Tag Archive
8×8: Service outage caused by unaffiliated ISP interference
8×8’s VoIP service outage on January 12 lasted about four hours and resulted in some frustration for both customers and the company itself. 8×8 was gracious enough to provide us with some more details about what exactly happend. According to Joan Citelli, director of Corporate Communications for 8×8, the outage occured when an unaffiliated Tier-1... »
UC to grow to $30B market
According to two new reports from Wainhouse Research, the market for unified communications will grow to $30 billion within five years. Rapid growth will be due in large part to the complexity of premises-based UC products with UC services revenues outgrowing traditional conferencing services by 2013 or 2014. The market will rebound in the short... »
Skype for Business brings on new talent
As Skype gets more serious about its business VoIP offerings, it is bringing on new talent. David Gurle will be taking over for Stefan Oberg as the new General Manager and Vice President of the Skype for Business unit. Gurle came to Skype from Thomson Reuters where he served as Global Head of Collaboration Services... »
Packet8 back online after outage
8×8 says the failure of its VoIP system Packet8 yesterday was caused, according to the company, by “an Internet element beyond our control.” The service returned by 4:30 PM pacific time and the company is still looking into the causes of the disruption. A major issue during the disruption was 8×8’s own internal systems (including their website) went down... »
Windstream launches new VoIP/SIP service
Windstream is launching a new VoIP and SIP Trunking solution called Dynamic Office-SIP. The tier 2 telco’s business services solution will combine voice, data, high-speed Internet with IP communications using SIP to provide cost-savings over legacy phone systems. The new IP communications offering provides customers with access to Windstream’s private IP network allowing customers to... »
Voxbone sees growth in 2009
Not everyone is blaming the recession this year, some are actually announcing good news! Belgium-based Voxbone, which provides local and toll-free phone numbers over its own private VoIP network worldwide, saw substantial growth in 2009. Voxbone’s 2009 revenue was up 60 percent over 2008. Unfortunately, since Voxbone is a private company they didn’t actually disclose... »
T-Mobile drops @Home VoIP service
T-Mobile has announced that they will no longer be offering their land-line replacement service @Home which allowed customers to make wireless VoIP calls over their home broadband connection. Users of the service could make calls from their mobile phones by connection to T-Mobile’s @Home HiPort wireless router–allowing for unlimited nationwide VoIP calls for $9.99... »
MagicJack ‘femtojack’ uses mobile phones to make VoIP calls
The people behind MagicJack, a plug-and-play VoIP device, have recognized the trend of consumers cutting their traditional landline voice connections like much of the telecom industry and have updated their offering to reflect that. MagicJack’s original offering was a USB device that came with a phone jack–plug your regular landline phone into the MagicJack,... »
Siemens, Shared Technology team to bring OpenScape to enterprises
Siemens and distribution partner Shared Technology are joining forces and targeting enterprises looking to migrate from legacy to IP/UC on an incremental basis. The offering will allow companies to expand their IP systems on a seat-by-seat license basis with incremental pricing. Buying OpenScape by the seat will mean initial cost savings for cash strapped businesses... »
Cisco brings TelePresence to the home
Last week at CES, Cisco unveiled its TelePresence system for consumer homes. The system used a set-top device, a remote control, a high-def camera, microphone, and a standard HDTV. The device is expected to cost around $1,000 excluding the cost of the TV and consumers’ monthly Internet bills. The company plans to trial its telepresence... »
Carrier 2010 capex spending to focus on IP backhaul and edge networking
Telecom spending is set to grow in 2010 according to Avian Securities but that growth might not be in the move to IP communications equipment as carriers do not need much equipment. According to Avian Securities analyst Catharine Trebnick, spending will grow 1.5% to $57.7 billion in 2010. Spending will focus mainly on IP backhaul... »
8×8 launches HD voice for its Virtual Office product
8×8’s small business and enterprise VoIP product ‘Virtual Office’ now has HD voice. HD audio quality will be available for the company’s branded IP phone models 6753i, 6755i, and 6757i. HD calls double the regular VoIP sampling rate from 8K to 16K samples per second making calls clearer and more detailed. Current 8×8 customers will... »
CES: Ooma adds Pure Voice, HD and Google Voice
Ooma has announced new upgrades to their Ooma Telo service at CES this week. The new additions include Ooma Pure Voice, HD Voice, iPhone and iPod Touch calling, Bluetooth, Google Voice support and voicemail transcription. Ooma Pure Voice insures that call quality is maintained even over congested home networks where family members are also streaming... »
Skype puts HD video calling on your TV
Finally something from one of my favorite movies, Back to the Future II, has come true. No, we haven’t invented hover skateboards–this is a VoIP-focused publication, remember? We can, however, finally get video phone calls via our HD televisions using Skype. Skype has launched an HD video calling feature for PCs as long as users... »
Nortel gets court OK on GENBAND CVAS bid
Nortel has obtained Canadian and U.S. court approval for GENBAND’s stalking horse agreement as well as bidding procedures for the sale of its Carrier VoIP and Application Solutions business. Nortel announced that at a joint hearing it obtained orders from the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware and the Ontario Superior Court... »
AT&T to FCC – Kill the PSTN
AT&T has an answer to the FCC’s questions about moving to an all-IP network: Kill the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) and do it sooner rather than later so we can get on with it. AT&T has asked the FCC to set a firm deadline much like the deadline given to television broadcasters to switch from... »
VoIP: Industry of the Decade
Say what you want about where the cool new gadgets are popping up, but according to some analysts, the ‘naughts’ were all about VoIP growth. According to IBISWorld, VoIP was ranked ‘industry of the decade’ for the decade just come to a close. According to the IBISWorld report “in the short period [from 2002 when... »
2010: The Year of Google VoIP?
