Last month I discussed a rumor regarding 8x8/Packet8 providing SIP trunking services. It turns out this rumor was true as today the company released the news they will not only provide SIP trunking but a more comprehensive product they call... continue reading...
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You can't escape the reality that interconnectivity between humans will increase at a more rapid pace as time goes on. The myriad ways in which we connect with one another, e-mail, social networks, blogging, IM, SMS, telephone, voicemail and others... continue reading...
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Expect Sipera, the Texas-based company focusing on VoIP/UC security to look for resellers to sell their products worldwide. Brenadan Ziolo, the company's VP of Marketing Operations visited TMC this week to brief us on where the company is going with... continue reading...
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Let's say your company plays in a few different spaces such as information technology, security and storage. And let's say your company has decided to build a community of interest which is dedicated to a specific subject area as you... continue reading...
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Recently, AudioCodes released the Mediant 1000 MSBG (Multi-Service Business Gateway) a device which combines the following: media gateway, enterprise class session border controller, data router, firewall, LAN Switch, WAN access, Stand Alone Survivability and an on-board general purpose server. This... continue reading...
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Yes this is a short post but what more is there to say beyond the fact that 87% of respondents in a UK survey said they would deploy unified communications. The UK is turning out to be a great market... continue reading...
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Right now the small business market is the shining star in communications -- plenty of growth is predicted in this space and small businesses for the most part are behind the tech curve -- meaning they need to catch up.... continue reading...
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Greg Galitzine broke the news regarding the new Digium Switchvox AA300, a new appliance dedicated to companies with about 150 users. The box also supports 45 simultaneous calls, 10 recorded and 15 simultaneous conference calls. Tom Keating speculates about... continue reading...
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T-Mobile is already not thrilled AT&T will replace them as the service provider of choice in Starbucks stores, now the GSM-based service provider who was early to embrace WiFi is losing revenue due to the new AT&T/Starbucks promotion of free... continue reading...
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It seems that if you do not blog about the iPhone this weekend you will be out touch with the blogging and news gathering communities. It is just that important. On Monday we will have a new Apple mobile device... continue reading...
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I have had a few months to use the Plantronics Calisto Pro Series wireless telephone and bluetooth headset and I remain tremendously impressed by this solution which I say is perfect for the small business who wants maximum flexibility... continue reading...
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There are so many communications companies pushing products and services revolving around virtual worlds, one wonders if we are about to see a new subset of communications break out and achieve mass appeal like VoIP, the iPhone or Blackberry. Do... continue reading...
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Will LTE fuel IMS? Bob Emmerson seems to think so and he has a great point. With similar elements defined in WiMAX, LTE and IMS, the chances that carriers will have to install more and more IMS components are good.... continue reading...
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If you are an SMB and you feel you would like to pay less for voice and data service, perhaps now is the time for you to rejoice... Well at least smile. The reason is there is a new flat... continue reading...
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Be sure to visit TMC's newest Global Online Community (GOC), Telephony Hardware sponsored by Pika Technologies. Why would you visit? Simply because regularly visiting a TMC community is an ideal way to learn about a specific topic such as in this... continue reading...
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Later this week I will be a video reporter at the Telx CBX (customer business exchange) event in New York. I always like the CBX events and am looking forward to meeting with the companies in the carrier hotel space... continue reading...
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Recently the Bahamas Telecom Company (BTC) decided to migrate its existing countrywide wireline network to IP using Sonus and Calix gear. The move to IP will reduce the amount of equipment that needs managing and in addition, the Bahamian phone... continue reading...
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I came across an interesting article in the New York Times by Randall Stross which discusses consumer VoIP services, the differences in quality between them and the general trend towards multiple services of lower reliability replacing a single service (PSTN)... continue reading...
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I am really looking forward to IP Sizzles 2008 -- formerly VoIP Sizzles 2008. What is it you ask? Well I am glad you did. IP Sizzles is an event put on by ABP which focuses on educating resellers on... continue reading...
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You may recall past writings about how TMCnet has been building communities of interest for customers worldwide in an effort to educate purchasing decision makers about the products and services in different subsets of the communications and technology markets. Our... continue reading...
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In a way, I must thank VocalTec because it was companies like them that helped me realize how IP would revolutionize communications and further help me decide to launch a magazine dedicated to the market in 1997. VocalTec was one... continue reading...
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In an effort to further educate purchasing decision-makers and influencers in the world of communications and technology, TMC has partnered with Digium to build an Asterisk Global Online Community. The goal of TMCnet's communities (and channels which are micro-communities) is... continue reading...
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If you are interested in analysis on the ClearWire WiMAX deal and other facets of the exciting WiMAX industry, you are in luck as Sidecut Reports has a new report which goes into depth on all parts of the burgeoning... continue reading...
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Wow! Yes -- I know we are supposed to be in a slowdown and all -- but if the news that Sangoma had yet another record quarter is not enough to let you know that there are strong pockets of... continue reading...
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The SIP Forum seems to be making some nice progress in attracting a broad swath of companies to its organization. In case you aren't aware, The SIP Forum is a non-profit IP communications industry association that engages in numerous activities... continue reading...
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Does cell phone use cause behavioral problems in children? A new study is out on the the matter and while it is not conclusive it did find increased cell phone use does seem to lead to children with more behavioral... continue reading...
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It has been a long weekend for many in the US as the weather these past few days was fantastic and based on the level of incoming e-mail I received, it seems many in the tech and telecom industries took... continue reading...
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I just read about a company which allows Flash to SIP and SIP to Flash video calls. This could be useful for situations where SIP is not an option for whatever reason. According to ISC the company behind Flashphone.ru, video... continue reading...
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I spent part of my morning on Alex Saunders' Squawk Box -- a gathering place for industry analysts and thought leaders to discuss important technology issues of the day. Topics today included Ariel Waldman's harassment allegations against Twitter. This conversation... continue reading...
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Objectworld's CEO, David Levy Objectworld is a Canadian-based software-only company providing unified communications solutions for small to medium businesses. Their solution includes UM, fax server, IVR, TTS, Exchange & Lotus Notes integration, etc. Objectworld's solutions work with about 90% of... continue reading...
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If you haven't been watching, you may have missed the fact that TMC's Communications Developer event has been gaining some major top level sponsors and I have taken an early look at the registration database and there are a good... continue reading...
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Zed-3 is the company most people have never heard of but it is backed by telecom veteran Iain Milnes who launched Zarak -- the successful testing company later sold to Spirent and Zultys -- the company which made a... continue reading...
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As the wireless industry evolves, the level of complexity has evolved with it allowing companies such as Starent Networks to thrive by delivering technology which enables carriers to deliver rich content multimedia services. We all have cell phones and it... continue reading...
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Without a doubt, the new Netflix Player by Roku set top box will become a serious contender for the title "iPod of the world of television." I haven't seen this device yet but based on what I have read... continue reading...
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Remember when hosted communications was called Centrex? Those were the days. Life was slower back then. We didn't have smart phones -- really we didn't even have mobile phones. Heck, we didn't even have e-mail or voicemail... My, how things... continue reading...
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MindWireless is focused on the wireless expense management space which as you might imagine is an area of growing importance inside telecom expense management. Just think about how complicated it is to manage wireless gadgets as employees have become obsessed... continue reading...
