Tom Keating : VoIP & Gadgets Blog
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VoIP news, trends, and opinions, VoIP reviews. Covering Asterisk, Cisco, Grandstream, Polycom, Microsoft, Vonage, Packet8, etc.

AstriCon 2013 Keynote Panel [VIDEO]

October 9, 2013


This morning the first keynote kicked off featuring some well-respected Asterisk thought leaders and experts. They included Asterisk founder, Chairman & CTO Mark Spencer, Alistair Cunningham the Founder & General Manager, Integrics, Olle E. Johansson, Founder & President, Edvina AB, Philippe Lindheimer, FreePBX Project Leader and CTO, Schmooze Com, Inc., Schmooze Com, Inc.

The room was packed and the keynote panelists were moderated by Digium's David Duffett who posed some great questions. I pretty much captured the entire keynote, but did stop the 1st video at the 18 minute mark, since I was worried my mobile phone was running out of storage space and didn't want the video to be corrupted. I immediately kicked off the 2nd video, however.


Digium's Billy Chia Speaks to Packed AstriCon Session

October 8, 2013


The first session I checked out was by Billy Chia, the Asterisk Marketing Manager for Digium and it was a packed house. I didn't count people, but it must have been at least 80-100 people. Billy gave a live demo running Asterisk on a virtual machine on his Mac where he ran into a minor snafu where restarting Asterisk wouldn't fix his sip reload command. Nothing Bill Gates BSOD during a demo cringe-worthy, and Billy handled it well.

Xorcom Launches CXE4000 CompletePBX

October 8, 2013


At AstriCon, Xorcom today released a new hybrid (VoIP + PSTN) telephony solution called the CXE4000 featuring Xorcom's CompletePBX distro (based on Asterisk and FreePBX). The CXE4000 is a heavy-duty, stand-alone, pre-configured, out-of-the-box IP PBX It is optimized for businesses with extremely high call volumes and / or additional communication applications.

At the last ITEXPO in Las Vegas I spoke with Xorcom's Ruth Bridger who talked about their CompletePBX solution, which is based on Asterisk and FreePBX with Xorcom's secret sauce added in. I recall her mentioning how they use USB to add scalability and redundancy to their product line. Indeed, the new CXE4000 supports various combinations of telephony ports via Astribank units connected via USB2: up to 960 PSTN/analog phones ports, up to 24 E1 R2 / T1 CAS PRI ports, up to 1500 users and up to 750 concurrent calls.



10th Annual AstriCon Kicks Off!

October 8, 2013

I’m excited to be attending the 10th annual AstriCon, which also happens to nearly coincide with my 10 year wedding anniversary back in August of this year.  AstriCon has changed over the years, new people, new exhibitors, but a lot has also stayed the same. Asterisk legends like Mark Spencer and Joshua Colp are speaking at AstriCon. FreePBX project leader Philippe Lindheimer is here and keynoting this week, as is WebRTC evangelist Phil Edholm, and Edvina’s Olle E. Johansson.

Today is the pre-conference, so the exhibits open tomorrow. Companies that utilize Asterisk and are participating including Elastix, Xorcom, YeaLink, snom, Grandstream, Schmooze / FreePBX,  Sangoma, Algo, PBX in a Flash, and more.

Odyssey Telecommunications The Mecca of Used Telecom Equipment?

September 24, 2013

Odyssey Telecommunications is a relatively new company started up in Buffalo, New York. Odyssey Telecommunications helps telecommunications and VoIP manufacturers, resellers and service providers liquidate overstock, used and new equipment through its online and offline channels.

Odyssey Telecommunications was recently named to Inc Magazine’s annual list of the fastest growing companies in the United States. With three year sales revenue growth of 1,140%, Odyssey Telecommunications was ranked the #388 on the list and had $3.3 million in revenue in 2012. Ironically, VoIP Supply is also in Buffalo, NY, so I pondered to myself, since when/how/ and why did Buffalo, NY become the mecca of both used (Odyssey Telecommunications) and new (VoIP Supply) telecom equipment?

To find out more I interviewed Justin Wekenmann, Co-Founder and EVP of Odyssey Telecommunications.

1)      Tell me a little bit about your founding members, where they came from, and how Odyssey Telecommunications got started





FreePBX Acquiring Major Developer Talent

September 23, 2013

The FreePBX and Schmooze Communications team have been on a tear, acquiring some legendary FreePBX and Asterisk talent! Derek Peloquin, joined Schmooze in August taking with him his nearly 8 years of experience with the Asterisk Project and Community. In his previous role as Senior Technical Trainer at Digium Inc, Derek provided Instructor Led Training and seminars as well as developing classroom curriculum, certification exams and online training videos.

Also in August, Jason Parker joined the FreePBX/Schmooze team. Jason is a former Asterisk developer at Digium and was responsible for leading the creation and maintenance of the FreePBX-based distro AsteriskNOW. Jason also known as “Qwell” on IRC has given presentations at Asterisk events such as AstriCon where I even took some video of his 2011 AstriCon speaking engagement.

Now if these two big names in the Asterisk/FreePBX space weren't big enough, Rob Thomas, the former lead developer & project manager of FreePBX is a FreePBX legend and has returned!



How Skype Changed the World!

September 17, 2013


Want to hear the story of how an Estonian startup changed the communications landscape forever? With the 10 year anniversary this year, Microsoft has written an online history book on Skype with the following intro, "In one rather turbulent decade, Skype transformed itself from a rowdy Estonian startup to a multibillion-dollar Microsoft asset. Skype has significantly changed the way the world communicates, obliterating the notion of distance, whether it’s a soldier using Skype to experience the birth of his child, an explorer speaking to a classroom of children from beneath the ocean, or pair of young lovers who leave Skype running as they fall asleep hundreds of miles apart – but still together."

It's a fascinating read complete with pictures, infographics, slideshows, paginated chapters and more. If you are a Skype aficionado, go take a gander.


Applied Global Technologies - Best Kept Cloud Video Conferencing Secret?

August 29, 2013


At ITEXPO I met with Applied Global Technologies (AGT), which was founded in the early 1990s, making it one of the oldest video conferencing solutions on the market, even if it isn't very well known. AGT offers managed video services and cloud video services that can be white labelled by service providers. They mentioned Level3 whitelabels their solution, as well as AT&T.

They currently support 720p resolution with support for mobile, Mac, PC, Polycom.

FreePBX World iSymphony Session 360 degree Panoramic View

August 28, 2013

FreePBX World Live Blogging

August 28, 2013

Just stopped in the FreePBX World session located at ITEXPO and it's pretty packed. Check out the photo: {click for larger}


Tony Lewis is now talking about the FreePBX ecosystem. He started off by explaining why the FreePBX tree frog logo. Tony said, "Tree frogs can only go forwards, never backwards." Well, there ya go, mystery solved!

Tony talked about how FreePBX documentation was scattered and is now centralized into a new wiki.





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