VoIP news

In the enterprise the Bold and Storm have calmed the iPhone

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 14:45:12 -0500

By Carl Ford

My IT friends on Wall Street have always looked at the IPhone as an annoyance. Most of them were not Apple friendly to begin with, and have shown much reluctance to allow the iPhone into the support system.

In other words you can get one, but you are on your own, which actually is probably where you would be anyway. However, I would like to point out as I survey the world market, the iPhone may be the first phone consistently available and offered worldwide. Traditionally, local phones can roam internationally, but they are not the same all over. Apple is starting a new trend line here to follow.

However with RIM & AT&T's Bold and RIM & Verizon's Storm, the Enterprise Architect has something they can point to that is "kewl" enough to hold the dogs back. And now that the bloom is off the rose, the iPhone has some interesting quirks that I think will allow the IT folks to hold it back.

Here are the notes from the family test lab.
Number 1. Hanging up the phone is actually hard. Disconnects have to be forced otherwise you find that you are hearing that wonderful tone to tell you there is a phone off hook without a call.
Number 2. Texting does not get the benefit of the landscape keyboard. In other words the iPhone is friendlier to email even though its client base probably likes text better. The other complaints are not particularly relevant to a discussion about the enterprise.

The RIM devices are not without problems, either. Friends with the Storm complain that some keys on the visual keyboard are impossible to click. So while the experience starts great, the frustration with the keyboard is problematic. However, the pressures of downsizing results in a number of RIMs being returned to the Enterprise and contracts to be bought out or renegotiated as a group.
On Wall Street, the Enterprise Architect has other issues to cope with. Like the auditing of the seat reduction as the company downsizes. With the tragedy in Mumbai, and thousands of employees being let go, the centralized directory of employees and their functions are going to be critical to continue productivity.

And yet with all this turmoil, some opportunity exists.

Whatever trials were going on or tools were being rolled out, if they were justified before these turbulent times, the loss of seats provides a savings that allows the roll out to be seen as a necessary supportable upgrade. Microsofts' OCS will be a beneficiary, but video systems from Cisco and Polycom are right now still leading the pack.
The good news for the employees involved in these trials is that they are being kept to implement these tools. And who knows they may become consultants after the project is over.

Acme Packet new Net-Net product offering

Pete Wylie — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 09:19:17 -0400

Acme Packet announced today the release of the Net-Net 4500, an intermediate SBC offering that will sit between its existing Net-Net 4250 and 9000 products. In most configurations, the Net-Net 4500 has more than 100 percent more capacity for calls per second, media streaming and IPsec tunnel capacity than the 4000 series.

The improved performance ability of the Net-Net 4500 will benefit service providers facing ever-increasing demands on their networks as subscriber bases increase and the total number of data streams balloons.

In addition to cutting costs due to its increased performance ability and processing power, the Net-Net 4500 is more energy efficient as its redesigned power supply system uses far less energy than the 4000 series, according to Jonathan Zarkower, director of product marketing for Acme Packet.

"The Net-Net 4500 has undergone significant field testing, where it produced valid performance numbers, and we have completed its beta deployment," Zarkower said.

Zarkower said some of the Tier 1 customers Acme Packet already serves have seen increased performance and subscriber satisfaction after implementing the Net-Net 4500. He also mentioned the potential benefits of using the Net-Net 4500 to support public service security gateways and WiFi.

Acme Packet initially planned to include a prominent customer who beta tested the product in the Net-Net 4500's release materials, but decided to launch without. Zarkower declined to comment on the lead users of Net-Net 4500.

Given Acme Packet's present market share of over 50 percent of the SBC space and long list of customers, expect implementation of the Net-Net 4500 to be wide-spread as VoIP continues to replace TDM communications within enterprise space.

For more:
- see the Net-Net 4500 release here

Will Ebay auction Skype?

Pete Wylie — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 14:09:12 -0400

EBay admitted that it paid far too much when it acquired Skype in 2005 for $2.5 billion. Today, analysts and investors are clamoring that Skype's lagging growth and growing competition may require a sell-off of the VoIP/IM/video company.