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With a majority stake in VMware and a commanding lead of the storage space, what's not to like about EMC. If you are Cisco, it makes sense to pick up EMC now because the stock is down a bit and... continue reading...
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Congratulations to CNET for being acquired by CBS for a 40% premium. I have always admired the company and I am curious to see how it changes as it becomes part of a larger media company which has so many... continue reading...
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I have heard a rumor regarding 8x8/Packet8 getting into the SIP trunking business. No confirmation yet but this makes great sense as this area of the market is doing well. All trunks will eventually be SIP trunks it seems... Unless... continue reading...
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TMCnet grows daily with thousands of new news items and stories. As the site grows, we are always looking for ways to improve. One of these ways is to develop community pages which focus on a particular subject matter... continue reading...
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One of the areas we have been feverishly working on at TMC is our conference program for ITEXPO,September 16-18, 2008 at the Los Angeles Convention Center. We have truly strengthened this offering with the addition of new TMC University certifications.... continue reading...
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I am back from Canada and the first thing I did when turning on my phone was praise the engineers who came up with the awkward-sounding acronym called EVDO. By the way in my discussions in Canada it seems the... continue reading...
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I am here at Nortel R&D headquarters in Ottawa, Canada where the Nortel incubation team is showing us a bunch of the latest technologies they are working on in the labs. This is the first day the media has... continue reading...
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Perhaps one of the biggest misperceptions among those who dabble in communications is that Asterisk is only used in small business environments. The reality is that Asterisk is being used in service provider environments as well. Of course this doesn't... continue reading...
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Few people know more about UMA than Steve Shaw... He really lives and breathes this market. This is why I am thrilled Steve will be writing for TMCnet with a special focus on unwired mobile access or UMA. Here is... continue reading...
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WiFi is not new and providing WiFi to a city is not new. What is new and worth noodling on is the fact Cablevision will soon have a WiFi network in New York City -- well over the next... continue reading...
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Recently I traveled to San Francisco to PAETEC World, the largest of annual meetings that PAETEC has with its customers. During this cold San Francisco week, over 350 customers and well over 100 PAETEC employees spent a few days in... continue reading...
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Vonage has done a great job this last quarter -- posting growth numbers in a slower economy. I just had a podcast interview with Jeffrey Citron where he talked about the company's growth rate and the number of new initiatives... continue reading...
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Do you have iPhone envy? I do. In fact, just this past Sunday I walked into the AT&T store and I browsed TMCnet on the iPhone and was blown away at how easy it was to surf on this phone... continue reading...
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OK, now I have heard it all. Large, incumbent telephone companies are going to launch a competitor to Skype. But before I proceed with my thoughts, as often the case with such amazing speculation, it is good to air out... continue reading...
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Hosted applications continue to get more press as time goes on. Similar to the e-commerce space, this market saw a slew of new entrants during the bubble times and many of these companies subsequently crashed and burned. Obviously having ASPs... continue reading...
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Nortel announced earnings today and to get more detail on the news I had a chance to speak with Joel Hackney, President of the Enterprise Solutions Group at Nortel. Some details worth sharing... The company's net loss widened but revenue... continue reading...
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Good news in the communications space from from NET who announced their highest level of profitability in 10 years. According to the company, total revenue in the fourth quarter was $33.4 million, a 15 percent increase from $29 million in... continue reading...
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I have never heard the kind of rumors about a vendor that I am hearing about Shoretel. Reports of unhappiness in the ranks of the workers and management problems persist in the industry. Some comments I have been hearing is... continue reading...
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Yesterday at Interop I asked exhibitors and analysts what they were hearing about the economy. Most said they think the recovery would be U shaped, not a V but some thought that Q3 would be the start of a recovery.... continue reading...
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In a challenging economic environment, what can one say about the financial performance of Interactive Intelligence? Consider this: quartlerly revenue of $29.5 million; up 21 percent over revenues of $24.3 million in the same quarter last year. I must admit... continue reading...
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Jamie Siminoff beams with enthusiasm as he explains to me in this podcast about his excitement regarding his company's name change from SimulScribe to PhoneTag. According to Siminoff, sales have increased dramatically since the announcement of the new name and... continue reading...
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I really had some great meetings today with Fortune class companies who are in various stages of deploying VoIP. It is always great to get to spend time with these companies and learn about their challenges and success stories. I... continue reading...
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TellMe just launched a new application which allows people to use their Blackberry for voice search. utilizing the TellMe speech recognition engine and Microsoft Live Search, you can have search results automatically localized if you happen to have a GPS-enabled... continue reading...
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I am heading out to the 2008 PINNACLE Users Conference at PAETEC World today. I had heard good things about Virgin Atlantic and am even taking one of their flights today. Yesterday I met with a company int he communications... continue reading...
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Yesterday's podcast with Digium's CEO Danny Windham is getting a good deal of exposure and a number of people have been commenting on it to me. There is also a related article written by TMCnet's Susan Cambpell worth reading. For... continue reading...
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The only thing better than seeing the world interconnecting with technologies such as SMS, is seeing health care providers taking advantage of the latest gadgets and technology to help curb disease outbreaks and improve prescription compliance. Case in point is... continue reading...
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One of the latest trends I have noticed is integrating disparate solutions into Google's suite of applications. Just this month in fact, two companies in the communications and CRM spaces have decided working with Google more closely makes a great... continue reading...
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How does a company go from being a leader in the open-source communications space while simultaneously looking to generate revenue? Even open-source purists realize that companies supporting this movement need a way to generate earnings. Digium, the sponsor and maintainer... continue reading...
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Do you remember the past CEO of Cantata, Mark Zionts? He keynoted a past ITEXPO and was head of the company just before it sold to Dialogic. Since then he joined another company which he helped sell and now he... continue reading...
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In the race to provide the best Unified Communications solution, there are just so many approaches. The various ways to achieve UC are staggering in fact. Companies like Microsoft have partnered with many companies to achieve seamless UC - with... continue reading...
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Thanks to our readers -- once again, TMCnet has hit a new record. In this case, we built a Global Online Community in conjunction with Interactive Intelligence and this community generated just under 600,000 page views in one month according... continue reading...
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Today I head to New York City for a Dialogic Press and Analyst day. We will be having a function this evening in Yankee Stadium which should be lots of fun. Many people have asked me to bring them some... continue reading...
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According to Chris Lyman, the Founder and CEO of Fonality, the brand new Trixbox 2.0 is the "look mom, no hands, reseller version." In fact, the company is doing its best to make sure resellers have to touch these phone... continue reading...
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For years, service providers could see their competitors coming head on. For example CLECs and VoIP providers are pretty easy to spot and entrenched telecom providers worldwide have adopted different strategies to battle these new entrants. But that was the... continue reading...
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At the recent CTIA show in Las Vegas, much of the talk centered around how service providers need to focus on generating revenue from advertising as companies like Google will be giving away many of the services they hope to... continue reading...
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Qwest is investigating an internet outage which took place yesterday. Apparently internet and VoIP service was interrupted for a number of customers yesterday afternoon. Perhaps not coincidentally, some ISPs were also knocked offline which in turn took TMCnet down for... continue reading...
