Greg Galitzine's VoIP Authority Blog: VoIP Archives

VoIP in the Skies is a Social Concern

September 14, 2008 11:46 PM

Andy has an entry today about a NY Times article that talks about VoIP in the Sky.

The interesting thing to note is that using the increasingly available inflight wireless broadand connections are not causing a technological upheaval, but rather the Times article points out that the social challenges of enabling VoIP calling in the cozy confines of an airplane inflight are more the issue.

Check it out for yourself.

It's a good read.

PODCAST: Texas Instruments' Fred Zimmerman

September 12, 2008 8:57 AM

Fred Zimmerman, Director, CPE VoIP Solutions for Texas Instruments' Communications Infrastructure & Voice Business is scheduled to deliver a keynote address at the upcoming Communications Developers Conference taking place in Los Angeles at the LA Convention Center, September 16^th to the 18^th.

Fred will be speaking at 11:30 am on Wednesday the 17^th.

In this podcast interview, Zimmerman touches upon the focus of his keynote as well as TI's role in the SMB market and what's driving SMBs to adopt VoIP.

Zimmerman also discusses advancements in the user's quality of experience, by leveraging such new innovations as HD Voice and Wideband audio, quality of service and "PIQUA", advanced user interfaces and more.

Be sure to check out the podcast, and if you are able to come down to the Communications Developer Conference in LA Convention Center in Los Angeles next week (September 16-18) be sure to schedule your trip to include Zimmerman's keynote at 11:30 am on Wednesday the 17^th.

Yo! Sushi Picks Swyx

September 10, 2008 12:10 PM

At TMC our staff is exceptional. We are no different from most businesses however, when it comes to having what I will call "quirks."

There are those on our team who absolutely LOVE chain restaurants. We have Wendy's fanatics and fans of Rockbottom. We also have a whole contingent of people who simply can't live without sushi.

We write about lots of stuff here at TMC, but we have a certain affinity and history covering VoIP and contact centers .

Well I saw the news today about a chain sushi place called Yo! Sushi selecting a VoIP solution from Swyx, and establishing a call center for their take out service, and I felt I had to note this somehow.

The only thing missing in this release is if Lance Armstrong walked in to eat with James Hetfield; one of them wearing a Yankees cap and a Cowboys jersey and the other waving a terrible towel and wearing a Jose Reyes shirt.

Yo! Sushi ( http://www.yosushi.com ) one of the world's fastest growing restaurant chains chose Swyx to supply an IP telephony solution to replace its aging circuit switched incumbent. The company will upgrade its existing 35 restaurants with the new technology and has aggressive plans to roll-out a further 15 outlets within the next 12 months. The solution will be supplied and implemented by Swyx partner, GP Network Solutions ( http://www.gpnetworksolutions.co.uk

According to Yo! Sushi, IT Manager, Billy Waters, "There are a number of excellent IP based products on the market, however what we liked about the Swyx solution was that it is based on software licenses rather than hardware, therefore in an expanding operation such as ours rolling out new users would be very straightforward and could be handled centrally without third-party support."

According to today's announcement, Yo! Sushi took advantage of the new phone system to bring their home delivery service back in house. According to Waters the flexibility of the system allowed Yo! Sushi to integrate their inbound calls with their customer database and maps package, routing the calls using a non-geographical number to their call centre based in London. This reduced the costs of outsourcing and provided a better service to customers as the agents are all Yo! Sushi employees and therefore have an excellent understanding of the menu.

Quintum, Brekeke Offer Joint IP-PBX Solution

September 9, 2008 9:46 AM

Quintum Technologies, a subsidiary of Network Equipment Technologies (NET), and SIP-based IP PBX maker Brekeke Software announced that they have completed interoperability testing of Quintum's Tenor VoIP MultiPath switches and gateways with Brekeke Software, Inc.'s IP PBX.

An award-winning product, Brekeke PBX is an SIP-based IP-PBX system that provides reliable and scalable IP communications for enterprises and service providers. The Brekeke PBX provides all essential IP-PBX features that enterprise users require, including voicemail to e-mail, "confirm call," and number portability. The newly introduced edition of Brekeke PBX, Multi-Tenant Edition, provides a simple and flexible yet easy to deploy solution for service providers that want to offer hosted IP-PBX services. Brekeke PBX supports both Windows and Linux platforms.

The combination is being hailed as a "perfect fit" by Ernesto Casas, General Manager for Binnacle Technologies, a value added distributor dedicated to VoIP in Latin America.

Early reports from customer camps are positive as well.

Having recently deployed the Quintum/Brekeke combination, Francisco Martin, CTO of Beyond En Linea, a Binnacle client commented, "With the combination of Quintum and Brekeke, we were able to deploy advanced communications for all our employees regardless of where they are located, integrate our remote branch offices in Venezuela, and integrate users in key partner locations."

Truphone Hits iPhone App Store

July 11, 2008 7:44 AM

If you spend any time traveling internationally for business, you understand the challenge of maintaining a high level of connectivity while keeping costs down.

