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March 2011

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Infonetics Research - "Breakout year for SIP trunking"

March 31, 2011

Infonetics Research put out a report stating that the VoIP services market is nearing the $50 billion mark and called it a "breakout year for SIP trunking."     

According to the report, “The VoIP service market weathered the economic turmoil of the last couple of years, and, with increasing customer adoption, reached $49.8 billion in 2010 (compared to $34.8 billion in 2008). While the residential services segment remains the largest of the market at 69% of total revenue, business VoIP services are growing at faster rates; a notable example: SIP trunking had a breakout year with 143% revenue growth in 2010,” notes Diane Myers, directing analyst for VoIP and IMS at Infonetics Research.

VoIP SERVICES MARKET HIGHLIGHTS
  • Infonetics Research forecasts the combined business and residential/SOHO VoIP services market to grow to $74.5 billion in 2015
  • Managed IP PBX business VoIP service revenue is expected to more than double from 2010 to 2015
  • NTT of Japan retains its leadership as the world's largest residential VoIP service provider, followed by Comcast and France Télécom
  • The fastest growing segments of the VoIP services market are SIP trunking and hosted UC telephony
  • The number of residential VoIP subscribers increased 19% in 2010 to 157 million worldwide
  • Based on healthy demand for cloud-based services, the number of seats for IP Centrex and hosted UC services grew 20% in 2010

Infonetics' VoIP and UC Services and Subscribers report, published twice per year, features an IP Centrex Provider Tracker and provides worldwide and regional market size, forecasts, and analysis of residential/SOHO (small office, home office) VoIP services, business VoIP and UC services, and VoIP subscribers. Business voice services tracked include managed IP PBX services, hosted VoIP and unified communication (UC) services (IP Centrex by business size, UC applications, UC telephony), and IP connectivity services (VoIP VPN/IP access, SIP trunking, IP integrated access). Regions tracked include North America, EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa), Asia Pacific, and Central and Latin America (CALA).





Star Wars The Complete Saga on Blu-ray Hits September 16

March 30, 2011

The release date for Star Wars: The Complete Saga is now set for September 16th - a Friday. The three Star Wars Blu-ray box sets, Star Wars: The Complete Saga, Star Wars: Original Trilogy and Star Wars: Prequel Trilogy, was originally slated to be released on on September 27 - a Tuesday. Friday is movie/popcorn night in my house and many other people's houses, so a Friday launch date is much better - and earlier to boot! Gives you the entire weekend to watch the trilogy.

HTML5 Conference DevCon5 Launches in New York

March 29, 2011


TMC and Crossfire Media recently announced the launch of DevCon5 Conference, July 27-28, 2011. DevCon5, which makes me think of DEFCON 5 (Defense Condition 5) and the classic 1983 movie War Games, focuses on educating web developers, designers, and architects on how to use HTML5 to create dynamic user experiences. The conference will be held at the Kimmel Center on the downtown New York City campus of New York University.

Here are some of the conference sessions:

HTML5 Track

  • HTML5 – the good, the bad, the ugly
  • CSS3 & Advanced Design
  • Browser Choices
  • Scalar Vector Graphics
  • HTML5 - canvas power
  • Mobile vs. Multiple Device Apps
  • WebGL: 3-D everywhere
  • Dynamic JavaScript

User Experience Track

  • Simple & Usable 101
  • Simple & Usable 102
  • The Impact of Color 101
  • The Impact of Color 102
  • Layout & White Space 1
  • Layout & White Space 2
  • The Power of Multi-Media
  • The Power of Story

Cloud Computing Track

  • Cloud Market Overview
  • Platform as a Service
  • Virtualization & Imaging
  • Cloud Users Speak Out
  • Cloud Security
  • 1 Minute Provisioning
  • Workloads & Componentizing
  • To Cloud or Not to Cloud
You can check out the DevCon5 Agenda for the complete conference program listing.



Browser Benchmark Battle Begin! Chrome vs. IE 9 vs. Firefox

March 28, 2011

Browser Benchmark Battle Begin!

It's Chrome vs. IE 9 vs. Firefox. CNET did some benchmarks comparing the browsers on memory usage, boot time, JavaScript, HTML5, and more. Browser users are a loyal bunch.

Apple Releases iOS 4.3.1 Fixes Bugs But Annoying the Hell Out of Me

March 25, 2011

Apple just released iOS 4.3.1 today for the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad that includes some bug fixes and no major improvements. One bug fix fixes image flicker when connecting the new Digital AV Adapter to televisions. According to Apple, this update:

  1. Fixes an occasional graphics glitch on the 4th generation iPod touch
  2. Resolves bugs relating to activating and connecting to some cellular networks
  3. Fixes image flicker when using Apple Digital AV Adapter with some TVs
  4. Resolves an issue authenticating with some enterprise web services

What's most annoying about all these new updates is I have to re-jailbreak my phone and hope/wait for a new jailbreak utility. I have wonder if Apple will intentionally start issuing more releases with "bug" fixes that also plug the current jailbreak exploits.