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Open source web conferencing company Dimdim is looking to attack the conferencing market in the same way Asterisk "attacked" the PBX space. Although the concept of open source is not new this sort of product just shows how virtually... continue reading...
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It looks like Digium's Java based client will be getting commercialized as a result of a five year deal with PhoneFromHere.com. Apparently this agreement will improve the voice quality of PhoneFromHere's products and for Digium this signals another potential revenue... continue reading...
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Correction... Despite my best efforts to be perfect this device is called the HW251N-USB not the HW351N-USB. Sorry if this caused you any problems. If you are like me you look for ways to ensure your entire team is as... continue reading...
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Ken Lamneck President The Americas Tech Data Distribution companies are in a great position to tell us what trends to look for in the market. What is hot? What is not and more. It is for this reason I was... continue reading...
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Dieter Thompson CEO TAG I had a chance to have a podcast interview with Dieter Thompson the CEO of TAG, an Alcatel-Lucent company specializing in telecom procurement, contract negotiation and vendor management solutions. Thompson shares many things in this interview... continue reading...
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You may recall I have written about the RIM division Ascendant Systems and how the company enables mobile unified communications. Now the company which allows your Blackberry to function as a wireless extension of your communications system has inked a... continue reading...
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Be sure to submit your call for papers entries for the Communications Developer show which will be collocated with ITEXPO later this year in the Los Angeles, California Convention Center. The specific dates of the event will be September 16-18,... continue reading...
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Bob Emmerson joins TMC as out European Editor. We are truly proud to have Bob join the team as he is a communications and technology veteran. Previously, Emmerson was a designer of digital control systems, a journalist, and a copywriter.... continue reading...
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Sure you have an iPhone or iPod or even a PC where you like to listen to your music. But have you had a chance to listen to TMCnet's high quality podcasts as of yet? ;-) I know many... continue reading...
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I am very happy to be the first to tell you TMCnet is in the midst of one of its largest graphical overhauls. We are very proud of our new look which emphasizes softer blue colors and shades. There are... continue reading...
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ScanSource, a company distributing specialty technology products in communications, POS and other spaces, has acquired MTV Telecom Distribution, a UK-based distributor of voice and data solutions. Many US distribution companies are looking to expand internationally. This is especially true as... continue reading...
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How do you stay up to date on the latest in communications and technology without leaving your desk? One of the best ways is with a webinar which allows you to sit comfortably in your office while you learn from... continue reading...
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Sprint recently signed a deal with Klausner Technologies to enable them to use visual voicemail without the fear of being sued. This news is interesting as Sprint is one of the companies coming after VoIP providers who the company claims... continue reading...
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OK I may be a bit over the top with this headline but allowing a plane full of passengers the ability to talk on the phone -- all in different languages... What is the EU thinking? According to TMCnet's Mae... continue reading...
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In the past few years there has been tremendous interest paid to VoIP and the underlying internet protocol which allows IP communications to take place. For those people who started to pay attention to the communications space in the last... continue reading...
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All I can say is thank you to our loyal readers who visit TMCnet frequently and our sponsors who have launched communities and channels in partnership with TMC on TMCnet. Furthermore, thanks for your loyalty and the nice testimonials many... continue reading...
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I have long mentioned there is an opportunity to start using stereophonic, surround sound quality in IP communications as the quality of phones today is just atrocious.Thankfully, Polycom, Skype, Microsoft and others have embraced this concept with their wideband codecs.... continue reading...
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In the race to differentiate IP communications services, a natural area for service providers in the business market to look is the CRM space. Integration with customer relationship management systems is common in large enterprises and even medium companies have... continue reading...
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What is one of the best ways to cut costs without cutting heads or disrupting you key business operations? One simple solution is to explore the adoption of a telecom expense management or TEM solutions. Recently I had a chance... continue reading...
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Is it that Sandra Gault at Allworx loves her job or is it that Allworx is a great place to work? I say this because whenever I meet with her, she seems to be so excited about how her company... continue reading...
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Depending on the era, if I asked people what the name Polycom makes them think of they would give me different answers. In the nineties it was video conferencing and audio conferencing devices. Around 2000 you could add IP phones... continue reading...
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I have to be frank… I have never been in a meeting where I saw a product launch accompanied by a phone being slammed on a table. So I was a bit surprised when Polycom's Ben Guiderian did just that... continue reading...
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Recently I had a chance to sit down with NEC Unified Solution's new president Jeffrey Kane and talk shop. Kane has an extensive background in systems integration having worked at firms like Perot Systems and EDS. Most importantly, he has... continue reading...
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Years ago I realized that mobile phones would get cheaper and cheaper and eventually cause a threat to the PBX vendors of the world. Of course… trends are generally easy to spot but timing technology adoption is generally very difficult.... continue reading...
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It is a sad day when a city government decides it needs to come after a specific technology -- one that has truly helped and empowered its constituents, in order to generate more revenue. The city of Los Angeles just... continue reading...
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Nortel's Wes Durow credit SMEI.org One of the largest if not the largest deployment of VoIP I am aware of has to be Nortel's 10-year, $300 million dollar win with the US Social Security Administration which will support fifty-five thousand... continue reading...
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Congratulations to TMC's Kevin Kiley who was just promoted to VP of Finance. Great job Kevin. In addition I would like to thank TMC readers and our partners who have allowed us to continue our wave of growth. In the... continue reading...
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I just had a chance to test drive the Plantronics .Audio 480 USB Headset also known as the Virtual Phone Booth. While I generally have problems with all in-the-ear headphones, these felt better in my ears than many others I... continue reading...
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Many of us know Grandstream for their IP Phones which offer great value as well as an assortment of analog gateways, ATAs, videophones, etc. I have spoken with resellers in fact who sell truckloads of Grandstream equipment on the show... continue reading...
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One of the more interesting unified communications companies is Litescape. They are doing new things in the UC space and more importantly, I can't think of another company who does what they do. The company's Oncast solution enables phones... continue reading...
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The trend towards unification is something you can see everywhere from cellular phones which now include music players, GPS and cameras to desktop software allowing communications with once disparate applications. One company in the call center space which is surfing... continue reading...
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Plantronics is planning something big. I have discussed this before and they are staying pretty quiet about what they are working on. Moreover whatever they are doing has been in development for over a year and they aren't close enough... continue reading...
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Have you ever compared an e-mail conversation to one by phone? I can search e-mail conversations and forward them as needed. These conversations via e-mail become part of a company's knowledge base and can be used for analytics and other... continue reading...
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Perhaps one of my most interesting vendor meeting as of late was with Nortel where David Murashige VP & GM Multimedia Applications and Debora Glennon in Multimedia Applications Marketing really got me thinking about the way customers are serviced today.... continue reading...
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Sometimes the most simple concepts make for the most incredible opportunities. In a recent meeting with Oliver Emmanual President and John Croce CEO of Phybridge I came away wondering why I didn't think of the idea these guys have just... continue reading...
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In the communications space there are a number of companies that tell us they are green and to be honest, I am sure they are all doing their best to develop applications which are energy efficient. But until every company... continue reading...
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One of the fastest areas of growth in the communications market has got to be telecom expense management as TEM solutions are needed to better manage corporate telecom spend levels. The sheer variety of communications services like PSTN, SIP trunking... continue reading...