When first purchased, EBay expected Skype to fuel its online auction business by providing an ultra-cheap ways for buyers and sellers to connect directly online. But the two companies have remained apart and failed to build a joint story

Skype continues to face increasing pressure to perform beyond even reasonable expectations, as EBay's growth slows and adoption of Skype for auction communications proves to be marginal. Granted, Skype has had six consecutive (but marginally) profitable quarters and plans new iterations of its trademark offering that has already won hundreds of millions of users. But that might not be enough for EBay to continue to hold on to the Luxembourg-based company.

Rumors abound that EBay seeks to spin Skype off to another suitor and Google is not surprisingly at the front of these M&A rumors.

Any potential sale also will be shadowed by rumors of the Skype backdoor, narrowing market cap and potential security issues with payment plans.

For more:
- read the full report at businessweek.com. Article.

SPOTLIGHT: iPod Touch finally VoIP-able

Pete Wylie — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 13:04:45 -0400

Clever hardware buffs have found a pathway to enable VoIP calls on the newly released iPod Touch and Classic. Apple enabled the headphone jack to accept external microphones, with the intention of letting clients record voice memos on the devices. But with the right application, users could manipulate the external microphone capability to enable VoIP calls over WiFi through clients like Jajah and Skype.

Apple has yet to clarlify on its stance on VoIP calls over WiFi; the company expressly forbids VoIP calls using either the EDGE of 3G networks.

For more:
- see the blog post on macrumors.com

Verizon Business adds new features to wholesale VoIP

Pete Wylie — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 14:16:03 -0400

Verizon Business has adding the SIP Gateway Outbound Service to its VoIP wholesale product list. The new addition uses virtual rather than physical trunking to achieve higher transfer and processing speeds, which in turn delivers more calling options, faster service initiation and faster long-distance call processing, says Verizon.

Gary Elliott, senior project manager for the SIP product, said it completed beta testing around a month ago, and customers have already started using the new system.

"SIP Gateway Outbound Service provides scalable and cost-effective solutions to customers moving to SIP or VoIP offerings from TDM services," Elliott said. "The flexibility for the customer in routing traffic with Gateway Outbound is a big positive that makes it competitive in the market."

SIP Gateway Outbound Service allows calls to originate from URI and URL Internet formats, as well as the traditional numbering format. It also offers compatibility with Remote Party ID signaling configuration, in addition to the P-asserted ID signaling configuration, which previous iterations of the SIP client have supported.

Elliott said other companies charge their customers extra to have both configurations accepted, or only support one.

"It's just an example of how we try to do everything to make it easier for customers to get the best possible service for the lowest price," Elliott said. "I think Verizon's offerings just have more bang for your buck than other competitors in the space, and the SIP Gateway Outbound Service is another step in making our product line even more robust."

For more:
- see the Verizon press release about its outbound SIP gateway

Related Articles
Verizon gets props for wholesale VoIP
Verizon Business VoIP, UC Expand Across Europe

Agito launches new UC solution

Pete Wylie — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 08:52:08 -0400

Agito Networks announced the release of RoamAnywhere v2.0, a UC solution that enables secure remote VoIP calls, allows enterprise customers to keep a "dual persona" and cuts costs through advanced location routing technology. Agito's software is also compatible with thirty five dual-mode handsets, which company co-founder Pejman Roshan said is far more than any competitor.

Roshan said the dual persona capability RoamAnywhere v2.0 offers is very attractive to enterprise customers.

"Our application allows the customer to connect to the office securely and remotely, with the additional benefit of having dedicated numbers for business and home life accessible on the same VoIP enabled phone," Roshan said. "Customers can flag specific contacts, either setting them to always come through, to come through only during certain hours, or to never come through."

An additional benefit of RoamAnywhere v2.0 is a group of sophisticated proactive and policy based settings for Least Cost Routing, which is controlled by an administrator to optimize performance and cut costs.

"The standard way calls used to be transferred in similar solutions was through reactive measures, such as when a call started to lose signal strength," Roshan said. "Our solution lets administrators set points for instant transfer, such as doorways to the business. This allows seamless transfer before a call starts to fail, which improves quality of service."

Network operators can also set switch points between cellular and VoWLAN services on basis of battery life and location of calls to cut costs on long distance service.

