VoIP

VoIP news, trends, and opinions, VoIP reviews. Covering Asterisk, Cisco, Grandstream, Polycom, Microsoft, Vonage, Packet8, etc.

Cool! Online VoIP Quality Test

April 1, 2004

I discovered a company (Brix Networks) that can actually test your broadband connection for VoIP viability. They can measure latency, jitter, packet loss, and even do MOS scoring! Way cool!

Here are some details, with a screenshot below:

TestYourVoIP.com is supported by a VoIP performance management system from Brix Networks.

Posted in VoIP

Microsoft adds VoIP to Windows CE

April 5, 2004

A new version of Windows CE is due this summer (Microsoft Watch) and with that release comes some cool embedded VoIP functionality.

Windows CE 5.0 integrates with Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 for contacts and calendaring, adds multiparty audio conferencing, and provides automatic provisioning to SIP servers.

One nifty example of how the Exchange integration would work is that it will allow a user to look up contact information through an IP phone and know whether they are online via presence. With automatic provisioning, an IP phone running CE 5.0 could scan the network for its correct SIP address and access the right SIP server.

Posted in VoIP

Canada regulates VoIP

April 12, 2004

MSNBC - Canada leans toward regulating VoIP

Oh boy! We knew it was coming - the regulation of VoIP. For now it's our neighbors up north, but could the U.S. be far behind?

Posted in VoIP

Morpheus goes after VoIP market

April 20, 2004

Morpheus used to be the leading P2P client and formerly one of my favorite P2P applications - that is before they were sued by the RIAA, then "revamped" their client and started bundling spyware. In any event, they've cleaned up their act a little and offer a decent P2P client app, that can access multiple P2P networks at once (i.e. Kazaa, eDonkey, iMesh, Overnet, Grokster, Gnutella, LimeWire, etc.). I haven't checked it out yet, as I am still partial to eMule Plus.

Posted in VoIP

Texas Instruments predicts broadband & VoIP growth

April 27, 2004

i saw two releases from TI regarding broadband growth as well some interesting integration of VoIP onto DSL chipsets.

Check out this story on broadand growth:
Texas Instruments Predicts Continued Momentum for Broadband Business in 2004

Here is an excerpt from the second news release:
Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) today introduced two new DSL residential gateway reference designs that add Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and wireless home networking functionality. The new designs are based upon TI's AR7 DSL router- on-a-chip and combines key technologies of TI's broadband portfolio. These DSL, VoIP and WLAN technologies were designed to allow future system-level integration with platforms containing common hardware and software architectures.

Posted in VoIP

Voiceglo Linux-based Telephone using a Wi-Fi Router

June 2, 2004

I thought this bit of VoIP news was quite interesting:
Voiceglo Introduces Linux-based Telephone in a Wireless Wi-Fi Router

Basically, Voiceglo Internet PBX integrates with any Wi-Fi (wireless fidelity) router and can be used with cordless phone systems, analog phone systems, digital phone systems and Wi-Fi- capable PC’s.

If I understand this product correctly, it sounds like this product essentially is IP-Centrex for the small business/SOHO environment. You hook up one of these boxes to your WiFi connection and then you get up 2 – 10 lines in small homes and businesses and up to 254 lines (per Wi-Fi router) in larger scale PBX deployments. Voiceglo acts as the ITSP providing the termination to PSTN phone numbers and charging just $24.99 per month for unlimited calling in the United States and Canada.

Posted in VoIP

Invores Systems integrates with Asterisk open source IP-PBX

June 17, 2004

Invores Systems has a SIP-based VoIP VoiceXML gateway platform called EXpress2.0™ that they have integrated with Asterisk's open source IP-PBX.

Asterisk is certainly making waves in the VoIP space due to the fact that it is open source and I welcome third-parties offering solutions to Asterisk's platform.

I have no doubt that the old days of proprietary PBXs and complex integration (ala CTI) are nearly gone.

Standards in the PBX/telecom world are here to stay - they finally caught up with the data/network world.

Posted in VoIP

Xbox Live Brings VoIP to the Masses

June 18, 2004

There have been quite a few news stories on Microsoft's XBOX Live service doing fairly well.

Microsoft has more than 750,000 customers paying an average of $50 a year to access Xbox Live and logging approximately 500,000 hours of online game play each day. Not too shabby to think of 500,000 VoIP hours or 30,000,000 VoIP minutes per day!

I should mention that I have an Xbox connected to my 65" Mitsubishi TV set with full Dolby/DTS 7.1 surround sound and a subwoofer that makes the walls shake when I blow something up in a game...

Posted in VoIP

Yahoo Messenger adds new VoIP capabilities

June 22, 2004

Anyone that currently uses Yahoo! Messenger knows it already has a "push to talk" capability that lets you talk PC-to-PC to someone on your buddy list.

Well, at SuperComm 2004, Yahoo announced it would be supporting "click to call" over the PSTN for making PC-to-phone calls. Two possible PSTN providers include SBC Communications and Verizon Communications, which utilize Sylantro's VoIP infrastructure that Yahoo also uses.

With Yahoo's strong presence in the IM space, seeing them getting into VoIP with PSTN access capabilities will surely cause some heads to turn, especially Microsoft (Messenger) and AOL (Instant Messenger).

Posted in VoIP

Computer Telephony without Telephony Boards

June 25, 2004

I just read a news release from Uniqall that discusses Moore's law and the affect that VoIP has had on eliminating the need for hardware telephony boards (i.e. Dialogic/Intel) and instead using software-based host media processors for all of the media processing.

This is similar to Intel's NetStructure Host Media Processing (HMP) which is also software-based and uses the Pentium chip for processing. Anything to make you upgrade to the latest and greatest Pentium, right?

Posted in VoIP

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 ... 225 Next

VoIP & Gadgets Blog

VoIP