VoIP & Gadgets Blog

Proactive Care Puts Operators One Step Ahead

By Thomas Fuerst, Senior Director, Multimedia Solutions MarketingAlcatel-Lucent

Monitoring and analyzing network data proactively saves operators time, money, and customers.

When a network service fails, it makes headlines, ticks off customers, and costs that network operator money. When a failure is headed off in advance, on the other hand, there might not be praise-laden headlines, but it's newsworthy nonetheless.

The traditional approach to customer care has typically been: a disgruntled customer calls customer service and complains of a service interruption or problem; the rep, learning of it for the first time, sends out a technician the next day, and eventually finds a resolution. Often, customers are left feeling put out, and the operator has spent significant time and money resolving the problem. Even worse is the customer who doesn’t call and just feels this is ‘typical’ of their network experience. That is a customer at risk of leaving.

Proactive care flips this dynamic on its head by using predictive analytics to identify potential outages or errors in the network and stop them before they occur. It consists of three main parts: one, constantly monitoring and measuring data on the network; two, real-time analysis of the data; and three, the most important, acting on that analysis to fix the problem.

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Tagged Alcatel-Lucent, big data, customer care, KPIs, network monitoring, procativecare | Responses

10 Lessons from Volleyball

By Peter on Monday, May 20

I've played volleyball for over 25 years. I have traveled around the US to watch the pros live - both indoor...

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Tagged hiring, strategy, volleyball

Emerging Threats Combats a Million Plus Pieces of New Malware a Week

By Rich Tehrani on Friday, May 17

There are 250,000 plus new pieces of malware being produced each day equating to one piece per person in the US in...

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Tagged emerging threats, interop, malware, security

NFV-Based Software Telcos Need OSS/BSS Interoperability

By Rich Tehrani on Friday, May 17

One of the goals of ETSI NFV is to allow new entrants to provide solutions to carriers based on software instead of...

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Tagged bss, carrier, ericsson, huawei, interoperability, nfv, nokia siemens networks, nsn, oss, sdn, software telco

SysAid's Lifshitz: The Cloud Will Dominate ITSM Market

By Rich Tehrani on Thursday, May 16

Cloud computing has really become a household word with mainstream media outlets running stories on television about the growth in the space...

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Tagged help desk, itsm, mdm, sysaid

Avaya Takes Networking Lead in SPB

By Rich Tehrani on Wednesday, May 15

At Interop Las Vegas 2013 Avaya was demonstrating their real-world Shortest Path Bridging (SPB) solutions and while interoperating with Spirent, HP and...

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Tagged alcatel-lucent, avaya, hp, interop, lucent, mpls, networking, spb, spirent, zeus kerravala

Alianza Wants to Host Your Software Telco

By Rich Tehrani on Tuesday, May 14

The software telco(r)evolution representing the move from hardware to software is perhaps the biggest trend in the world of carrier telecom this...

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Tagged acme packet, alianza, etsi, hosted ims, nfv, oracle, software telco, software telco congress, virtualization

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Microsoft Live Communications Server 2005

October 6, 2004

This is an excellent article discussing Microsoft's Live Communications Server 2005 (LCS) which is to be released later this month: Microsoft to Muscle Deeper Into VOIP?

From this article: "Microsoft's end game is to become a telephony provider and give Vonage, Verizon, etc., a run for their money," said one source close to the company, who requested anonymity. "They are going SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) in a big way. And because SIP is multi-media capable (start with voice, switch to video, conferencing, etc. in mid stream), it's a nice protocol for them."

Microsoft is getting back into VoIP in a big way with LCS and will be pushing this product pretty hard.

Posted in VoIP

Tagged: lcs, microsoft : Related Tags: active directory, communications server, microsoft

Plantronics CS50-USB headset

October 6, 2004

Plantronics CS50-USB

Plantronics has unveiled the CS50-USB wireless headset at the Internet Telephony Conference and Expo today in Los Angeles. The headset will allow users to roam up to 200 feet from their PC. They're marketing it as a VoIP headset working in conjunction with major softphones. It will begin shipping to retailers in North America this December, and will cost about $300 USD.

Posted in Avaya, ITEXPO, Reviews, VoIP

Tagged: headset, plantronics, usb : Related Tags: wireless headset, softphone clients, north america, click amazon, timeout onmouseout, headset

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AT&T and D-Link ink VoIP deal

October 6, 2004

D-Link logo

AT&T and D-link have inked a deal with AT&T. Engineers have worked closely with AT&T to implement Quality of Service (QoS) for more reliable connections and sound quality.Through this joint engineering effort with AT&T, D-Link became the first company to meet AT&T's stringent specifications and was recently named a charter member of AT&T's VoIP Innovation and Interoperability Program. According to the release, they are "Focused on driving the QoS for VoIP, D-Link's engineers worked diligently with AT&T to deliver the ability to adjust upload bandwidth as needed by intelligently analyzing voice over data packets to insure real-time delivery per AT&T specifications."

