Recently in VoIP Category

Avaya has agreed to purchase Nortel's enterprise business for $900 million, which is much larger than the $475  million 'stalk horse' bid put out last month by Avaya. As part of the deal, Nortel will sell the assets of the Enterprise Solutions Business, and shares of Nortel Government Solutions and DiamondWare  to Avaya. Avaya will pay out US$900 Million in cash to Nortel, with an additional pool of US$15 Million Reserved for an Employee Retention Program.

But the bid is subject to approval. Both Canadian and U.S. Court Approvals of Sale will be sought at a joint hearing on September 15. Expect fireworks to fly in the Canadian government over this deal. Nortel is a huge source of national pride for Canadians, so to lose Nortel to an American company is something that the Canadian government may not be happy with. Though I just don't see the Canadian governement shelling out $900 million in a counter-bid offer to acquire and nationalize them.

Commenting on the announcement, Nortel Enterprise Solutions President Joel Hackney said:

"This is fantastic news for our customers, as this will empower us to continue to deliver industry-leading solutions and services focused on unlocking the enterprise business potential enabled by unified communications. It provides the capability to chart our future with laser-focus, enabling customers to compete in new ways with greater scale and resources. We look forward to working closely with our customers, partners and stakeholders during this pre-close phase to ensure that we continue to innovate to meet customers' needs with high-performance, efficient and secure communications solutions.

"As we work through integration planning, it is business as usual, and we will continue to focus on supporting our installed base," Hackney said. "Through deal close and beyond, we will deliver on our stated customer commitments and maintain high levels of service and support. We will ensure our customers can fully leverage their existing Nortel investment as they benefit from the complementary capabilities of the Nortel and the Avaya portfolio of products and services."

While everyone from Apple to Palm to Microsoft have built or are building an app store, it appears Skype is getting out of the app business. I read the news on Friday on CNet that Skype is pulling the plug on its Extras program, which enables third-party developers to create add-ons for Skype. According to CNET, "not enough people were installing Skype Extras, Skype said in both an e-mail and in a blog post to developers."

Skype is allowing for some transition time, but it won't certify any new applications and any existing Extras will eventually have their digitally signed certificate expire. So your favorite third-party Skype Extra will eventually die.

Ok, so maybe Skype Extras wasn't that popular with Skype users, but I think Skype is to blame, not the developers. Had Skype actively promoted some of the cooler add-ons within the Skype client, perhaps some of the apps would have performed better. With nearly 1/2 billion Skype users, surely there is a market for these add-ons which include hosted backup services, call recording (though Skype should offer that for free), emoticons, hosted meetings, games, SMS, and more.

Read more on CNET

Many users have been complaining about Skype for iPhone 1.2 crashing or locking up their iPhones. The recent 1.2 version released just last Friday repeatedly crashes either after logging on or dialing a number and affects both jailbroken and non-jailbroken iPhones. A thread on the Skype forums revealed some very unhappy users.

Well, today Skype released 1.2.1, a hotfix, to solve this problem.

Raul on the Skype blog writes:

With this hotfix we have addressed three issues about what you have been telling to us lately.

We would suggest for everyone to upgrade in iTunes.

The update, to version 1.2.1 resolves following issues:
* Crashing in Dialing and History.
* Erroneous handling of international prefixes.
* Crashing due to special characters in contact names.

See also full release notes and known issues.

If you recall, I wrote how Skype for iPhone and iPod touch was blocked in Canada. A Skype representative told me, "There are some patent-licensing issues which prevent us from offering it there." The Skype representative went on to say "I can't go into many more details other than it's codec related."

Well my Canadian brothers, rejoice! Today, Skype is bringing the iPhone & iPod touch app to Canada after settling the dispute. The Skype for iPhone application for iPhone and iPod touch is available immediately on the App Store in Canada.

As to the dastardly villain who was blocking Skype for iPhone in Canada, I contacted a Skype representative but he couldn't disclose the company name. I wonder if eBay's (which still owns a 35% stake) next quarterly statement will reveal a large payout to this "nameless one" or "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named."

