VoIP & Gadgets Blog

10 Lessons from Volleyball, Part 2

By Peter on Thursday, May 23

Part 1 of the 10 Business Lessons from Volleyball can be found here. In volleyball, the only play you control yourself is...

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Tagged sales, strategy, volleyball

CloudTC and N-Able Acquired

By Peter on Wednesday, May 22

"Australian-owned IP PBX systems company, Vixtel, has completed the acquisition of Silicon Valley based glass phone developer, CloudTC, for an undisclosed figure,"...

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Tagged hosted pbx, itexpo, mergers, phone system, RMM

ProfitBricks: Where InfiniBand Meets Cloud 2.0

By Rich Tehrani on Wednesday, May 22

In a recent meeting with William Toll and Pete Johnson of ProfitBricks, the pair were ecstatic to explain how their company has...

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Tagged amazon, cloud computing, data center, ec2, infiniband, interop, profitbricks, public cloud, technology

Proactive Care Puts Operators One Step Ahead

By Peter Bernstein on Monday, May 20

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

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Cisco vs. Juniper

September 15, 2004

I was just reading an article from BusinessWeek Online that discussed the battle between Cisco and Juniper.

It hits the nail on the head with what I said yesterday about Cisco and Juniper. (Cisco New Routers Everything But the Kitchen Sink)

Part of the article states: "Rather than concentrate strictly on the "big iron" used by phone companies and other carriers, Juniper announced on June 14 that it would start selling low-end "access routers" as well. These "J-series" models were aimed at Cisco's stronghold -- a $4 billion-a-year segment, in which Cisco enjoys a market share of roughly 90%.
Now, Cisco is fighting back.

Posted in VoIP

Tagged: cisco, juniper : Related Tags: cisco employee, cisco juniper, cisco, juniper, seminar, routers

iPod battery life improved via high capacity replacement

September 14, 2004

As an iPod lover, I just had to share this announcement about improved battery-life:

OWC AND NEWERTECH ANNOUNCE ULTRA HIGH-CAPACITY REPLACEMENT BATTERY FOR FIRST- AND SECOND-GENERATION IPOD MODELS

2100mAh replacement battery has highest capacity of any iPod battery on the market, with 70 percent more capacity than Apple stock battery

WOODSTOCK, Ill. - September 14, 2004 - Newer Technology, Inc. (NewerTech() and Other World Computing (OWC) today introduced an ultra high-capacity 2100mAh Apple iPod replacement Lithium-Polymer (Li-Polymer) replacement battery for all first- and second-generation iPod models.

The NewerTech battery is the highest capacity iPod battery on the market and provides 70 percent more capacity than standard Apple stock batteries. It is available immediately for $39.95.

"The sad truth about first- and second-generation iPods is that in many cases their batteries start to fade after about 18 months, and there's nothing worse for an iPod-user than to slowly become unable to access their digital music on-the-go," said Larry O'Connor, president of OWC.

Tagged: battery, ipod : Related Tags: replacement battery, second generation, percent capacity, apple stock, battery second, battery

VoIP plug and play box for traditional PBXs

September 14, 2004

I've said for years that there should be a turnkey "box" that you can simply plug into a PBX and turn it into a PBX with VoIP trunks (or IP Centrex if you prefer.) The box would "simulate" analog or T1/E1 trunk lines so the PBX simply sees the box as the Central Office (CO) providing trunk lines. Then an Ethernet connection on the box would hook up to some sort of broadband IP connection. All voice traffic would get packetized and sent across this IP connection and terminating on an ITSP's (Intenet Telephony Service Provider) network, such as Level3 or Global Crossing. Maybe the box would have expansion ports for a 2nd or 3rd T1/E1.

Posted in Reviews, VoIP

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Cisco acquires Dynamicsoft

September 13, 2004

Cisco Systems Inc. has acquired Dynamicsoft Inc., best known for their Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) product line, for about $55 million in cash, including the assumption of about $3.8 million in debt.

dynamicsoft has always had a strong SIP core offering, as well as support for presence in 2G, 2.5G, and 3G networks, which is becoming increasingly important.

The real story behind the story is that Cisco still has been using their proprietary SCCP protocol (a version of MGCP – Media Gateway Control Protocol) rather than the industry standard SIP protocol.

While Cisco claims their lack of true SIP support hasn't hurt them, I say "yeah right".