Aastra XML 4 SIP Contest Results

March 23, 2011

Aastra today announced the winners of their "XML 4 SIP" contest. Full disclosure, I was one of the judges asked to evaluate and vote for my favorite XML applications that run on their XML-capable Aastra IP phones. According to Aastra, people coming from 16 countries registered for this contest (77 registrations). You can view the various applicants including screenshots here.

HomePNA Ratifies Fast EoC Delivering 640 Mbps over Coax

March 23, 2011

Home wireless too slow for you? But too much trouble to "snake" Ethernet cables throughout your home for speedier performance? Well, today we have a new solution from HomePNA, which just ratified a new broadband access specification called "Fast EoC" where EoC stands for Ethernet over Coax. The new “Fast EoC” delivers up to 640Mbps performance using Ethernet over Coax. Although this can be used in residential applications, the main target goal for Fast EoC is MDUs (multi-dwelling units) such as apartment complexes, hotels, hospitals, etc. The advantage of coax over Ethernet is that most homes and MDUs already have coax connections in most rooms.

The HomePNA Alliance said that Fast EoC can deliver performance up to 320 Megabits per second (Mbps) in regular mode, and up to 640 Megabits per second (Mbps) and more than 300 Mbps user data throughput to Multi-Dwelling Unit (MDU) environments in a new “enhanced” mode. 

Digium Launches Asterisk Tech Tips Webinars

March 23, 2011

Steve Sokol, Asterisk Marketing Director for Digium informed me that starting this week Digium will be presenting a bi-weekly series of webinars called Asterisk Tech Tips.  Steve explained, "Each episode consists of a tutorial covering an interesting feature of Asterisk, followed by an open Q&A session.  People are welcome to ask questions about the tutorial topic, but it's also an open forum for general Asterisk questions."

This week Malcolm Davenport (Digium employee #4 & Senior Product Manager for Asterisk and Asterisk SCF) will be covering one of the more popular new features of Asterisk 1.8: tying Asterisk into Google.  The tutorial will teach people how to effectively use Google's voice chat (part of Gmail) as a soft-phone with Asterisk, and how to make and receive free calls in the U.S.

Burma (Myanmar) Bans VoIP

March 22, 2011

Burma's military junta ordered all public and private Internet cafés to stop using VoIP. According to the Irrawaddy:

“The increasing use of the VoIP overseas calls via the Internet services such as Skype, G [Google] Talk, Pfingo, VZO, etc. given by PACs [Public Access Centers] and cyber cafés have caused official overseas calls through the [junta's] communication services to decline, affecting state revenue,” says the official instruction issued on March 2 by Tint Lwin, the managing director of the Myanmar Posts and Telecommunication (MPT), which was sent to the chairman of Myanmar Info-Tech Corporation Ltd.

“Currently, this service has not been officially permitted [by the MPT] to be used, it is illegal under existing telecommunication laws and legal action is likely if the PAC and cyber cafés continue to give the service,” he said.

Japan Earthquake Devastates Global Chip Production

March 21, 2011


The Japanese earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear reactor problems have had a devastating effect not just on people's live and property, but also the Japanese semiconductor industry which accounts for 25% of the global supply of silicon wafer. This will affect pricing on everything from PCs to smartphones to gadgets. Not good. Check out the news with additional information after the jump...

Facebook VoIP?

March 18, 2011

VoIP on Facebook hasn't gotten much attention, partly because Facebook doesn't natively support it. Sure there are paid third-party apps like the $1.99 Facebook Messenger app for the iPhone (renamed to Fone). However, it's only for the iPhone and doesn't work on PCs. Facebook has become the central place to interact with friends and family, share photos, IM, post comments, so why hasn't Facebook added VoIP support?

Yes Facebook lets you communicate via IM, but why not VoIP? Facebook leverages XMPP (Jingle) for chat, as does Google Talk for both IM and VoIP.

XConnect Has Killer Growth in 2010

March 17, 2011

Back in January 2010 I mentioned how XConnect's peering federation announced at ITEXPO was now offering "High-Definition (HD) Voice Peering Federation". Their federation service for carrier peering let's you carry both HD voice and HD video by passing codecs across carrier networks. I explained one of the stumbling blocks to HD voice when I wrote:
Once you make an outside call then your carrier has to support HD. Further, if your carrier has to hand the call off to another carrier to terminate the call, you need both carriers to have a peering agreement to allow the HD codec to traverse their network.

netTALK vs. magicJack

March 16, 2011


netTALK sent me their netTALK DUO VoIP device to test. Obvious comparisons will be made with magicJack since both offer all you can eat U.S. and Canada calling for a flat yearly rate. In the case of netTALK it is $69.95 $49.95 (the first year); $29.95 (each year after).