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There is a level of excitement in the call center space I haven't witnessed since VoIP began transforming the call center into the contact center. Over the years, we have seen technology after technology change the way contact centers work... continue reading...
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Today I had a chance to conduct a podcast interview Mike Crown Managing Partner, Olaf Bellstedt CTO and Joe Aiello Strategic Account Manager of the The VoIP Connection. The VoIP Connection has made a practice of installing Asterisk-based systems with... continue reading...
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Infonetics pegged PBX growth at 7% last year and they further mentioned that companies are beginning to slowly see the benefits of IP-PBX systems beyond the typical costs savings associated with lower phone bills. With unified communications software now available... continue reading...
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I have been saying for over a decade that carriers need to explore ways to deliver enhanced services. To be fair, some companies are doing this. AT&T has done an amazing job partnering with Apple (the way I hear it,... continue reading...
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I have had over two dozen meetings with companies in the communications space these past two weeks and it is my sincere goal to be able to share the most important parts of each meeting with you. In the mean... continue reading...
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As I mentioned a while back, TMC is experiencing record growth and I promised we would maintain our high levels of quality as we grow. TMCnet currently has just under 50 worldwide columnists and most of them write daily or... continue reading...
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My equipment vendor contacts tell me Cbeyond has great quality of service on their SIP trunks when compared to others and this is not a surprise as they also supply the broadband pipe. So in order to get their excellent... continue reading...
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Bain and Huawei were hoping to purchase 3COM but national security reasons kept our government from allowing the deal to go through. In the past few months, Bain and Huawei have been trying to restructure the deal in a manner... continue reading...
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Dialogic has announced that the company's Diva media processing boards will support Asterisk. These boards will help Asterisk systems scale and moreover increase reliability while reducing strain on the CPU. The functions handled by the Diva board include DTMF recognition/generation,... continue reading...
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As more and more customers deploy Microsoft's OCS, they are asking videoconferencing companies to help interconnect their products with their shiny new unified communications systems. But it isn't just video integration these companies want… These clients also want interconnection with... continue reading...
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This week, we have a total of nine TMC team members traveling to industry events. Dave Rodriguez, Erik Linask and I are headed to VoiceCon while Greg Galitzine will be at VON. I am looking forward to an information packed... continue reading...
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Avaya has certainly made unified communications history today with a suite of announcements that will certainly rattle the competitive landscape. UC will never be the same in my opinion. The New Jersey-based company's biggest news had to do with affordable... continue reading...
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Recently I spent a good number of hours at the sprawling Somers, NY campus of IBM where the company announced to the media their intention to spend a billion dollars in unified communications development over the next three years. IBM... continue reading...
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I try not to play favorites with the news and instead of giving you my picks of the week, I defer to TMC editors who picked the following stories as some of the week's best. This week, we have a... continue reading...
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This morning I woke to horrible news as I just learned Russell Shaw has passed away. Apparently he died in his hotel room on a business trip. I cannot be sadder. Russell was a fantastic guy… And he seemed to... continue reading...
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Aculab's Prosody X had a big win recently as Interactive Intelligence just signed on to use this PCI-based media processing card featuring on-board IP infrastructure, 600 media resource channels per card, redundancy and more. One of the reasons for this... continue reading...
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IBM has potentially opened the door to enterprise mashups, allowing for the first time these web services which rely on multiple data and/or programming sources to have security built-in. SMash which is short for secure mashup is what the new... continue reading...
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While SIP is an excellent protocol which has made the IP communications market a much better place, there are security challenges with this protocol as it is very open and not inherently secure. It is ironic that the openness of... continue reading...
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A new product was just announced today and I cannot be more excited as it shows innovation is very alive and well in communications. WYDE Voice is a new start-up venture backed by Free Conferencing Corp. founder and CEO... continue reading...
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There is a race taking place in communications. Everyone is looking to converge as fast as they possibly can. Service providers want to provide enterprise service. Wireless carriers want to own the SMB and consumer markets. Oh... And I forgot... continue reading...
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In the communications space there has been accelerating progress these past decades. In the eighties we had IVR, voicemail and unified messaging. In the nineties, we had CTI (TAPI,TSAPI, etc), international callback, the PC-PBX and later the IP-PBX. This decade... continue reading...
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Sarah Hofstetter is a VoIP veteran as she was the head of PR for Net2Phone since the 1990s and has been in the IP communications space longer than just about anyone else out there. The reason I point this out... continue reading...
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I must admit, I was not 100% sure I wanted to cover this topic in my blog but in the end the human interest angle coupled with the popularity of the news regarding the Eliot Spitzer prostitution arrest made... continue reading...
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If you thought callers exhibit the same behavior regardless of the type of technology they use, you would be wrong. In fact, callers on VoIP lines make many more long distance calls. Of course it is not the underlying technology... continue reading...
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The clash between U.S.-based companies and outsourcers continues as outsourcing companies such as Infosys Technologies, Wipro, Cognizant Technology Solutions and UST Global who are either based in or have the majority of their workers in India are bringing thousands of... continue reading...
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In 1997 TMC decided to launch a magazine titled Internet Telephony to cover what we hoped would become a huge IP communications industry. A few years later, contact centers saw the technology as a great way to take advantage of... continue reading...
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Regular readers of my blog and attendees of TMC expos no doubt know Ken Camp. Ken is very knowledgeable in the field of information technology with special expertise in communications and security. He has written books, articles, spoken at shows... continue reading...
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Yes Peter, telecom is broken in some areas you mention but in others it seems to be doing just fine. What scares me most about the points you mention is how our politicians and regulators don't seem to care about... continue reading...
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How do you get the triple-play to expand into the quintuple-play, etc? Easy... You add a brand new service -- home security to the mix. Quest is the first carrier to publicly promote the idea of service providers getting... continue reading...
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TMCnet's latest blogger is Peter Radizeski. Peter is knowledgeable and not afraid to say what he thinks. He is direct and has a long history in telecom. He will will write things that ruffle feathers. His views many not always... continue reading...
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I don't want to predict a disaster but having Deutsche Telecom acquire Sprint doesn't make sense from the perspective of all the different network types these companies use. Sprint uses CDMA, Deutsche Telecom's T-Mobile uses GSM and Nextel uses iDEN.... continue reading...
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My editorial team has selected the following stories as some of the most important ones of the week. Hopefully some or all of these news items will be useful to my readers. Some of my favorite ones are how green... continue reading...
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Jaduka has a suite of new products/services which allow IP communications to enter the realm of web 2.0. The company has a suite of services in fact and they are worth discussing individually... dukaDIAL lets you make phone-to-phone calls to... continue reading...
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I was traveling yesterday and I didn't get a chance to communicate with my blog readers in the detail I would normally like to give. This morning I decided to share all the news that caught my eye from last... continue reading...
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Chalk up yet one more patent for Packet8. U.S. Patent No. 7,339,604 is the company’s 72nd patent to date. The official name of the patent is "Videoconferencing Arrangement Having Multi-Purpose Digital Still Camera," and it was given on Tuesday, March... continue reading...