ShoreTel is the first company to land SIP interoperability with Skype for SIP - before Avaya, Cisco, Mitel, Nortel, or any Asterisk-based PBX. I can't help but find the irony in this news since ShoreTel did not support third-party SIP phones/endpoints until ShoreTel 8 was released in 2008. Thus, ShoreTel was pretty late to embrace the SIP standard for endpoints, which forced users to use ShoreTel's proprietary phones. Though to be fair, Cisco was pretty late to the game as well, finally embracing third-party SIP phones back in 2006.

Although Cisco was two years ahead of ShoreTel in embracing SIP Cisco plays some serious licensing shenanigans that make it very cost prohibitive to use 3rd party SIP phones with Cisco CallManager. If you look at Cisco's CallManager licensing guidelines, a third-party SIP Device (Basic) that supports one line consumes three license units and a third-party SIP Device (Advanced) that support up to eight lines and video consumes six license units. As an example, for just a basic IP phone you must purchase (three) license units at $50/each for $150 total on top of the cost of the phone itself. However, an inexpensive  Grandstream GXP-2000 (a $85 phone) is classified as 'Advanced' since it supports multiple lines, thus requiring six license units for an additional $300, bringing the grand total of the handset to $385!

ShoreTel on the other hand charges a 'reasonable' $30 licensing fee per SIP device, according to this May 2008 press release - the most recent licensing info I could find. Kudos to ShoreTel for not overcharging their customers that want to use 3rd party SIP devices. Score one for ShoreTel over Cisco!

Back to the news at hand, I spoke with Skype and ShoreTel on Tuesday about Skype certifying ShoreTel as the first IP-PBX to work on Skype for SIP. According to Skype, currently 10,000 individuals have signed up and are part of the Skype for SIP beta. With this announcement,  SMBs with ShoreTel's phone system, which numbers around 11,000, can immediately register and join this 'relatively' closed beta. Anyone with any IP-PBX system can of course apply for the Skype for SIP program, but you might have to wait to be accepted. Skype mentioned to me that as part of this controlled beta they want to make sure everything runs smoothly, especially when dealing with enterprise voice as opposed to their traditional consumer voice. They want to be sure the Business Control Panel works perfectly, there are no exploits, no voice quality issues, 100% interoperability, etc. No doubt since ShoreTel is "certified" you'll be able to move to the front of the line and be approved quickly.

So what advantages does Skype for SIP give you? Well, besides the cheap outbound SkypeOut minutes, Skype users can contact ShoreTel-based businesses for free using a simple click-to-call button on the corporate web site. "By certifying ShoreTel's UC system as interoperable with Skype for SIP, we have made it possible for ShoreTel's business customers to reduce their costs even further, while also enhancing their own business experience through communications," said Stefan Oberg, VP and General Manager of Skype for Business. "Skype for SIP is easy for businesses to configure and manage using Skype's Web-based Business Control Panel (BCP), making it complementary to ShoreTel's UC system, which is renowned for its simplicity."

Skype for SIP allows ShoreTel's business customers and their employees to receive inbound calls through their ShoreTel SIP-enabled UC system from more than 480 million registered Skype users around the world at no cost to the Skype user. By my calculations, Skype should pass 1/2 billion users around October 2nd - an impressive landmark achievement when it occurs! Enterprises that use ShoreTel with Skype for SIP may also purchase and associate online Skype DID numbers, currently available in more than 25 countries, with their ShoreTel UC system to receive inbound calls from landline and mobile phones.

"As part of our ongoing commitment to a standards-based open ecosystem that offers flexibility and choice, we are delivering a significant competitive advantage to ShoreTel customers with the ability to leverage Skype's low-cost calling rates and to create an online presence with a click-to-call button that enables Skype users to call them for free," said John W. Combs, president and CEO at ShoreTel. "The simple-to-configure capabilities of Skype for SIP will further improve the flexibility and efficiency of our customers' operations, while lowering the total cost of ownership even further, and providing the boost in productivity they are used to seeing from ShoreTel's UC systems."

On a related note, I do have Skype for SIP working on a trixbox IP-PBX for a few months. I've been meaning to review my experience so far with it, but hope to soon. Stay tuned...

Saw a couple of very recent Top VoIP blog lists I thought I'd share. I'm in both of these top VoIP blogs lists along with all the usual suspects.