Oxford Hair Academy Selects Freetalk Connect

March 16, 2011


Recently, I installed the FREETALK Connect Skype-enabled IP-PBX for my sister Kellie Steeve's salon and hair academy businesses (Body Shoppe & Oxford Hair Academy) located at the renowned and purportedly haunted Carousel Gardens. Carousel Gardens was a mansion that was originally built in the late 1800's by William Wooster and later was converted into a restaurant in the mid 60's. Ruth Wooster was the last surviving Wooster to live in the mansion and is said to haunt the location still to this day. Many harmless paranormal activities are said to happen within this mansion that my sister purchased and renamed.

ViBE Bandwidth Optimization Kicks Traditional QoS to the Curb

March 15, 2011

ADSL is very popular, especially in SMEs/SMBs. It's more difficult to get on the VoIP bandwagon with ADSL bandwidth since it typically has only 256Kbits/s upstream bandwidth. Powernet, the UK's oldest business broadband provider claims the average VoIP call uses 42Kbit/s. In my experience with Vonage, I saw more like 90Kbit/s, but I believe I was using Vonage's "HQ" codec (G.711) for the best sound quality where as Powernet is using G.729a (8Kbit/s plus overhead).

In any event, at 42Kbit/s that gives you 6 VoIP calls with barely any no room left for data/Internet. So you'd have to knock that down to maybe 5 simultaneous VoIP calls.

Skype Video on iPad 2!

March 14, 2011

You can indeed make Skype video calls on Apple's iPad 2. I made a test call from my Windows 7 PC to Larry's iPad 2 that he picked up this past weekend. There is no native Skype app optimized for the iPad just yet, but it does work. No word from Skype on when an iPad-optimized version of Skype is forthcoming.

All you have to do is install the iPhone version.

iPad 2 Review Video (Parody)

March 11, 2011

Microsoft LyncAddContacts Utility to the Rescue!

March 11, 2011



Yesterday, I wrote about a utility that lets you find the versions for all your OCS/Lync clients in the enterprise. Today, I'm going to show you how you can easily add contacts en masse to your Lync clients. This is a great utility for IT administrators looking to deploy Lync without having to go to each workstation to add contacts. It's worth noting that the Office Communications Server 2007 Resource Kit Tools has a utility called LCSAddContacts, but alas this version doesn't work on Microsoft Lync.

Well, have no fear, Jeff Guillet over on the EXPTA {blog} has developed a utility to make your life a bit easier.



Find Microsoft Lync Versions For All the Clients

March 10, 2011

VoIP Hacker vs. VoIP Server Honeypots

March 10, 2011


It's VoIP hacker vs. VoIP Server. Who will lay the smack down and win this battle of good vs. evil? The stakes are high.

Sirius is Serious About Customer Service

March 9, 2011

Sirius is serious about providing superior customer service. One reason Sirius satellite users often pay for satellite radio is because they have no patience with commercials that you get with traditional radio. So having these same users wait 'on hold' listening to music-on-hold or audio promotions is not a good idea. Well, now Sirius customers and potential customers can now reach call center agents with one click - no phone menus, no waiting on hold, leveraging Fonolo's virtual queuing technology.

Adobe Enhances Flash VoIP Capabilities

March 8, 2011

Even with Adobe's new Wallaby offering which aims to make détente with Apple in the mobile space, Adobe is still going full steam ahead in improving Adobe Flash, including its VoIP capabilities. Adobe just released Adobe Flash 10.3 beta, which makes some enhancements to its VoIP capabilities. Specifically, 'Acoustic Echo Cancellation', which enables developers to create real-time online collaboration experiences with high-quality audio, such as telephony, in-game voice chat, and group conferencing applications. Developers can take advantage of acoustic echo cancellation, noise suppression, voice activity detection, and automatic compensation for various microphone input levels.

Google Voice <strike>Supports</strike> SIP

March 8, 2011

We all heard the buzz surrounding Google killing off Gizmo5, including some peeved users like Todd Vierling. However, Todd Vierling then discovered that Google added SIP support to reach any Google Voice number. For instance, if you Google Voice number is 203-555-1000, anyone can now call you for free via SIP simply by dialing [email protected].

A bunch of bloggers picked up on Todd's discovery. Dan York, writes "Wouldn't it be great if you could call a Google Voice number directly via SIP?

Dialogic Launches High Density BorderNet 2020 Integrated Multimedia Gateway

March 1, 2011

Dialogic today launched their high density BorderNet 2020 Integrated Multimedia Gateway (IMG) for service providers. It enables “any-to-any” network connectivity, integrated signaling and increased capacity for service provider networks to handle more subscribers and more calls per second. Its next generation Dialogic BorderNet 2020 Integrated Multimedia Gateway features 2.6x the session capacity of the previous generation Dialogic IMG 1010 Integrated Media Gateway.

According to Dialogic, networks using a BorderNet 2020 IMG have achieved call rates ranging from 36-52 calls per second when connecting mobile or fixed line subscribers to mobile VAS and cloud-based services.

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