Tom Keating : VoIP & Gadgets Blog
Tom Keating
CTO
| VoIP & Gadgets blog - Latest news in VoIP & gadgets, wireless, mobile phones, reviews, & opinions

VoIP

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

Skype Meets Facebook - But Not Without Problems

October 14, 2010

Skype 5.0 has been released with some new features, including Facebook integration. A new Facebook tab appears within the Skype client, which shows Facebook's 'News Feed' and a phone book. When I linked my Facebook account, I noticed under the privacy settings it said "Access my data any time. Skype may access my data when I'm not using the application".

CounterPath Demos iPhone to Nexus One Call Switching from VoIP to Cellular & Back

October 6, 2010


I met with Todd Carothers, VP of Product Management at TMC's ITEXPO in Los Angeles to hear about Counterpath's latest patents and new product offerings. Todd gave me one of the coolest demos of mobile VoIP I've ever seen! I captured the demo in one of two videos that I've included in this blog post. Definitely a must watch!

ITEXPO Still Packed at 6pm PT!

October 5, 2010

Mykola Konrad Overview of Sonus Networks

October 5, 2010

I met with Sonus Networks' Mykola Konrad, Director, Enterprise Management at ITEXPO today. It's not every day that I get to meet someone who formerly worked on the Microsoft Surface product, a very cool technology. It's basically an extra-large iPad and Mykola mentioned Microsoft was considering something like the iPad two years ago.

Anyway, back to Sonus, Mykola talked about some of their products, including the GSX9000. One feature it offers is the ability for non-VoIP digital phones to register to their ASX (SIP registrar).

Broadvox's David Byrd Overview at ITEXPO

October 5, 2010

David Byrd Vice President of Marketing and Product Management for Broadvox stopped by to speak with me at ITEXPO. You should definitely check out David's SIP and Serve by a Foodie blog. He provides interesting insights on VoIP, but also blogs some delectable recipes. He also mixes some VoIP and food metaphors.

UM Labs Brings 256-bit AES Secure VoIP to Mobile Phones

October 5, 2010

I met with Mike Wilson, VP of Sales & Marketing for UM Labs at ITEXPO today to learn more about their secure VoIP offering. At ITEXPO they announced their 1.5 release, which steps up interoperability amongst various IP-PBXS and now it works with Skype (Skype Connect).
Mike explained that a lot of independent dealers across the world who also use Skype, can now connect their PBXs to these Skype users and save a lot of money on conference calls. Their solution acts as the "glue" allowing Avaya to connect to Cisco, or Shoretel to Avaya, etc. They have a built-in scripting engine and can adjust paths between switch and trunking provider or two switches to ensure interoperability.

As part of this release they are stepping up encryption, which he claimed already had incredibly low latency.


Do IT Smarter MSP Provider

October 5, 2010

AudioCodes MediaPack 252 All-In-One Gateway Sweetness!

October 5, 2010



AudioCodes MediaPack™ 252 (MP-252) is a sophisticated, feature-rich, multimedia home gateway for broadband networks with Multi-play support. Launched at TMC's ITEXPO, it sports a built-in ADSL2+ modem, multiple antenna wireless LAN connectivity, DECT handsets supporting HD VoIP, Bluetooth interface for connecting cellular phones and optional battery backup. With its USB ports (3 in one model, 1 in another) , it even has support for being a print server, and can connect to file servers and UPnP AV Media Servers. I spoke with AudioCodes Alan Percy, Director of Business Development in the ITEXPO press room to learn more about this innovative all-in-one gateway for Multi-play services.

More Features Than You Can Shake a Stick At
The ADSL/ADSL2+ modem supports up to 24Mbps. It features a 10/100 Ethernet WAN port (optional connection to cable modem or FTTH ONU) and Four 10/100 Ethernet LAN ports.




Xobni CEO Jeff Bonforte Gives Fascinating Keynote At StartupCamp

October 5, 2010

ITEXPO hosted the 2nd annual Startup Camp where startup companies in the telecom, VoIP, wireless, CRM, and social media industries give a short 5 minute demo of their product or service. Then a few panelists critique their presentation. It lead to some interesting critiques. You'll definitely want to attend the next Startup Camp if you missed this one!

The keynote speaker at StartupCamp was Xobni CEO Jeff Bonforte, who has been actively involved in the future of communications for years, dating back to his involvement in what became the Gizmo Project (Gizmo5), and to his executive roles with Yahoo!’s Real-time Communications Group.

His keynote was one of the highlights of the event and I'm glad I was able to record about 80% of his insightful and funny presentation.



Netflix Adds Video Out Support to iPhone 4 and iPod

October 4, 2010

Featured Events