Could 2010 be the year of Google VoIP? Perhaps. TMC blogger Tom Keating puts some puzzle pieces together and asks if Google VoIP is coming in 2010. He posits that Google’s recently acquired Gizmo5 has a superior client to Google Talk–and might see the original Google Talk phased out and the Gizmo5 software renamed. Keating... »
More on GENBAND’s Nortel CVAS bid
Just before the holiday break, GENBAND threw its hat into the Nortel ring in hopes of acquiring the Canadian vendor’s much coveted Carrier VoIP and Application Solutions (CVAS) unit. GENBAND launched a ’stalking horse’ bid for Nortel’s CVAS unit offering a purchase price for the CVAS unit of $282 million, but the total cost of... »
Telefonica buys JAJAH
Rumors just before the year’s end had surfaced that O2 was going to purchase Internet VoIP company JAJAH and it looks like they were true. Telefonica, O2’s parent company, has reportedly purchased JAJAH for $207 million. JAJAH works much like Skype in that users make VoIP calls over the Internet. The purchase will see JAJAH... »
Top Stories of 2009: SIP trunking and Unified Communications gain momentum
In 2009 it was hard to look through VoIP news and not bump into another announcement about a SIP or Unified Communications (UC) deal. Both items have gained momentum and are becoming the rule in the VoIP world. According to Infonetics, SIP trunking service revenue is expected to have an 89 percent compound annual growth rate... »
Top Stories of 2009: It’s the economy stupid!
With the 2009 economy almost in the can, there has been much debate about what that means for VoIP. The nature of our industry gives it both pros and cons in times of financial cut backs and companies looking to save a dime. VoIP upgrades often mean expensive equipment purchases and buildouts but also... »
Top Stories of 2009: Google gets serious about VoIP
In some ways, the story of Google getting into VoIP isn’t quite finished. The moves the Internet company has made are intriguing, but we haven’t seen their end product yet. The roots of Google’s VoIP play began in 2007 when it acquired Grand Central, a Unified Communicaitons (UC) company. When the acquisition was completed, Grand Central... »
Top Stories of 2009: Acquisitions – VoIP on Sale
Despite the economy, the VoIP and UC market had a few big buys. Some were fraught with negotiation, litigation or last minute actors swooping in from nowhere. Here are a few notable deals worth noting in 2009: Avaya buys Nortel ES – In June, Nortel began selling off its various units and it was only a... »
Top Stories of 2009: Mobile VoIP gets real
There are two different and sometimes warring sides to the Mobile VoIP world. There are the application and software developers who have created mobile VoIP apps that use carrier data networks and circumvent carrier voice plans, and then there are the carriers who sometimes wish to block such applications while also making plans to... »
KPN closing deal for iBasis
KPN has reached an agreement with iBasis to buy the remaining 44 percent share of the long distance telephone call and VoIP wholesale provider for $3 a share or $93 million in cash. iBasis’ board has approved the terms–urging shareholders to finally accept the tender offer. KPN plans to complete the acquisition by the... »
Victim of success: VoIP vulnerability tripled since 2006
McAfee labs has released an alarming white paper about the state of VoIP security. According to the report, they found almost 60 vulnerabilities in VoIP products. In 2006 they found only 20 such breaches. McAfee attributed the increase in security problems to better hacker technology to find and exploit VoIP vulnerabilities, but mainly to the... »
VoIP semiconductor market could see uptick with new VoIP spend
Frost and Sullivan has released a new report on how VoIP cost savings is a key growth factor for the semiconductor market for VoIP applications. In some ways, this is a new take on a trend we’ve been hearing all year. The tough economy has made sales soft for everyone, but we’ve seen some uptick... »
Rumor Mill: O2 buying Jajah
VoIP start-up Jajah may be purchased by O2 for $200 million according to a daisy chain of reports originating from a Hebrew-language news site but re-reported in the Washington Post, on Reuters and CNET. According to reports, Jajah representatives were not available to confirm the $200 million purchase or the bidding war that preceded it.... »
It’s official – Avaya now owns Nortel ES
At long last, months since the September auction which saw Avaya win Nortel’s Enterprise Solutions unit over Siemens, the $900 million deal has gone through. The purchase of Nortel’s ES unit closed Friday and now the industry has to wait and see how the merger will take shape. Some industry voices are wondering if the... »