It's always a good thing when major broadband home router companies such as D-Link or LinkSys implement QoS into their routers. This will help better and improve the end-user's VoIP experience.

Posted in VoIP

Tagged: at&t, voip : Related Tags: router companies, engineers worked, major broadband, broadband, companies, exclusive

Skype keynote

October 6, 2004

I just got out of the Internet Telephony Expo keynote featuring Niklas Zennstrom, CEO from Skype, a real rebel trying to establish a business plan for Skype while at the same time maintaining their loyal and rabid following of fans that is currently 12 million users and growing.

Here are some of the highlights:

- SkypeIn for inbound calling from a PSTN number to a Skype user will be launched next year - around July 2005. This will be a major milestone for Skype, since currently right now, Skype users can only reach other Skype users or make outbound PSTN calls. Once Skype offers inbound calling via a PSTN number assigned to the Skype user, then Skype will have all the major bases covered.

Posted in ITEXPO, Skype

Tagged: skype : Related Tags: should enable, enable action, action title, perform action, using terms, skype

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SOHO VoIP Gadget

October 6, 2004

The link below is an interesting article talking about a VoIP gadget targetting the small office/home office (SOHO). It features some cool features, including the ability to use your voice remotely to access your computers, program your DVD players and coffee makers, and control your refrigerator, security system, lights while on the road via VoIP.

Another cool feature is the included wireless headset, the iPBX, which provides a hands-free VoIP based PBX to call, send and receive text and email within 100+ meters of home or office.

Read the full story here:Voice control and GPS technology distinguishes Helia products in the region - AME Info Business News

Posted in VoIP

Tagged: gadget, smb, soho, voip : Related Tags: office

SIPZoo VoIP service provider

October 5, 2004

and another VoIP service provider - SIPZoo. This one is offering a free trial and you can use any SIP device with their service - which is a knock against many competitors - who also often lock their SIP-capable devices. Also, as far as I can tell there is no credit card needed for the free trial. I'd assume this trial is temporary otherwise people could keep signing up with fake names to get the free trial. That's one easy way to bankrupt themselves.

They also offer a cheap "teaser" plan of $9/month, but it only includes 2500 U.S./Canada minutes. Their unlimited plans start at $29.95/month.

http://www.sipzoo.com/

Posted in VoIP

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HP ProCurve Networking Switch Upgrade

October 5, 2004

ProCurve Networking by HP announced today software upgrades, including enhanced security features and network standardization, to the HP ProCurve Switch 2600, Switch 2600-PWR and Switch 2800 series. Some important new features include Web/MAC Authentication, a Class of Service feature for enhanced VoIP service and the traffic monitoring technology sFlow, which will help to predict traffic congestion and allow the user to plan for future upgrades.

Two very interesting of note. One, is the “MAC Lockout/MAC Lockdown” feature – MAC Lockout causes the switch to drop traffic carrying a specific MAC address as either a source or destination.

Posted in VoIP

Telphin VoIP service

October 5, 2004

Telphin Videophone You can add Telphin to the growing list of broadband VoIP service providers. They have an unlimited U.S plan at an incredibly low $19/month. Whether or not that is lower than Packet8, AT&T CallVantage, or Vonage is anyone's guess. With all the recent price drops, by the time I check their pricing and blog it here, it will probably drop another $1 or so.

p.s. they also offer an unlimited worldwide plan for $49/month. wow wow wow wow WOW!!!!!
p.s.s. They have a videophone similar to Packet8's videphone.

Posted in VoIP

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Blackberry Killer?

October 5, 2004

No one doubts the popularity of Blackberry - when it comes to email delivery/retrieval it just plain works. I've tried using a PocketPC to send/receive email and it's a nightmare. For one, it's a "pull" technology - I have to logon to the 2.5/3G network, then synchronize which took forever, then actually attempt to open/read an email and then reply. It was too many steps and it was slow.

Posted in Technology and Science

Tagged: blackberry : Related Tags: visto mobile, email calendar, mobile phones, calendar contact, rogers blackberry, mobile

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Kagoor Networks partners with MetaSwitch

October 5, 2004

Here's a fairly big announcement being made at Internet Telephony Expo - Kagoor Networks announced a partnership with MetaSwitch to deliver broadband softswitch/session border control solution for carriers. The new joint solution has been deployed by ENMR Plateau, the largest telephone cooperative in New Mexico.

Using this solution, carriers will be able to deliver traditional and enhanced VoIP services such as IP Centrex over their existing broadband connections.

here's the full release:
LOS ANGELES, CA, October 5, 2004 - Kagoor Networks, a leading session border control provider, and MetaSwitch, a leading Class 5 softswitch vendor, today announced a joint solution that facilitates deployments of VoIP services between carriers and their broadband customers.

Posted in ITEXPO, VoIP

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