Let's face it, international calling plans are expensive, and frankly the various roaming agreements can be confusing, leaving users trying to remember how much it costs to call from Prague to Paris as opposed to say Peoria or Portofino.

Truphone today announced that their native VoIP client for the iPhone -- developed with Apple's own SDK -- is available at the online iPhone App Store. The application is currently available for download at no charge.

The company has been at the forefront of making mobile VoIP inexpensive and easy to use for some time now. The solution routes calls over WiFi, so if you're near a hotspot and need to make a call you can simply call up the Truphone application on your iPhone and place the call.

Existing Truphone users will recognize the same simple process for initiating a call: one touch to open the keypad/dialer, the actual dialing of the digits (or simply select a contact from the iPhone's own address book), and one touch to launch the call. That's it. No access codes, no fuss, no muss.

Here's a nifty video explaining how the solution works.

ResponsePoint in the Headlines

July 8, 2008 11:47 AM

Microsoft Response Point Service Pack 1 (SP1) is now generally available. Current customers and partners in the U.S. and Canada can download SP1 for free online.

SP1 offers several new features, including SIP trunking for VoIP calling; click-to-call functionality for any contact using the Assistant software; a call history log; the ability to select music for parked calls and hold time, and more.

In a related Response Point announcement, Aastra Technologies Ltd. released its first-ever Response Point-based system, AastraLink RP. AastraLink RP comes pre-loaded with SP1 and is available to customers in the U.S. and Canada starting today.

Tom Keating has more on the ResponsePoint news in his blog today as well.

Telanetix in VoIP Deal With Costco

July 8, 2008 10:57 AM

Location, location, location. We've all hear that adage before. If you want to sell a product or service you need to be where the customers are. And Telanetix, which has just announced the availability of a new VoIP offering in conjunction with Costco Wholesale, believes the customers they seek frequent the big box retailer.

Telanetix' AccessLine Division has announced a combined business phone service and business phone system package to Costco's small business members, targeting small enterprises with five or fewer employees.

According to the company, this represents over 60% of all registered businesses in the U.S.

costco aisle.jpg

Here's an excerpt from the release:

To simplify the purchase process for Costco Members, AccessLine Digital Phone Service is a complete package; it comes with a cutting-edge phone system, complete with all necessary phones, bundled with the phone service itself. The package is packed with features that make the whole purchase and installation process easy for the Costco business member, such as an equipment installment purchase plan rather than a large upfront charge, one point of contact rather than dealing with a service provider and an equipment provider, plug and play installation, and service quality monitoring.

I previously wrote about Costco offering Syspine's Digital Operator Phone System from Quanta Computer, featuring Microsoft's Response Point phone system software.

As VoIP-based phone systems become simpler to install, I would venture to say we'll see many more such announcements from telecom equipment makers and even service providers as they try to reach the small business market.

IP to Sizzle in Dallas This July

June 4, 2008 7:53 AM

ABP Technology announced it is hosting the 5th annual IP Sizzles in Dallas July 28–30, at the Sheraton Grand DFW Hotel.

IP Sizzles is an industry event geared towards resellers and integrators and strives to serve as an educational opportunity where the audience can maximize their business opportunities by connecting with other resellers and integrators as well as industry leaders in VoIP, Wireless, IP Video, IP Infrastructure and IP service providers.

Attendees will have the opportunity to be among the first to see new products from AudioCodes, Mobotix, and others.

Speakers from throughout the IP communications community will focus on an overall theme on the importance of resellers and maximizing the profit channel.

Some of the key IP Sizzles 2008 exhibitors and sponsors are Aastra, Adaptec, AudioCodes, ClearOne, Digium, Linksys, pbxnsip, SMC Networks and snom. Other sponsors include Broadvox and XO.

There will also be a special session “Doubling Your IP Sales in Six Months” focusing on –Solutions Selling and Closing Sales” presented by one of America's top sales trainers.

Registration is open now.

JC Murphy to Head CedarPoint

June 3, 2008 5:13 PM

Erstwhile president of Excel Switching Corp. and Cantata TechnologyJ.C. Murphy has been named CEO of CedarPoint Communications.

Murphy, who was named to Internet Telephony magazine’s list of the Top 100 Voices in IP Communications, is replacing interim CEO Curt Hockmeier who was holding down the fort after the departure of former CEO Andy Paff.

Murphy had been with Cedar Point since October 2007 in the capacity of executive vice president of sales.

Must be the VoIP

May 29, 2008 7:54 AM

Costco Wholesale Corp. said on Thursday its quarterly profit jumped 32 percent, beating expectations.

Net income was $295.1 million, or 67 cents per share, for the fiscal third quarter — 2 cents above the consensus analyst estimate — compared with $224.0 million, or 49 cents per share, a year earlier.

Sales in the quarter rose 13 percent to $16.26 billion, excluding membership fees, which rose to $350.9 million from $317.7 million

Some say it’s because cash strapped consumers are looking for discounts on food and gas.

I say it must be the VoIP.

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