For more:
- Agito spreads the news about RoamAnywhere Release

Former ITXC execs sentenced

Pete Wylie — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 16:35:11 -0400

A former managing director of wholesale VoIP provider ITXC found guilty of bribery will avoid prison due to cooperation with federal authorities, according to a Dept. of Justice release. Roger Young, will receive five years probation, three months each of home confinement and community confinement, and a $7,000 fine. Young was found guilty along with former ITXC Vice President Steven J. Ott, who was also given five years probation, but was also given the harsher sentence of six months each of home and community confinement and a $10,000 fine.

Young and Ott plead guilty in July to conspiracy charges related to a scheme in which $267,000 in illegal "commissions" were given to employees of African-based telecommunications companies in exchange for continued contracts with ITXC (purchased by Teleglobe Bermuda Ltd. in 2004).

The payments violated the anti-bribery provisions of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

Both Ott and Young were given reduced sentences due to continued cooperation with the FBI, which is still investigating the case. They admitted to conspiring to making the payments, in knowing violation of the provisions of the law.

Time will tell if the investigation will roll heads at any other notable VoIP firms in connection with Young and Ott's conspiracy.

For more:
- read all the sordid details in the Dept. of Justice report

Fonality and snom partner

Pete Wylie — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 13:16:21 -0400

Fonality continued to add partners to its "ecosystem" this week, as German firm snom technologies announced it would be a third-party partner for deployments of Fonality IP-PBX systems. snom makes advanced VoIP phones, such as the 3xx series and m3 IP Dect, for the SMB market, which Fonality already targets extensively.

snom leadership praised the partnership, saying it would allow them to offer a high-quality, open-source solution to their existing customer base and future clients.

Fonality's FACE program (Fonality Authorized Certified Ecosystem) allows resellers and third-party vendors to assure customer confidence and decrease issues like hardware malfunction and non-compliance. These companies also offer increased integration with Fonality's products, including trixbox CE, trixbox Pro and PBXtra.

For more:
- see the press release here

SPOTLIGHT ON: Adobe adds new AIR VoIP application

Pete Wylie — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 12:02:23 -0400

Adobe's new AIR app will be more convenient to flashphone users who do not want their VoIP program to be browser-based. After downloading AIR, they can use the softphone, but also downsize it to the system tray to receive incoming calls while browsing other things. This process ensures users can verify their online status while keeping the softphone open. Adobe opened up a comment page on its website, and put an open call out to users to suggest improvements and give feedback to improve the new offering.

For more:
- see the tmc.net blog post

VoIP helps hurricane response

Pete Wylie — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 10:58:35 -0400

The Voice over Internet Protocol Hurricane Net (VoIPWX) responded to the multiple landfalls of Hurricane Gustav in unprecedented fashion, showing how VoIP networks are revolutionizing disaster response and reporting. VoIPWX's mission is to help save lives and property during hurricanes through RF to VoIP transmissions of local weather conditions and the timely dissemination of this information to authorities such as the National Hurricane Center.

Public information officer Lloyd Colston said VoIPWX's response to Hurricane Gustav was a success story for the organization.

"We got reports from places we never would have heard from so soon 10 years ago," Colston said. "When Gustav made landfall in Jamaica, we got many reports, and analyzed them as a team, where we needed to send them, who could best address them. We also got a lot of reports from Cuba once it made landfall there, and we were able to pass them on to the appropriate authorities so that people could get the help they needed."

Colston stressed the importance of establishing connections before a storm landfall is imminent, as those connections that can be tested and networked before a storm situation are more effective. He said the ham radio community slowly accepted the transition to VoIP more and more as the efficacy of the program was demonstrated.

VoIPWX could get another big test soon, if Hanna threatens the U.S., Colston said VoIPWX would be ready.

"The program lets people send in specific conditions on the ground, like wind speed, barometric pressure, and any flooding that may be occurring," Colston said. "In the future, with AirCards and such, I think it the updates could be even more frequent and sustainable during a big storm."

For more:
- see the VoIPWX website here

Related Article
Howe: A Telco 2.0 Technology Primer

CONTACT CENTER CORNER: Proactive Customer Contact, Leading-Edge Solutions

Wed, 03 Sep 2008 09:07:20 -0400

By Joe Outlaw

The available solutions to support proactive customer contact run the gamut from single function to multi-function, from stand-alone to fully integrated with other customer contact systems, and from premise-based to hosted. And, any combination of these capabilities and attributes is also available.