List #1 link: Top 7 VoIP Blogs to Watch

1) GigaOm

2) Communications and Technology Blog 

3) VoIP & Gadgets Blog

Quote:

Another TMC blog, and a good one: Tom Keating: CTO, VP, Founder TMC Labs uses his 14 yrs telecom experience and 28 yrs "programming, tinkering with & breaking computers" to cover VoIP issues in lively interesting fashion: Recent topics include: SIP Print VoIP Appliance Review; a Skype Headset Review; and Microsoft's releasing two new UC training tools.

4) VoIP IP Telephony

5) No Jitter:

6) Fierce VoIP

7) VoIP Watch

List #2 link: The Top 33 (Other) VoIP Blogs

Too long to list them all here, but I like how he lists my TMCNet blog first and then writes - "Rich Tehrani's blog at TMCNet - the other big hitter in TMC's one-two voip blogger punch."

At ITEXPO, Aastra announced G.722 wideband audio codec support (HD audio) in their new 67xxi firmware version 2.5.0 or later. It's available as a free download from Aastra with no strings attached. No need to upgrade your 67xxi (formerly 57XXi) phone to a newer model to get HD audio. I spoke with Aastra at ITEXPO about this free upgrade and got a demo as well. First, it's important to note that the speaker and the microphone built into the existing 67xxi don't have the full frequency response for full HD audio. However, there is still a noticeable improvement in audio quality, especially in the low-end bass side. For 100% HD audio from the microphone to the speaker to the full-range frequency response you can purchase their newer phones which feature upgraded hardware components.

But for the thousands of Aastra phones out there - including one I use as my primary desk phone - you can simply upgrade to the new firmware and immediately see a performance improvement. I also mentioned to Aastra some issues with the speakerphone switching to half-duplex mode when there is a lot of ambient noise or if the remote caller is talking too loud. The remote caller who is speaking can't hear you (half-duplex) no matter how loud you yell. Well, apparently this new firmware does some tweaks and solves that issue as well.

Aastra is calling their wideband audio feature Hi-Q. Let's face it, Polycom has done a good job positioning themselves as having the best sounding IP phones, especially with their HD Voice product line. Aastra's new Hi-Q offering now allows them to compete with other HD phones including not only Polycom, but also Cisco, Snom and others. Aastra Hi-Q wideband audio will be supported on the 6757i CT, 6757i, 6755i, 6753i, 6751i, 6731i and 6730i.

I did a demo with Aastra on the ITEXPO show floor with Hi-Q turned off and then on and I noticed the difference right away. Can't wait to get back to Connecticut and upgrade my Aastra 6757i CT phone! They also demo'ed some cool new DECT 6.0 phones and new WiFi phones that are just now coming to the United States. (They are currently available in Europe)

According to Aastra, "Aastra's Hi-Q audio technology is a software based acoustic optimization, backwards compatible with existing 67xxi series SIP phones, delivering a more life-like conversation and richer user experience via an industry standard G.722 wideband codec."

Aastra 67xxi firmware with Hi-Q wideband audio support can be downloaded here.

8x8, Inc. announced at ITEXPO a new, web-based conferencing service to its existing portfolio of business communication offerings for small to medium sized businesses. I met with a few 8x8 employees to get the low-down on this interesting new offering.

First, they leverage Adobe Flash and Adobe Flex for the client piece, which enables cross-platform support. No download required. You can also easily invite participants from a dashboard utility or send an email link to instantly join the conference. Importantly, it supports VoIP over the Flash client, so callers from around the world can join in for free. It also features remote desktop sharing, and full presentation tools such as invite, mute, kick, pass controls, etc. One 8x8 spokesperson commented, "Our offering is like eVite + WebEx combined".

It's only $29.99/month for unlimited web meetings which can be used for training, webinars, webcasts, presentations, etc. They told me that currently 15 is the maximum number of participants. After 15 participants it's $2.99 per participant per meeting up to a maximum of 50. However, they said the SMB market they are targeting in most cases won't exceed 15 participants. They also stressed that they priced their conferencing offering for the SMB to be very cost-effective versus other conferencing solutions.

What's even cooler is that 8x8 told me they plan an Apple iPhone app which will allow you to join the conference, see the presentation/remote screen sharing, and hear the conference leveraging VoIP. I guess they won't be using Flash for that one since Apple still hasn't allowed Flash on the iPhone. 8x8 also mentioned they support the G.729 codec.