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Just when you thought you knew everything you need to know about the net neutrality debate and the controversy involving the FCC, Comcast and BitTorrent... There is more. A fantastic article from Fred Goldstein of ionary Consulting sums up what... continue reading...
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AT&T is making a major telecom investment in many areas of its business. The telecom giant cites the explosion of high-speed networks, data consuming devices and the move to IP as the reason for this investment. The money is... continue reading...
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Over the past decade, TMCnet has become the accepted resource for news, product research and analysis in communications and technology markets - including telecom, VoIP, and contact centers. Moreover, the site has become the defacto location online where companies build... continue reading...
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If you want some great perspective on Nortel's recent earnings as well as information on which areas of Nortel are doing best, be sure to check out this podcast interview with Joel Hackney, President of the Enterprise Solutions Group at... continue reading...
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There is a good amount of news in the IMS space these days and perhaps most exciting is Ericsson working with Beijing Netcom, a branch of China Netcom to provide an IMS platform for the Olympics. It will be... continue reading...
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Siemens has put its Enterprise Communications division up for sale and it seems potential acquirers are Alcatel-Lucent, Nortel Networks and hedge fund Cerberus Capital Management. Alcatel-Lucent would be an interesting partner as Lucent spun off its enterprise division into Avaya... continue reading...
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Coke employees will now be collaborating using Microsoft's communications and collaboration suite which integrates software and web services. This must have been a large dollar deal because even Bill Gates had some comments to share about this Coke purchase: "Coca-Cola... continue reading...
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In an effort to allow TMCnet readers easy access to the breadth of TMCnet services such as the personalized MyTMCnet and TMCnet Mobile, TMCnet has launched a new TMCnet Services page which will allow you to instantly access the... continue reading...
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TMC's Erik Linask If you are interested in learning the latest information regarding how you can build IMS or IP multimedia subsystem applications, I suggest you check out this article by Erik Linask which discusses a webinar regarding this... continue reading...
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Vonage spent $1.4 million dollars lobbying last year but some think this may not be enough to counterbalance the huge telcos who have been at this lobbying game for far longer. More from the AP and Russell Shaw... continue reading...
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OK, this one came as a surprise but not really. I have seen many companies patent technologies invented elsewhere and then use these patents to sue companies without patents. It happens all the time -- especially in IP communications. I... continue reading...
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If you want to get an idea of what Yahoo could possibly look like after a Microsoft acquisition, it may be useful to look at Tellme, a company Microsoft acquired last year. It is worth pointing out that Tellme was... continue reading...
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Bain and Huawei are changing their bid for 3COM in a manner that does not change the financial elements of the deal but it minimizes Huawei's access to certain Ethernet technologies. Last week, the parties pulled their application with the... continue reading...
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You may know David Yedwab as one of the leading analysts in telecom. If you aren't aware of him, then I am glad to let you know that David is now writing for TMCnet and his columns can be found... continue reading...
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For those of you who were in telecom back in the day, you may recall that the Computer Telephony show in Los Angeles, CA had a press event where they got together with exhibitors to give away free voicemail to... continue reading...
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While I have been espousing telecommuting and moreover discussing frequently how IP communications enables companies to hire remote workers without losing productivity... Even I have been a bit surprised that some companies have such a large number of at home... continue reading...
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There have been a number of reports that Comcast filled the recent FCC Forum with its employees and people off the street who were paid. By doing so, many claim the company denied access to people who had legitimate concerns.... continue reading...
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The Senate just passed the IP-Enabled Voice Communications and Public Safety Act of 2007 which amends the Wireless Communications and Public Safety Act of 1999 to impose on IP communications service providers engaged in interstate or foreign communication a requirement... continue reading...
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Nortel will be cutting 2,100 jobs and shifting about one thousand more to areas which have lower costs. These actions are in response to a wider loss in the fourth quarter. The company remains optimistic about its long term future... continue reading...
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Close to 8,000 positions will be eliminated at Siemens in their communications division as part of a reorganization which allows the company to shift from being a hardware vendor to one that produces software. Over the past five years the... continue reading...
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If you aren't aware, it seems like my responsibility to at least mention some webinars worth attending. They happen to all be webinars that are hosted by TMC. I am going to try to attend them all. Some of the... continue reading...
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Many of us think of a softphone as a phone that runs in "software." Apparently to others the term means a phone you could use as a teddy bear. More from Gizmodo and Yanko Design... continue reading...
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Above: NEC's View of IMS NEC is targeting mid-tier providers with its new IMS products. The company's new Service Convergence Integrated Platform or SCI-P is a 'starter' framework for IMS, and bundles carrier-class call processing quality, blade-server architecture, a... continue reading...
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It seems as if FCC Chairman Kevin Martin is the champion of the US citizen today at the FCC Forum as he seems genuinely concerned that there is discrimination taking place on the internet. Moreover he seems concerned about the... continue reading...
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A year ago I wrote an entry titled Living in the Third World of Communications and boy, I must have been really pissed off on that day because I usually don't tell politicians they need to be sure they... continue reading...
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This week there will be an FCC Forum in Boston where the FCC will be discussing many issues regarding the future of the internet. While the lobbying system of the US is wonderful in that it allows many to have... continue reading...
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Yesterday I discussed how well the SMB space is doing in the communications market and today there is more evidence of competition in the space as WhaleBack Systems is expanding deeper into the mid-Atlantic region. Three companies, Schultz Technology Solutions,... continue reading...
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What can you say about Cbeyond? Like HP they hit the cover off the ball with their earnings. The company which provides voice, broadband and mobile service to the SMB space had strong fourth quarter growth with revenues of $76.9... continue reading...
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T-Mobile is at it again. They are now starting trials of a new service called HotSpot @Home Talk Forever Home Phone in Dallas and Seattle. Interestingly this service is actually backwards looking allowing customers to plug their landlines into... continue reading...
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What can you say about a company that has generated 100 billion minutes of telephone traffic. Skype has been around for 4.5 years by the way making this milestone an even greater accomplishment. While these minutes were all free, it... continue reading...
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I am a cable quadruple customer. VoIP, broadband, TV and the reason I switched from standalone VoIP to cable had to do with dropped packets on my network. After spending days trying to figure out what the problem was... continue reading...
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Jon Arnold has done a great job of analyzing how Vonage is doing and according to the Arnold, the latest quarter had some ups and downs. Jon spells out why Vonage may not make it into 2009 and I for... continue reading...
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I have been intentionally staying away from the news regarding Verizon Wireless introducing new unlimited voice plans but now that AT&T has come out and matched Verizon's plans, it seems I have to at least mention it and point to... continue reading...
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Thanks once again to our loyal TMCnet readers. Because of you, TMCnet has broken more online records. In January of 2008 TMCnet experienced 38,368,961 page views (meaning total number of web pages viewed on TMCnet in January alone. The total... continue reading...
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Sony may be a decade or so late to the game but certainly it is better to be late than not in the game at all. So welcome Sony to the world of VoIP headsets. The top of the range... continue reading...
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I just have to wonder if Intel's latest motherboard code named SkullTrail will be useful beyond the gaming market. The device can be outfitted with two quad-core processors and multiple graphics chips from AMD (yes, AMD) and Nvidia. Obviously the... continue reading...
