VoIP Blog - Tehrani.com

December 17, 2007

If you are interested in the latest on Mitel and Sir Terry Matthews, be sure to check out this article from Zippy Grigonis titled Mitel Gathers Steam with Netherlands Deal.

 

In the article you will learn how lawn mowers + shipping issues = a telecom company. In addition, this article will let you know about what Mitel and the Dutch government have in common. Finally, you will learn how Mitel is even threatening Cisco in some areas.

 

For more articles from Zippy Grigonis, check out his columnist page.

December 17, 2007

If you have attended any of TMC’s Internet Telephony Conference & Expo’s in the past eighteen months you are no doubt aware that one of the very well attended workshops focuses on SIP trunking.

 

The reason for this is obvious as there are so many IP PBXs that are still connected to the PSTN with gateways and subsequently not taking advantage of SIP to the fullest extent. As companies embrace SIP trunking they are able to save tremendous amount of money on phone calls while improving quality and reducing latency.

 

As we have done in previous events, TMC will once again partner with Ingate to bring you this excellent SIP trunking training at ITEXPO taking place January 23-25 in Miami, FL.

 

As time has evolved, so has this session. Expect lots of new content at the event.

 

Here is the schedule:

 

 

10:00am          Introduction to SIP Trunking

                 ** Live demo of a SIP Trunk deployment to be featured **

12:30pm          The Service Provider Perspective

 

2:30pm           The Enterprise Infrastructure

 

 

8:30am           Myth: VoIP is Not Secure

 

1:15pm           Myth: Enterprise VoIP is Difficult to Deploy

                 ** Live demo of a SIP Trunk deployment to be featured **

 

3:00pm           Myth: SIP Trunking is a Dead End

 

 

10:00am          SIP Forum SIPconnect Compliance Workshop

 

 

Speakers include:

 

   -- IP-PBX vendors Avaya, Bluesocket, BroadSoft, Objectworld, ShoreTel

   -- SIP trunking service providers BandTel, Bandwidth.com, Broadvox,

      Cbeyond

   -- Thought leaders from the SIP Forum, etc.

 

Here are the details and registration information for the SIP Trunking Workshop.

December 17, 2007

When you think of enterprise communications Avaya is certainly one of the first names that comes to mind. A huge player in the space, the company has a tremendous amount of influence in the future shape of things to come in telecom.

 

As we all know by now, one of the fastest-growing segments of the market is unified communications. In order to get a read on Avaya’s positioning in the UC space I decided my readers would benefit from a high level Avaya interview.

 

The following is that interview with Stuart Wells, President, Global Communications Solutions at Avaya. I was pretty interested in many of his thoughts and especially in how Avaya is evolving to become a software company. For more on this and other issues be sure to read the interview to completion.

 

 

 

Avaya began rolling out unified communications to our most mobile employees – executives and sales – in 2003. The solutions enabled a single interface from which staff members could access voice and email, check calendars, launch calls and conference calls and more through voice commands from any device.  They were also equipped with our ground-breaking Extension to Cellular application that simultaneously bridged calls made to their business extensions to their cell phones. This provided “single number access”  to the user, with  greater security and privacy for those who regularly used cell phones for business.  We found the time saved on an average amounted to 15 days per year per user. Since then, we have continued to lead the market in innovative, unified communications applications that enable seamless access to converged real-time and non-real-time communications delivered over any device, any network to users in any location.

 

 

We work very closely with Microsoft to integrate our unified communications capabilities with their desktop applications. We believe that no single vendor will be able to provide all the unified communications applications to fit a company’s need, and the customer should have the right to integrate new and existing applications from preferred vendors. With Avaya and Microsoft, two market leaders come together to provide high value, integrated, real-time and non real-time communications that are tested and proven for interoperability.

 

 

As noted previously, mobility is a key part of our strategy. We’ve classified the different worker mobility profiles as telecommuter, road warrior, campus nomad and deskbound worker. Each has different types of communications needs; each may have one key profile, but almost all have a little of each. As part of our “any network, any device, any location” strategy, all of the technologies that support these mobile workers must also work in concert to reduce the complexity that could render them useless. Avaya has accomplished this through our one-X Mobile, one-X Portal and one-X Speech applications.

 

 

Communications-enabled business processes or CEBP. Avaya introduced the first solution to the market this year and have had significant interest from companies across virtually every single industry sector. CEBP is the latest in emerging technologies and services that embeds communications applications into business applications and processes. CEBP enables a company to detect and act on real-time information and accelerate response and resolution of critical issues. We’ve seen companies that have implemented CEBP reduce processes that normally took several days or weeks to a few hours.

 

 

We expect that Avaya will be a fully-developed software company. We have been moving in this direction for several years already, and nearly 80 percent o our R&D spend today is on software. Our recent transition to a private company will allow us to accelerate and complete that process in all areas.

December 17, 2007

Vonage just can’t catch a break these days and seems to be the target of more lawsuits related to patent infringements than just about any other company out there. The latest patent fight is with Nortel, a company who says Vonage is infringing on twelve of its patents.

 

``Defending our intellectual property rights is a top priority for Nortel,'' said Nortel spokesman Mohammed Nakhooda. ``That's why we are seeking damages and to put an injunction on the use of our technology with respect to Vonage.''

 

``The litigation is ongoing and both parties have filed and will continue to file papers,'' said Vonage spokesman Charles Sahner. Nortel's filing ``is a countersuit in defense.''

 

Generally speaking when a company becomes as high profile as Vonage they also have an arsenal of patents. These patents act as a defense against patent lawsuits as it is generally assumed that all large companies infringe on one another’s patents.

 

A large patent portfolio is like having nuclear weapons. In both cases, if you are attack, there will be mutually assured destruction.

 

I am of course speaking in generalities here… There are always exceptions like Alcatel-Lucent suing Microsoft for $1.5 billion over MP3 technology.

 

What this news tells us is that Vonage will continue to be the communication industry’s punching bag. It has few if any patents to protect it and enough money to pay if you sue and win.

 

See Also:

 

AP: Nortel Files Lawsuit Against Vonage

Bloomberg: Nortel Claims Vonage Violates Internet-Phone Patents

Russell Shaw: Nortel sues Vonage for patent infringement

Tom Keating: Vonage Outage