Posted in VoIP

Tagged: cisco : Related Tags: acquiring leading, vendors market, cisco looking, looking shore, support acquiring, cisco

Comments

Cisco New Routers - Everything but the Kitchen Sink

September 13, 2004

It seems everyone is talking about Cisco’s new routers that were launched today, so I may as well jump in with my comments as well. I’m going to take a more VoIP focused angle than the other news stories I’ve seen on Cisco’s announcement. I just got off a phone briefing with Cisco to discuss their new routers.
Essentially, today Cisco introduced what they are terming the new "Cisco Integrated Services Router Portfolio".

Posted in Technology and Science

Tagged: cisco : Related Tags: callmanager express, price point, juniper networks, message storage, sessions ports, cisco

Telchemy VoIP Troubleshooter

September 13, 2004

Thought I would share this since there is certainly a need for more VoIP troubleshooting tools:

"VoIPTroubleshooter.com Provides Free Call Quality Information and Online Diagnostic Tools For Network Managers, Including an Open Repository of Speech Files

Telchemy Incorporated, the global leader in real-time VoIP Performance Management software, today introduced an updated, expanded and redesigned VoIPTroubleshooter.com(TM) Web site. Sponsored by Telchemy, the site contains information and online diagnostic tools for network managers to use when investigating and resolving VoIP-related call quality problems. The site also contains background information, published articles and other useful references/links about voice quality, VoIP Performance Management and packet statistics.
Live today, VoIPTroubleshooter.com includes over 60 pages of diagnostic information related to VoIP call quality. Two new features include: an Open Speech Repository, i.e., data base, and an IP Network Impairment Simulator.

Posted in VoIP

Tagged: telchemy : Related Tags: speech files, performance management, speech repository, network managers, diagnostic tools, quality

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CBS forgeries George Bush National Guard Service

September 12, 2004

I just read this article which is claiming the CBS documents about George Bush are fake.
Power Line: The sixty-first minute

What in the world is going on here? If it is proven that CBS has promoted the controversial Air National Guard documents as "fact" when in fact they are forgeries, then that's it - I'm packing up my bags and moving to Canada. I can't take this divisiveness in this country any more nor journalism that will taint the news to suit their agenda. Where has the brotherly love in the country gone?

Tagged: bush, cbs, forgeries, national guard : Related Tags: national guard, kerry, national, guard, documents, election

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Asterisk on Windows

September 9, 2004

Some hot news I've been meaning to share - Asterisk is now available on Windows.

Check it out:
Digium, the leading Open Source telecommunications supplier, and N2Net, a provider of mission critical communication hosting, announce the immediate availability of AstWind, a package allowing users of Microsof's Windows platform to run Asterisk, the Open Source PBX in a fully packet voice installation.
"AstWind allows Windows users to safely install and test the Asterisk PBX with the click of a button." said Gregory Boehnlein, Vice President of N2Net. "The possibilities are boundless! Prospective users can test the software and become familiar with it before deploying a full Linux system. Developers can maintain multiple environments for testing and PBX Administrators can create disaster recovery plans to backup existing installations."

Full release here:
Digium - A Linux Telephony Company

Posted in VoIP

Tagged: asterisk, windows : Related Tags: windows platform, install software, download asterisk, software windows, installation guide, windows

Comments

Skype PocketPC client

September 9, 2004

Andy
I knew there were rumors of a Skype client for PocketPCs, but Andy alerted me that Skype launched a VoIP client for PocketPCs today. He also offers some interesting analysis on what this could mean and how it could impact the carriers.

For example, he said:
Add Skype out to a new iPaq 6315 with WiFi and better voice quality. I just wonder how soon the wireless carriers like T-Mobile lock down the ports "for security reasons."

LOL!

Posted in Skype

Tagged: skype : Related Tags: client pocketpcs, skype pocketpc, skype, client, mobile, carriers

Comments

VoIP, Inc Acquires VoIP Americas

September 9, 2004

I visited VoIP Americas office down in Miami just last year. They have some good engineers working there, including several brilliant engineers from Russia. I met with Albert Rodriguez, a really good guy who demonstrated VoIP Americas hosted VoIP model to me.

Basically VoIP Americas product allows entrepreneurs to get into the VoIP business and offer Vonage-like services by lowering the entry costs and providing all the features you need - billing, rate charges, administration, etc.

Posted in VoIP

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