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Of course this is not the first time a wireless carrier has allowed customers access to VoWiFi but BT's new WiFi telephony service costs only of £5/month when you subtract out the bundled Office Anywhere service which costs £5 as... continue reading...
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The sheer nastiness of what is about to happen could become something of legend. The first few grenades have been lobbed back and forth between Canada and Illinois. First Motorola jacked up licensing fees for its patents for things like... continue reading...
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Ericsson has divested itself of its Enterprise communications business and this move reminds me a great deal of Lucent spinning off its enterprise division in 2000 or so. For Ericsson the logic behind the move is sound as it wants... continue reading...
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Check it out... I was scanning engadget and came across Quickorder software which enables the iPod Touch to let customers order their coffee at Starbucks without human interaction. I think this is a great idea and in many areas of... continue reading...
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Huge news comes from Nortel as they recently commissioned a survey which found SMBs are more technically savvy than some might have imagined. SMBs seem to be screaming for FMC solutions and unified communications -- especially as it relates to... continue reading...
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I have to kick myself because I did it again. Sometimes I think I will never learn. Nobody wants to pay more than they should so when I somehow pulled a muscle in my neck while sleeping, I found myself... continue reading...
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It is pretty amazing to see how many separate issues are surfacing that could affect the future of the internet. The FCC and government have their plates full deciding what to do with telcos and their potentially anti-competitive practices. The... continue reading...
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As I have written about extensively, the advent of VoIP means that we are able to increase the quality of communications quite substantially. To that end, we at TMC are always looking for ways to educate you on concepts like... continue reading...
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Somehow the title "The Dangers of Unprotected SIP" caught me off guard since today is after all Valentine's Day. Seems like something they should teach you about in geek health class in high school. But seriously, I don't think... continue reading...
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I just couldn't help but sharing this article about how companies who increase their marketing spend in a recession come out of it doing better than when they went into it. I am not advocating that there is a recession... continue reading...
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A staggering $133 billion dollars will be spent on communications services by businesses in 2008 according to Insight Research. 39% of this spending will be on cell phone bills. This staggering amount could be reduced if companies explore IP... continue reading...
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The following are comments from Ovum SVP, Brett Azuma on Microsoft and what they are up to in service provider communications. I thought this was worth passing along. Microsoft provided an update on its Telco 2.0 vision. The analyst telebriefing... continue reading...
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If you haven't been paying attention, you will have missed the fact that Verizon Wireless is investing like mad around the US to improve their mobile network. The quality of the wireless network was amazing to begin with and... continue reading...
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I have mentioned in the past that Yahoo! has no choice and that it needs to seriously consider the Microsoft offer. Since that time, News Corp. has offered an alternative to Yahoo!… The media conglomerate will give some assets... continue reading...
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If you missed ITEXPO this past month in Miami, you missed a great opportunity to meet with VARS, service providers and many companies looking to purchase IP communications products and services. I am truly humbled by the unsolicited comments... continue reading...
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8x8 the parent of Packet8 has been reissued a patent 6,483,532 entitled, "Video-Assisted Audio Signal Processing System and Method." The patent relates to an arrangement for controlling audio signal transmissions for a communications system that includes a microphone and a... continue reading...
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Vonage is doing better than it did last year but with mounting debt and a weak quarter, it may be difficult for the company to operate unless it improves its performance dramatically. On the bright side, the company lost 6... continue reading...
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Tom Keating has an excellent review of the Garmin nuvifone and after reading it I remain very impressed with what the company will be releasing soon. Let's look at the facts. Garmin's nuvi line is fantastic. I like the... continue reading...
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It was bound to happen... Google Apps have finally become connected to the world of Unified communications. Thanks to Voice Mobility, you can now integrate Google Apps with your unified communications system in your campus or corporate environment. As... continue reading...
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So yesterday I wrote an entry titled Intellectual Property, The Other Defition of IP and later I wished I had the opportunity to shorten the title to Intellectual Property, The other IP. You know, a play on "Pork, the other... continue reading...
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It seems a single IP address refusing connections brought down the Blackberry network yesterday. Apparently a secondary IP address was accepting connections and those users who got some of their e-mails through were switching between IP addresses. Thanks to Zenprise... continue reading...
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Here is the challenge with today's mobile devices. They are generally good at some things and bad at others. You need a device and a set of chargers for various functions. For example, on your vacation -- you need a... continue reading...
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Packet8 has done a good thing today by allowing charter subscribers to their MobileTalk service free access. In other words, there are no longer fees associated with signing up to use this service which allows you to seamlessly connect your... continue reading...
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If you were hoping for the day that you could fit a video projector in your pocket, perhaps that day is finally here. Of course this depends a bit on how big your pockets are. From this picture it seems... continue reading...
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It's funny... I have been writing about the enhanced services made possible via IP communications for over a decade. To some degree, these services are here and while I think there is a great deal of room to go in... continue reading...
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Microsoft unified communications gets video interoperability with Tandberg products. Specifically, TANDBERG MXP endpoints can now register and authenticate directly with Office Communications Server 2007 allowing them to appear as contacts in an Office Communicator 2007 user's contact list. By... continue reading...
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Good news for the open source market as Digium now offers a slew of new warranty related announcements meaning that purchasers of Digium software and hardware will get better warranties and and a money-back guarantee if a product does perform... continue reading...
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As you may know, Mobile World Congress kicks off this week and to get the ball rolling the event has put out some of the key terms you will be hearing more about this week. I have posted them here... continue reading...
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Alcatel-Lucent just reported somewhat disappointing numbers for the quarter with a few bright spots. On the negative side, the company reported its largest ever quarterly loss since it was created in 2006. The loss was 2.58 billion euros ($3.74 billion)... continue reading...
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Another day, another Google purchase rumor. This time it is Plaxo, the company that stores online business contact details. This company recently launched something called Pulse which allows you to decide if someone is a business or personal contact. I... continue reading...
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I was pretty blown away at just how much South American traffic there was at the recent ITEXPO a few weeks back. Much of this traffic was in the booths of companies who focus on the open source space. Digium... continue reading...
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Thank you Polycom for eliminating that annoying "buzz" heard so often on conference calls. Caused by a proliferation of wireless devices, there is nothing more annoying in a conference call setting or a keynote speech at a trade show... continue reading...
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It is enough to make the average person sick. How does a company with a name like Yahoo! get a valuation in tens of billions of dollars. Sure, we all use Yahoo! so this is not such a stretch. But... continue reading...
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Is AT&T going to win the IP services wars? I get the feeling they are really doing a fine job in this regard and will only do better over time. Jon Arnold agrees and in a recent article he talks... continue reading...
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Recently I discussed Packet8 and their MobileTalk service allowing inexpensive calls from cell phones to international numbers. Now I want to share that you can make free phone calls from a computer to a cell phone (or land line if... continue reading...
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Is it safe to say that if Sprint itself can barely make it as a mobile carrier, then companies that have to pay Sprint and others for their network to resell their services will have an even harder time?... continue reading...
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8x8, the company behind Packet8 service has been doing a terrific job running their company with positive financial results and new services which are innovative and unique. Some are video-based, some are mobile and others are in the call center... continue reading...