Single Function vs. Multi-Function

Single function solutions or, more accurately, solutions with a small number of features/functions are at one end of the spectrum. These can include basic alerting from most of the leading contact center vendors, including Avaya, Aspect Software, Cisco, Interactive Intelligence and Genesys as well as specialty or best-of-breed vendors, such as Envox for outbound IVR and MIR3, or Premiere Global, and Varolii for alerting.

Excellent multi-function solutions, those that support a broad range of proactive customer contact applications (outbound IVR-based, automated dialing, alerting, customer feedback), are also available from the leading contact center vendors, listed above.

Stand-alone vs. Fully-Integrated

There is still a healthy selection of stand-alone customer feedback solutions from vendors including: CDC Respond, Metatude, Qualtrics, Ransys, RatePoint, ResponseTEK, Statmetrics, Vovici and Zoomerang. There are also a few stand-alone IVR platforms and automated dialers available, such as from Envox and SER. But, as I mentioned earlier in this series, the demand for stand-alone or point solutions for proactive contact is fading as the recognition that more comprehensive approaches are more effective.

Fully integrated proactive customer contact solutions are available from the leading contact center vendors, as well as from systems integrators who build the linkages between a set of third party components.

Premise-based vs. Hosted

Almost all of the leading proactive customer contact solutions are either premise-based or hosted. The economic trade-offs of these two alternatives are well known. Other considerations for choosing hosted services include rapidly changing technology and relative scarcity of experienced speech application developers -- in the case of outbound IVR applications, and seasonality or extreme peaks in demand --- such as for alerting services.

Particularly Noteworthy

Interactive Intelligence's Interaction Dialer now supports "skills-based dialing" which analyzes the requirements of the customers on the target contact list and selects/calls only contacts that can be effectively handled by the available agent pool.
Aspect Software's Unified IP supports the broadest range of dialing options (preview, power, predictive, progressive and precision) and offers an optional Advanced List Management capability, which supports multi-tenant deployments and multiple dialers, at multiple sites, on multiple databases.

Part 1 in this series introduced the business drivers for proactive customer contact, Part 2 reviewed the leading-edge business uses of proactive customer contact solutions and services, and Part 4 will highlight proactive customer contact success stories.

Joe Outlaw is President and Chief Analyst of Outlaw Research, a firm that provides results-oriented analysis and consulting of the customer contact marketplace. The objective of Outlaw Research is building a community around the leading edges of customer contact -- the advanced strategies early-adopter companies are applying and the technologies and vendors they are working with.

Analyst: Slow adoption of 802.11r affects VoIP

Pete Wylie — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 10:55:50 -0400

The 802.11r wireless network standard will likely be a useful innovation, despite slow adoption by enterprise users, according to Rob Bamforth, principal analyst at researcher Quocerca. The recently ratified standard, which enables WiFi devices to maintain seamless communication while switching between access points on WLANs, is a remedy for the original standard's failure to account for roaming access.

The standard will help VoIP adoption, because presently, VoIP devices have QoS and security issues because it takes 100 milliseconds to switch from one access point to another, according to an IT Pro report. The amended protocol will improve QoS and reduce the hand-off time to less than 50 milliseconds, a common industry benchmark for maximum delay.

Bamforth predicted that enterprise users would need time to integrate the new standard, however, and present investment in VoIP would be a major indicator to adoption speed.

For more:
- IT Pro's full report on the 802.11r uptake

VoIP costs, demand on the rise

Pete Wylie — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 13:57:45 -0400

VoIP services are now almost twice as expensive per hour as other IT services, but despite the expense, VoIP continues to grow faster than other IT services, according to an OnForce report released today. The report credits large roll-outs of tech products like flat-screen TVs and wireless networks for the increase in demand for services.

The OnFocus report also expressed surprise that VoIP service costs are growing faster than other IT services, even though VoIP is already the most expensive. VoIP services were more than three times as expensive as the lowest-cost IT services, such as point-of-sale and printer and software, according to the report.

For more:
- Phoneplusmag.com digests the OnForce report.