet, as well as a picture-in-picture layout to access multiple windows simultaneously. Google TV also features an innovative home screen to help viewers quickly organize their favorite content and personalize their TV viewing experience. Some of these features are only available with advanced integration from DISH Network.

    Eric Schmidt, Google Chairman and CEO said, “We are very proud to be working with this distinguished set of partners, all of whom have decades of experience in hardware, design and retail.”

    Sony announced plans to introduce “Sony Internet TV,” the World’s first TV lineup incorporating the Google TV platform. The first models are planned to be introduced in the U.S. market in the Fall of 2010 with the lineup featuring both a standalone TV model and set top box-type unit incorporating a Blu-ray Disc drive.

    Howard Stringer, Chairman, President and CEO, Sony Corporation said, “I am delighted to announce the unique alignment of Google’s rapidly growing, open source Android platform with Sony’s unparalleled expertise in the field of TV design and technology. The addition of ‘Sony Internet TV’ will further bolster Sony’s comprehensive TV lineup and will fuse new levels of enjoyment and interactivity into the TV experience.”

    Logitech will introduce a companion box that brings Google TV to existing HDTV home entertainment systems, easily integrating with any brand of HDTV and set-top box. The companion box will incorporate Logitech’s Harmony® remote control technology, and will include a controller that combines keyboard and remote control capabilities. The company also has plans to introduce an HDTV camera and video chat for Google TV, along with additional choices for navigation and control, including apps to turn a smart phone into an advanced controller for Google TV and home-entertainment systems.

    Gerald Quindlen, President and CEO, Logitech said, “We committed to Google TV early on because it aligns with our strategy to support open platforms that enable new immersive experiences in the digital living room. While Google TV enables seamless discovery of all your content, Logitech enables seamless control over how you experience that content. We look forward to continued collaboration with Google and the developer community to create new Google TV experiences that have yet to be imagined.”

    The Intel Atom CE4100 processor will power both the Logitech and Sony devices. Paul Otellini, Intel President and CEO praised the collaborative effort and said TV as we know it was being “reinvented.” "Today marks the next step in the evolution of TV to Smart TV. TV’s are becoming smarter as a result of the microprocessor and the Internet. Traditional TV programming will be merged seamlessly with the infinite amount of content on the Internet to enable every viewer to determine what they want to watch, when they want it. This is Moore’s Law transforming television, powered by the performance of Intel microprocessors."

    DISH Network has been a key partner with Google on advanced integration development for Google TV. The two partners began a joint trial over a year ago with more than 400 DISH Network and Google beta users. Based on the continuous feedback from the trial, Google and DISH Network have built the optimized Google TV experience that seamlessly integrates traditional TV, DVR and web content.

    Charlie Ergen, Chairman, President and CEO of DISH Network, said, “Google TV marks the next evolution in television, and we are excited to be the first to partner with Google to bring this experience to our customers. Only DISH Network Google TV customers will be able to enjoy a unified search across TV, DVR and web; easily find related content; and manage their entire TV viewing experience. Additionally, the advanced integration will allow developers to create new and exciting applications to enrich the TV viewing experience.”

    Best Buy     will bring their retail experience and consumer expertise to the project, with Google TV devices being sold at Best Buy locations nationwide later this year. “Every day, our 180,000 Blue Shirt store employees and Geek Squad Agents work with our customers to get them the best home theater experience possible”, said Brian Dunn, CEO Best Buy, “We are thrilled about the new and exciting experiences smart TVs, like Google TV, provide to our customers – and we are looking forward to showcasing those experiences in our store and ensuring customers get connected to all the products and services that bring those experiences to life.”

    Finally, Adobe Flash Player 10.1 will be integrated directly into the Google Chrome browser on Google TV, enabling viewers to experience tens of millions of web pages with rich Flash content including games, animations, applications, videos, audio and more. Shantanu Narayen, President and CEO, Adobe said, “An open web ecosystem offers endless opportunities for creativity and innovation. Flash Player 10.1 extends the advantages of full web browsing and consistent, rich experiences to smartphones, tablets, netbooks and Internet-connected TVs. We’re thrilled to be part of the Google TV initiative with other industry leaders who share a common vision of enabling access to the best web experiences possible.”

    Google also plans to open source the Google TV platform to help spur innovation in the industry and so that other developers can benefit from the project. The long term goal is to collaborate with the entire developer community to help drive entertainment in the living room forward and to introduce the next generation of TV-watching experience.

  • Mobile VoIP Becomes a Threat to Tradicional Voice Revenues

    Mobile VoIP is no longer just hype, but has become a credible threat to traditional voice revenues, says Frost & Sullivan.

    According to the research group, considering, that this is only a matter of time when IP becomes the principal transport for various access technologies, an ambitious group of mobile VoIP start-up companies are creating a paradigm shift in the way users communicate with each other, with voice services moving to a true internet era of Telco 2.0.

    New analysis from Frost & Sullivan, Impact of Mobile VoIP on Next Generation Cellular Networks, finds that at the end of 2008, approximately $605.8 million of mobile VoIP revenues were generated in North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and Latin America. This is expected to grow to $29.57 billion by 2015.

    The technologies covered in this research service are high-speed packet access (HSPA), third-generation long-term evolution (3G LTE), global system of mobile communications (GSM), IP multimedia subsystem (IMS), HSPA+, general packet radio service (GPRS), voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) and session initiation protocol (SIP).

    "The emergence of flat rate mobile data pricing, positive growth of smartphone shipments, and high-speed mobile broadband availability has spurred the adoption rate of mobile VoIP," saiid Frost & Sullivan Senior Industry Analyst Saverio Romeo.

    He added that mobile operators realise they can no longer ignore the fact that mobile will be a key component of integrated IP-based communications and next generation wireless technologies such as HSPA+ and LTE.

    According to the report, significant traction in the application space, primarily driven by the success of the iPhone, has resulted in several smartphone vendors making provisions in their applications stores for users to download and use third-party VoIP clients over both wireless fidelity (WiFi) and cellular broadband networks.

    “However –the report continues– many cellular operators have prohibited the use of mobile VoIP over their cellular networks, with some imposing a surcharge to avoid cannibalisation of their circuit-switched voice revenue streams. Moreover, cellular operators face intense competition from the more popular Web-based VoIP alternatives that are permeating the mass market.”

    Romeo claims that despite user demand for cost-effective services, some mobile operators will continue to discourage mobile subscribers from using VoIP over cellular networks and suggest that it will not provide the same quality, efficiency and reliability of services offered by the GSM network.

    "Recent surveys indicate that nearly 60 to 70 per cent of the major European mobile operators prohibit or restrict the usage of VoIP over their popular mobile broadband data plans," he said.

    Analysts say that mobile operators should eventually do away with imposing bans or surcharges to their mobile broadband packages to support mobile VoIP, as the client devices supporting HSPA+ and LTE will be based on open platforms and support SIP for third-party applications.

    "When the operators migrate to an all-IP IMS network, they should drive innovative services such as multimedia telephony, high definition voice, integrating voice with context-based information about the user, and the device from a converged presence-enabled address book," concludes Romeo. "This will enable them to differentiate their services from mobile VoIP start-ups."

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