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It seems that Level3 will have some more cuts as a result of a steep loss this quarter. Over 1,000 people or 16% of the company's workforce will be getting the axe according to TheStreet.com. I was a bit surprised... continue reading...
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I read on Tom Keating's blog that Worldgate, the maker of the Ojo Videophone was in trouble. Apparently Worldgate has been short or out of money for about six months and industry insiders tell me that they have high expenses... continue reading...
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Since my last article about ECI Telecom, the company has gone private. The question I am sure you are wondering about is how has this move changed the outlook for the company if at all and moreover what is ECI... continue reading...
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Tom Keating takes us through an interesting tour through Shmooze and wonders aloud if this product is the Yiddish Asterisk. I'll give you a hint... It is not the Yiddish Asterisk but it is no chopped liver either.... continue reading...
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There was in independent reporter at ITEXPO interviewing yours truly and some of the exhibitors from the show. There are two Quicktime files for your enjoyment... One is an interview with me discussing the consumer side of communications opportunities and... continue reading...
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One of the longest-running tech rumors around is that of Microsoft buying Yahoo! in an effort to become more competitive with Google. The concept of Microsoft as an underdog in any market would have been tough to swallow just a... continue reading...
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I am proud to announce that Charlotte Wolter is joining our roster of TMCnet contributors and she will be writing about the service provider space. I have been a huge fan of Charlotte -- her insight and writing and... continue reading...
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Word is according to CNBC is that Motorola is looking for strategic alternatives for its mobile phone business. I wonder if this move makes sense for the company as this product line is where everyone seems to want to be.... continue reading...
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You definitely want to check out Tom Keating's writeup of ITEXPO East 2008 where he talks about the great products he saw. Tom got to see more than I did at the show but one point I agree on is... continue reading...
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Please join me in welcoming Gary Kim to the TMC editorial team. As you no doubt have realized by now, TMC is doing its absolute best to provide the industry with the world's best writers and thought leaders. This news... continue reading...
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Recently TMC and Ingate teamed up to provide the fourth SIP Trunking educational sessions at an Internet Telephony Conference & Expo. I just saw that Greg Galitzine had a chance to interview Olle Westerberg the CEO of Ingate regarding his... continue reading...
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So far in the 700 MHz auction there have been bids totaling more that 2.4 billion and in about a month we should know who won. There were just under two thousand bids for this precious spectrum which could become... continue reading...
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Many in the IP communications industry blame Vonage for going public, knowing full well that the way they run their business, they can never be profitable. They basically spent a fortune on customer acquisition and not enough time finding ways... continue reading...
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Russell Shaw has some analysis of the new Dell Fonality VoIP Phone System launched at ITEXPO this week and talks a bit more about the product and how it compares with the competition. Best of all, he has some screen... continue reading...
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The Sun Sentinel had a great article on Internet Telephony Conference & Expo today and their spin was local. They mentioned companies in the Florida area who participate in the show. The article was written by Arlene Satchell and she... continue reading...
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Sprint certainly needs to do something to reduce churn and to become relevant to customers once again. In an increasingly commoditized business they have done little to differentiate themselves from others through either unique handsets which customers want, network quality... continue reading...
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According to the IC3 or Internet Crime Complaint Center, Vishing is simply voice phishing, a scheme whereby unsuspecting callers are directed to rogue IVR systems which are disguised as real systems from banks, credit card companies, etc. These systems masquerade... continue reading...
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I am blown away by the amount of people who have reached out to meet with me at the very last second at this particular event. So many people want to meet... I wish the show was 2 weeks. :)... continue reading...
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Good morning attendees, speakers, exhibitors and conferees... Just a reminder that we are thrilled to have you here in Miami this week for ITEXPO. Be sure to come to Hall B in the Miami Convention Center. If you enter from... continue reading...
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We are looking forward to the best three days of IP communications excitement this year here at ITEXPO in Miami. I just saw Andy Abramson's post and it reminded me that he won't be able to make it to the... continue reading...
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Fonality has some huge news to share with us here at Internet Telephony Conference & Expo. The company was just picked to be the small business communications offering by Dell. What is perhaps most amazing regarding this news is the... continue reading...
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Here are some of the happenings this week at ITEXPO. My team is already down in Miami, making sure the new Mustang convertible is prepped and ready for the raffle Friday. I wish you luck in winning the car and... continue reading...
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I hope everyone has a safe trip down to Internet Telephony Conference & Expo. The registration numbers are trending nicely above estimates and we expect a stellar event. As always, we have done our absolute best to assemble the most... continue reading...
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Here are some of he giveaways from next week's ITEXPO in Miami, FL. Will you be one of the winners? Hope you will be there to find out. Remember, you have to be present to win these prizes. Tom Keating... continue reading...
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Although we unfortunately will not be able to take advantage of new and exciting internet devices utilizing "white space" technology next week at Internet Telephony Conference & Expo in Miami... It does seem that at some point in the future,... continue reading...
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When asked for a surprising prediction for 2008, Blogger Russell Shaw answered among other things that Vonage could go the way of SunRocket or potentially get picked up by Sprint Nextel. Actually, with all the negative (rumor)coming out of this... continue reading...
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As you may remember from a prior post, AudioCodes was running a five-part webinar series which concluded yesterday with a webinar on SIP and T.38 fax. On the webinar, Percy discussed reliability concerns with the G.711 standard, and more specifically,... continue reading...
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California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger commissioned the California Broadband Task Force (CBTF) to “remove barriers to broadband access, identify opportunities for increased broadband adoption, and enable the creation and deployment of new advanced communication technologies.” The governor also requested that the... continue reading...
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Normally I don't like to judge people but in this case -- I was asked by Interactive Intelligence if I would do just that --- judge people. You see, I will be a judge on a panel with Interactive Intelligence... continue reading...
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Kahn Gauthier Swick, LLC (KGS) has announced an initial filing of securities for a class action suit against Shoretel. According to a press release: If you purchased shares of ShoreTel in connection with the IPO or if you purchased shares... continue reading...
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By now, you may have heard that Sun has agreed to purchase open-source database company MySQL for one billion dollars. Many companies are betting on open source as the future and open source companies operating in niche markets such as... continue reading...
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If you are looking for the top 10 telephone tricks you need to be aware of, look no further than this post over at Life Hacker. You want to know how to "gracefully" bow out of a long-winded conversation? How... continue reading...
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Mobile device management is a somewhat new addition to the telecom expense management (TEM) field, but it has exploded in the past couple years as mobile telephony adoption among enterprises has continued at a rapid clip. Moreover, many workers are... continue reading...
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For you open source communications aficionados -- you know who you are -- ... I have some great news for you. TMCnet has recently worked with Sangoma to redesign the open source PBX Global Online Community. I hope you like... continue reading...
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Jeff Dworkin is no stranger to TMC University as he has taught numerous TMC courses at ITEXPOs over the past years. Even though Jeff is well-known to many of you what you probably are not aware of is the... continue reading...
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In August of last year I wrote about how WiFi hotspots are not secure. A few days later I clarified the post with comments from Microsoft's Francois Doremieux, Senior Program Manager, Product Group: Customer Experience. The clarification basically explains that... continue reading...
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TMC's newest contributor is Jon Arnold. Jon is is one of the most methodical and knowledgeable people I know in the IP communications space and I have always admired him a great deal. TMC has worked with Jon for many... continue reading...