The "8x8 Virtual Meeting" web conferencing service is available as an add-on service for existing 8x8 customers or as a standalone offering for new subscribers, 8x8 Virtual Meeting features complete integrated voice conferencing (to and from any telephone or web browser platform), presentation slide sharing, desktop and application sharing, instant messaging, chair control, conference control and call recording, with up to 50 participants per conference.

"Small businesses, like those that subscribe to our 8x8 Virtual Office hosted phone services, want and need the same communications tools enjoyed by larger enterprises," said 8x8 Chief Marketing Officer Debbie Jo Severin. "In fact, in a recent survey of our existing business customers, more than 60% of them told us they already use some form of web conferencing in their day to day operations. 8x8 Virtual Meeting is a powerful collaboration tool that embodies all of the cost, performance and ease-of-use characteristics valued by our small business customers. We are excited to offer this new service and look forward to introducing additional communications solutions specifically geared to the small business market."

Highlights of the 8x8 Virtual Meeting web conferencing service include:

• No software download, plug-ins or supplemental hardware required
• Integrated VoIP, chat, desktop sharing and dial in/dial out features
• Unlimited meetings for a low monthly or annual price
• Up to 15 participants per meeting with the option to add more for a minimal cost
• One free local dial in number
• Flexible local and international toll or toll free meeting dial-in numbers available
• Audio-only meetings, audio and web meetings or web-only meetings
• Record any audio meeting or portions of a audio meeting
• Playback and/or download meeting audio recordings
• Perform desktop sharing and pass controls to participants
• Seamless integration with 8x8 Virtual Office services including corporate directory
• Extensive meeting management capabilities for meeting creators and participants
• Organize past meetings, upcoming meetings and meetings in progress
• Create private group audio sessions during a live meeting
• Customize dial in numbers for each meeting, including international numbers from 19 countries and more than 50 international destinations
• Request and manage participant RSVPs online

Existing 8x8 subscribers can add 8x8 Virtual Meeting service with unlimited conferencing for $29.99 per month. As a standalone service, 8x8 Virtual Meeting is priced at $39.99 per month. Lastly, for a limited time, 8x8 is offering a free 30-day trial version with unlimited conferencing, up to 15 participants per meeting and a free local dial-in number.

At ITEXPO Ecessa, a 40-year old company most haven't heard of, announced they teamed up with MyTELEPATH and NetSapiens to bring reliable SIP delivery over multiple broadband links to SMEs. I met with Ecessa to discuss the news and to find out more information about their ClariLink product which adds VoIP SIP redundancy across multiple "bonded" broadband connections.

In a nutshell, ClariLink is SIP session aware and a SIP proxy / registrar that works across multiple ISP connections and will automatically failover in the event of too much latency, jitter, or an entire connection failure / outage. Ecessa measures latency, jitter, and connection outages and will automatically switch to one of the other connections. It also supports network optimization and will automatically pick the best performing connection when you initiate a SIP VoIP call. It can even modify the ISP connection on the fly during a VoIP call. So for instance, if your DSL connection fails , it will failover in real time to one of the other connections. You might have to say "hello?" but that's it. You'll be re-connected almost instantly. This is the first WAN controller on the market that is SIP-aware. In fact, this is one of the most innovative products I've seen at any ITEXPO!

Their product has huge implications for the SMB market since now a small business can deploy inexpensive cable broadband or DSL along with the traditonally more expensive T1 line which will ensure redundancy. This allows SMBs to deploy SIP trunks or remote SIP phones (teleworkers) without worrying about losing their critical voice trunks due to a single point of failure. Many SMBs are reluctant to deploy SIP trunks because they have experienced Internet outages due to a router, firewall, or ISP failure and have a jaded view about running critical voice communications over IP because it doesn't have the famous five 9s of reliability (99.999%).  Ecessa changes the game and enables SMBs to add redundancy to their Internet and SIP infrastructure very inexpensively. They don't have to get a second T1 line. They can often get inexpensive business DSL or cable broadband which is much less expensive than a T1.


