Shunra Software Ltd., a leading provider of application and network performance management solutions for distributed enterprises, recently announced version 3.5 of its Shunra Virtual Enterprise solution. TMC Labs has reviewed Shunra's products a few times in the past and we've always been impressed. I actually still have a copy of their software somewhere in the labs. In any event, this new version includes expanded integration with related performance solutions, including Segue Software’s SilkPerformer, and scalability for modeling large distributed enterprises.

Now this is an intriguing use of SIP! TelTel, who claim to have the largest SIP-based Internet telephony user community, today announced the addition of media channels with its service. The new offerings will include both music and audio programming and already has 13 channels of audio in two different languages. This is the first step as TelTel plans to offer more content and services to its nearly 1 million users. My take is that this is essentially equivalent to iTunes Radio or Windows Media Player Radio...

Spirent Communications (NYSE: SPM; LSE: SPT) today announced it is partnering with Psytechnics, the global leader in voice and video quality assessment software, to offer carriers, service providers and equipment vendors the industry's first video quality assessment test system. This Spirent solution responds to the urgent need of determining video quality as well as a broad range of video distortion and degradation parameters under various network configurations and real-world load conditions.

"As Triple Plays gains momentum, the interest of service providers and carriers in testing and monitoring video is rising. If cable companies require the addition of voice to rollout their Triple Play offerings, traditional phone companies will need video," said Jessy Cavazos, program manager of the Communications Test Sector at Frost & Sullivan.

eStara is claiming 3 million users and they've announced a positive Forrester Research report today. I've used the eStara web push-to-talk product a few years ago and it worked quite well (good voice quality) even back then. 3 million users has to make eStara the most "stealth" VoIP player I've ever run across. Compare that with ~400,000 Vonage users and ~39 million Skype users, eStara isn't nearly the household name that either of these two VoIP players are.

Several sources told me that yesterday Packet8 was experiencing outages. Apparently it was due to server issues. Sounds to me like they need to look into standby systems, clustering, or some sort of better redundancy than they are currently using.

Here is Packet8's response they sent their customers:

On May 12 and May 18, server malfunctions within the 8x8 internal network led to partial network outages which interrupted Packet8 service for many subscribers.
In both cases, 8x8 engineers identified problems with the servers and immediately allocated resources toward resolving the issues as quickly as possible.

So are you cheering or jeering the FCC's e911 decision? I know a lot of VoIP service providers are not happy about this decision. Although, now they can probably charge customers more money over and beyond what it costs them to provide it.

Still, this will make it harder for the smaller VoIP service providers to compete or even enter the marketplace. Further, this means more cost to the consumer. I just don't buy the argument "If cars can only be sold with seat belts, then phone service must be sold with E-911".

Just one more thought I had regarding my NetZero VoIP blog entry. I wonder if perhaps NetZero will offer VoIP to broadband users and then try and "undercut" Vonage, Packet8, CallVantage, etc.? NetZero built its reputation as having the "cheapest" dial-up data Internet service, so why not expound on that and offer the "cheapest" voice over IP service? Heck, I remember the day when NetZero was "free" (ad supported), so imagine if they subsidize their future VoIP offering and make it "free" as well?

Of course, I also remember when NetZero changed from "zero" cost to a not-so-zero cost. Annoyed a lot of people - me included - since I had a few NetZero accounts setup on some TMC laptops. Still, someone of NetZero's size and financial backing has the fortitude to offer "free" VoIP calling, which really could cause major waves in the VoIP industry.

NetZero next to enter the VoIP race? NetZero is strictly dial-up, so it will be a dial-up VoIP play. Davis Freeberg shared an interesting post he blogged regarding a United Online conference call he had. (United Online owns NetZero). David starts with this intriguing teaser, "Usually, United's conference call is pretty dry and lacks the juicy information that Netflix, Tivo and other media companies give out, but yesterday's call was different".

Check Point Software and I held a conference call this past Friday where I learned more about their pending NGX announcement, which essentially is a unified security platform with a single administrative interface for all NGX-compatible Check Point products. According to Check Point's, Sharon Besser, Directory of Security Solutions, this is the first major version upgrade in Check Point's software in two years. This news was under NDA on Friday when I had the conference, so I couldn't blog about Check Point's major upgrade until Monday (today). It was a great conference call and I hope to highlight some of the key points.

Since I've been talking about dual mode WiFi cellular quite a bit lately (see this and this for starters) I thought I'd share this news release which claims "seemless" handoff of calls from cellular to WiFi and vice-versa. It also addresses securing wireless VoIP.

Columbitech Adds VPN Support for Securing Wireless VoIP Applications

Users can roam between networks without dropping calls

Wireless security software developer Columbitech today announced wireless VPN support for securing wireless voice applications (wVoIP). This new release contains security framework enhancements that provide protection for making reliable and robust VoIP calls. Users who have wVoIP capabilities are able to securely check e-mail and voicemail, and have access to corporate files.

A confidential source informed my about an intriguing QoS module, which I will definitely have to do some research on. (As if I didn't have enough of a backload from being on vacation for 9 days. <sigh>)

I think his email explains it quite nicely, so I will share it here:

I just came back from a trade show where I spied this mysterious board. I saw this blinking blue LED and asked the booth guy about it.

Inside Scoop - SyChip will announce in about 11 days its Dual-Mode VoIP module for the mobile handset market. The new SyVoice VoWLAN device is a complete turnkey hardware solution with full software support.
It's basically a VoIP processor combined with 802.11g WLAN modem that allows for quick integration into cell phones/PDA phones allowing users to roam between cellular and VoIP networks while maintaining the most cost-effective connection.

I interpret this "while maintaining the most cost-effective connection" to mean it will have some sort of Least Cost Routing (LCR) capabilities built-in. Though you would think WiFi (802.11g) would always be cheaper than cellular, so it wouldn't require much LCR intelligence.

The Cayman Islands now has broadband VoIP. Guess that means criminals can not only offshore their money to the Cayman Islands, they can simultaneously make it harder for law enforcement to eavesdrop on their phone conversations. If you want anonymity, especially with the U.S. National ID card in the works, then the Cayman Islands is for you! I'm being facetious of course...

Recently, I received an interesting email regarding the telecom industry and claiming a $400 million increase in yearly revenue in the next 5 years or basically a 36% increase from 2005. That averages out to just over 7% annual growth for the telecom sector year over year for the next 5 years. Seems a bit optimistic to me, even with VoIP putting a "shot" in the telecom sector's arm. Here's a snippet of the email I received:

While the past few years were harsh for the telecom industry, Insight Research forecasts that worldwide telecom industry services revenue will grow from $1.1 trillion in 2005 to $1.5 trillion in 2010, bringing an end to the industry slump. Further, the Asia-Pacific region is expected to achieve the highest rate of global revenue growth.

Still swamped with emails to go through, so no commentary on this, but thought this was worth sharing...

Traditional Telephony Dying at Hands of VoIP, According to Research Group
London, ON – May 4, 2005 – The rapid adoption of VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) technology is the death knell for traditional telephony, says a study from leading information technology research firm Info-Tech Research Group (www.infotech.com). 23% of small- to mid-sized enterprises have already implemented VoIP technology and that number will grow to 50% within the next three years.

VoIP is displacing traditional telephony services a lot faster than anyone expected,” says
George Goodall, Research Analyst at Info-Tech Research Group. “It means a whole change to the look and feel of an organization’s IT infrastructure.”

While one network that handles applications and telephone calls is an IT manager’s dream, the speed with which VoIP is coming to the market might be an IT manager’s nightmare,” Goodall says.