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As Tom Keating mentioned earlier today we are proud to announce that Internet Telephony Conference & Expo which will take place in just under a week in Miami Florida has registrations from 74 countries, a 15.6% increase over last year.... continue reading...
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Recently I was fortunate enough to be able to interview a number of thought leaders and others who have given me their perspectives on the communications market, the future, the entry of Google, Apple and Microsoft into the space and... continue reading...
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It has been a pretty big news day so far this early morning. Intel perhaps is responsible for the biggest portion of today's market movement as last night they announced earnings which were not all that bad but the stock... continue reading...
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On November 6, 2007 I had a post (see bottom of post for chart) where I showed how TMC compares with other IP Communications sites. I did this by pulling numbers from Quantcast, a web service which tracks web traffic... continue reading...
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A concept you rarely hear about but which is important is ergonomics in telephones. I came across an ergonomic phone white paper from Shoretel and while it is Shoretel-centered it is still pretty useful and worth checking out before you... continue reading...
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Softbank is said to be considering allowing free phone calls between its VoIP and wireless service. The goal will be to increase the stickiness of each service while simultaneously enticing more subscribers. Obviously there is potential for an ARPU hit... continue reading...
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Sipera Systems is on the leading edge of IP communications/VoIP security and it is worth pointing out the company was just interviewed by me and in the interview there is good information about the growth areas of IP communications as... continue reading...
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Tom Cross has an interesting post about Microsoft OCS and in it he has a good communications history lesson detailing some of Redmond's past activities in the telecom space. Here is an excerpt: What all this means is that the... continue reading...
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When you listen to David Mandelstam the President and CEO of Sangoma, you get the feeling you are speaking with a hybrid scientist/entrepreneur. Mandelstam's company is a pioneer in both open source and unified communications and he is a good... continue reading...
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The bad news keeps flowing for Sprint employees as there are now rumored layoffs coming. Still, with a new CEO, this news is not too surprising. Moreover, for shareholders these cuts will likely be welcomed as sales are slowing and... continue reading...
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The latest news out of Google is not surprising as the company decided to choose the week of Macworld to announce that they have improved their iPhone experience. As I wrote about earlier today, iPhone search activity is much greater... continue reading...
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As 3G applications and services become more complex, it becomes essential that service providers address the challenge by ensuring they user the proper processors to take advantage of increased device load. One way to tackle the problems of power and... continue reading...
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Good bye Jeff Raikes. Raikes did a great job at Microsoft and in the unified communications space he should be commended for rolling out a slew of strong products and doing a fantastic PR and marketing job promoting them. He... continue reading...
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I thought it worth mentioning the absolutely staggering amount of money T-Mobile will be spending to upgrade their 2G and 3G networks. A total of $10.3 billion will be spent between now and 2009 in fact. This could be an... continue reading...
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Service providers are being extremely creative in using technology and ingenuity to launch new and enhanced services and products to keep customers and attract new ones. Some of the better ideas I have seen lately are the consumer electronics DECT... continue reading...
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One of the more respected names in the video/telepresence space is Casey King, CTO of LifeSize. I recently had a chance to interview King and you may be interested in reading his views on how telepresence is changing the world... continue reading...
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If you are concerned about the challenges with fax over G.711, you may be interested in a webinar which focuses on such topics and also focuses on how SIP and T.38 can improve the reliability of fax over IP. This... continue reading...
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While perusing the international calling channel on TMCnet I came across an article which details the checklist of items you need to be aware of when choosing an international calling service. While many people are likely to think about the... continue reading...
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I've been out to visit Ranch Networks a few times in the past few years and my first visit was interesting as the company didn't seem 100% sure of what direcion to take their products in. They had talented... continue reading...
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Toshiba has joined the SIP trunking party with an announcement that their Strata CIX family of IP PBXs will support Session Initiation Protocol. The company will have nationwide support for SIP trunking and this should be great news for past... continue reading...
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Marc Robins is now heading up the SIP forum and as you may know, he is an industry veteran and a fellow coworker for many years. Mark was the Group Associate Publisher at TMC and responsible for educating hundreds of... continue reading...
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In December of 2004 I wrote an article titled VoIP 2.0 in Internet Telephony Magazine which focused in part on next generation devices VoIP service providers need to differentiate themselves. Here is an excerpt from that article: The Device Sells... continue reading...
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I was pretty interested to find this article by Mae Kowalke on SIP vs. Radius titled Top Five Reasons SIP is Better Than RADIUS. Radius stands for Remote Authentication Dial In User Service and is an an authentication, authorization and accounting... continue reading...
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If you just can't get enough IP communications news then you are a lot like me and I do feel a bit sorry for you. Either way, there is lots of great news happening in this first short week of... continue reading...
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If you just can't get enough IP communications news then you are a lot like me and I do feel a bit sorry for you. Either way, there is lots of great news happening in this first short week of... continue reading...
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Nick Branica is one of the few living legends in telecom having been responsible for the voicemail vendor Key Voice Technologies. This company was purchased in the nineties by Comdial and is credited by many for allowing Comdial to stay... continue reading...
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What is not to like about a company that keeps growing its customer base yet stays just under the radar so it isn't sued into oblivion? 8x8's Packet8 service continues to grow nicely and has just reached the 10,000 user... continue reading...
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It has been a slow news week as you might imagine and there have been a number of stories which have caught my eye. Stories wrapping up 2007 are rampant and one worth reading is from Mae Kowalke and is... continue reading...
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It has been a fairly busy holiday season from a work perspective but over the holidays I found some hours to get some much needed work done. I have gotten on a productivity and efficiency kick that started with my... continue reading...
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Perhaps the best holiday gift for people who enjoy peace and quiet on their flights is an all out ban on VoIP in the sky. The AP is reporting on the sorts of things we may be allowed to do... continue reading...
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GENBAND has a nice UK win with its The M6 Communication Application Server which will help UK-based BNS Telecom Group PLC provide mobile PBX and PBX trunking services. Paul Gill, head of BNS marketing said “After one demonstration of... continue reading...
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If you have any doubt that there is tremendous interest in open source communications consider the fact that Digium has recently announced the one millionth download of Asterisk – the open-source PBX. Yes, that is “One million!” This... continue reading...
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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... continue reading...
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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... continue reading...
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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... continue reading...
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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... continue reading...
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It goes without saying that unified communications was one of the most exciting growth areas in the communications market this past quarter. Microsoft continues to be a major driver of this technology with its Office Communications Server (OCS) product. In... continue reading...
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Should service providers be allowed to alter your web pages? The issue came up yet again when Toronto-based Rogers decided to insert messages containing sales messages in web pages they display on their customer’s browsers. "We are concerned about... continue reading...
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If you meet David Walsh a partner with One Equity Partners, you immediately think banker. For those of you who may not frequent the tiny (and blisteringly cold when I was there) island of Manhattan, banker generally means investment banker.... continue reading...
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Should we be alarmed with the amount of Star Wars content on Tom Keating’s blog? I am not sure. As a huge fan of the Star Wars trilogy (quadrilogy?, quintilogy?, sextilogy?) movies I guess I am OK with it... continue reading...
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