                                 Ecessa Architecture

Their redundancy also works quite well with critical servers such as your corporate web server. I inquired about how exactly it worked since typically SMBs have a single web server with a single DNS entry. Switching to another ISP connection would require a DNS change which can take hours or days to propog Well, Ecessa is their own DNS Authority and they set the TTL (Time To Live) to just 30 seconds. So when a user connects to your web server, they query Ecessa's DNS server. On the event of a failure, Ecessa detects this and immediately switches the DNS setting to the alternate connection. The user will usually refresh and then get the new IP address. Ecessa said typically they see much less than a 30s outage - usually around a 10 second window.

Additionally, Ecessa today announced that telephony provider MyTELEPATH is utilizing Ecessa's ClariLink to manage multiple broadband links and ensure reliability of its VoIP services. MyTELEPATH has integrated Ecessa's ClariLink within its network infrastructure to provide SME customers with reliable and affordable VoIP service over low-cost broadband connections such as T1, DSL, and cable.

SMEs now have an affordable solution for SIP calls that will not be dropped when using low-cost broadband connections. MyTELEPATH delivers its VoIP services with NetSapiens SNAPswitch, a critical component to their IP telephony service infrastructure. To provide to its customers more reliability and failover of services, MyTELEPATH selected ClariLink due to these capabilities and its ability to work seamlessly with the NetSapiens solution. Before being deployed to the network, Ecessa's ClariLink was tested for interoperability with the SNAPswitch to ensure that the products worked together successfully.

By adding ClariLink to MyTELEPATH's VoIP network, SIP traffic is able to be deployed reliably across multiple network connections for redundant connectivity and automatic real-time failover to existing customers as well as to customers located in rural areas of the country.

"ClariLink allows MyTELEPATH and our partners to provide robust, cost-effective business-class voice service over multiple broadband providers, while ensuring reliable call delivery, even if a service provider has an outage. With this new extended service capability we expect to be successful in both rural and dense markets," states Tom Drill, vice president of business development at MyTELEPATH. "Our goal is to give our SME customers feature rich, affordable and reliable IP Telephony service over low-cost broadband connections, giving them a similar experience to using a high-cost dedicated circuit. By achieving this, we will have successfully accomplished our goal, to deliver leading communication solutions to our partners nationally even in previously difficult opportunities. Diverse paths for mission-critical IP voice is here today".

Deploying VoIP over broadband connections can be challenging. It is critical to make sure that calls are always connected with the IP telephony service provider. While many large enterprises can afford more expensive high-performance leased-lines to support VoIP and media-rich applications, SMEs need affordable alternatives that deliver the reliability they require, in the event that their primary Internet connection fails.

"Our customers' businesses are built around voice applications," said Jim Murphy, NetSapiens' VP of Business Development. "We engineer our SNAPsolution to provide carriers, broadband service providers and enterprise customers with mission-critical voice services with the up-time and flexibility they require. ClariLink's ability to provide real-time WAN link failover for SIP-based applications is a powerful compliment to our redundant and highly available platform."

ClariLink guarantees SIP call integrity by ensuring that all traffic persists to the correct destination, providing real-time session failover. By intelligently directing SIP traffic among multiple Internet connections, ClariLink eliminates a critical point-of-failure. "We are very excited to work with MyTELEPATH and NetSapiens to help bring this unique telephony service offering to market," states Ron Thomas, CEO at Ecessa. "This hosted telephony service is a perfect fit that meets the needs of SME customers. For telephony providers such as MyTELEPATH, ClariLink provides the ability to offer voice network optimization not previously available to SMEs, while creating new revenue generating opportunities. Similarly, working with NetSapiens, we hope to deliver affordable technology to other telephony providers. We also view this as an opportunity to use this example as a proof point to expand our relationship with NetSapiens within their service platform environment."

I hope to review a ClariLink WAN Link controller soon using a T3 and a cable broadband connection along with our SIP-based IP-PBX to test it with. They're sending me an eval unit soon. I for one wasn't familiar with Ecessa until now. Once again ITEXPO never fails to educate me, even though I consider myself well-educated on the VoIP industry. From what I've seen, this product seems a no-brainer and I expect them to do quite well once more people learn about them.

Check out this photo. So far foot traffic is very heavy. Lots of good
news to report. Stay tuned!