Recently in Packet8 Category

Robert Traphan, a college friend of mine stayed at my house last night and we were talking about the various VoIP products and services. Robert is a former SunRocket customer until the SunRocket implosion. Robert was a huge fan of SunRocket over both Packet8 and Vonage. One of his favorite features was SunRocket Signature Message Screener, a piece of software that runs on your PC and allows you to see who is calling (Caller ID with Name) via a TOAST icon in the System Tray. Even cooler, SunRocket Signature Message Screen lets you screen the voicemail message on your PC speakers as it is being left in real-time and it allows you to redirect the call to a predefined number (such as your cell phone).


SunRocket Signature Message Screener image courtesy of MyDigitalLife.us

Because it automatically plays out your PC speakers, the software gives your hosted VoIP voicemail service the feeling of a true home answering machine. Robert's only complaint he told me is that when the caller is leaving a message and you decide to redirect them they hear a ringing tone, which can be disconcerting to the caller.

Still call screening on broadband VoIP service is a must. Why oh why Vonage, Packet8, and all the others haven't copied this feature yet is beyond me. When I did have Vonage, I disabled their hosted voicemail because I like to screen callers and used a Uniden 5.8GHz TRU8885-2 multi-handset phone system which features call screening on any of the phone handsets. After all, the call could be a telemarketing call, or it could be family or friends calling. Without live call screening to me and to many people the voicemail system is useless. I should also point out that CallWave can be used as a hosted voicemail replacement and they support not only call screening but also Voicemail-To-Text transcribing. (See: Rich's post on CallWave) Why don't any of the major broadband VoIP service providers offer this functionality?

Robert was very sad to hear SunRocket was ceasing operations, which meant he was losing call screening. He asked me for advice on which VoIP service provider I'd recommend he switch to. However, we both learned that Teleblend was going to take over SunRocket's operations and maintain the existing feature set, including SunRocket Signature Message Screener. He's been a happy Teleblend user ever since. His only complaints about them is they don't seem to update their website very often and they started a blog, which also isn't updated.

Then Robert started talking about the big hoopla surrounding the Skype outage. Robert said, "Did you hear about the Skype outage? Apparently, Microsoft Windows Update caused the Skype supernode network to crash."

With a big grin on my face, I responded, "Did I hear about the Skype outage? I broke the story about the Skype outage and I theorized what the cause was - Microsoft Patch Tuesday and I was right. I was linked to by several bloggers & websites, including Computerworld, PC World, GigaOM, and Good Morning Silicon Valley. A couple mainstream media outlets linked to it and the San Francisco Chronicle called me for an interview on this major news since I broke the story. (SFC article is here.)"

I thought to myself, "Sheesh, don't you read my blog? [sigh] With friends like these..."

Packet8 has always been at the leading edge of cool VoIP applications and products. Packet8 was the first to offer a videophone for their residential VoIP customers (see my review of the Packet8 Videophone) They're had several other firsts to their name along with several patents to boot. Packet8 is like the dark horse when it comes to VoIP. While they don't have their name in lights like big bad Vonage, Packet8 has been slowly growing their customer base while adding cool new features. One advantage Packet8 has over Vonage and other VoIP broadband players is that Packet8 has gone after both the residential and business phone market simultaneously. These are vastly different markets, and would seem to many that Packet8 is biting off more than they can chew. But again, they keep steadily adding more customers. You know what they say - slow and steady wins the race.

Well, today I learned about another interesting VoIP application that Packet8 is offering - namely integration with Salesforce.com. You can call any of your Salesforce.com contacts to your Packet8 Virtual Office extension with the new salesforce.com plug-in application, which is available free to Virtual Office subscribers. Simply click the link next to a contact in the Salesforce.com browser window and you can instantly call your contacts. Just as nifty, incoming calls are displayed with pop-up screens based on the user's Salesforce contacts (using CallerID info).

Packet8 Virtual Office and salesforce.com partnered together to offer small businesses an integrated CRM telephony solution that lets subscribers place calls over the Packet8 Virtual Office service directly from their Salesforce application by either clicking the contact's phone number or using the dialpad on the Packet8 interface window.



The Packet8 Virtual Office Interface for Salesforce is currently supported by Internet Explorer 6.0 or later on Windows XP or Vista - sorry Mac fans. It also won't run on other browsers such as Opera, Firefox, or Opera. Limited browser support aside, Packet8 continues to add interesting VoIP applications that make VoIP a much more compelling argument to switch from PSTN other than simply cheaper voice minutes. Well done Packet8.

Rich Tehrani has a good post today that includes a couple pictures and even a couple of testimonial videos from this last Internet Telephony Conference & Expo. If you missed the resoundingly successful ITEXPO conference, be sure to check out Rich's blog post. MobileMax (which I glowed over at my ITEXPO meeting) gives a great testimony about how service providers specifically came to meet them at ITEXPO and said, "we closed a great deal here so we're looking forward to announcing that in the near future." MobileMax also said, "We're coming out of this show with more prospects than we really expected so we're really happy."

Packet8 commented, "This is a great show for us. We've been showing our MobileTalk application. We have a number of our partners here and we also meet up with a number of our resellers and we do see quite a few end-users at the show, especially small, medium-sized businesses.

Touchstone Technologies said, "Fantastic! The traffic to our booth has been excellent... In general we find that the traffic at the ITEXPO shows to be very highly qualified."

Robert Messer from ABP International stated, "This is one of the best shows for IP communications and VoIP combining everybody from the U.S. and a bunch of customers from Latin America. Great crowd. Very busy. One of the best shows for us every year. We got a lot of leads here both from Florida and pretty much the country.

Another exhibitor Audiocodes commented, "The traffic has been very heavy at the booth. We've had people in front of the booth for the whole show. This has turned out to be one of our best shows in the last few years."

Lots of other testimonials espousing the leads generated from ITEXPO and the high-quality traffic to the booths.

But don't take my word for it. Go check out the video below (click pic), which also shows the high-attendance/excellent traffic on the show floor. Oh and if you're wondering when the next ITEXPO is, it's September 16-18th at the Los Angeles Convention Center. Click here for more info.

8x8's Packet8 may not be the largest VoIP service provider, but they have nice stable growth. Unlike some VoIP service providers which tried to grow fast but then crashed and burned (See SunRocket posts here, here, and here), Packet8 has had slow steady growth over the years.

So I'm pleased to report that 8x8, Inc. (Nasdaq: EGHT), provider of Packet8 broadband Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), videophone and mobile VoIP communication services, today announced revenues for the third quarter of fiscal 2008 were $15.8 million, compared with $14.8 million for the second quarter of fiscal 2008 and $13.3 million for the same period of the prior year, an increase of 7% over the prior quarter and 19% year over year.

Net income for the quarter was $1.4 million or $0.02 per share, the second highest quarterly earnings in the company's history, compared with a net loss of $2.6 million or ($0.04) per share for the second quarter of fiscal 2008 and a net loss of $2.8 million or ($0.05) per share for the same period last year. Total revenues for the nine-month periods ended December 31, 2007 and 2006, were $45.3 million and $38.7 million, respectively, an increase of 17%.

You can read the full financial results after the jump...

Home phone systems haven't kept up with the latest innovations in mobile handsets, such as Internet access, streaming video, camera, etc. Considering many people are now choosing VoIP providers such as Vonage, Packet8, Skype, etc. which already sit on the Internet, wouldn't it make sense to have more advanced home phone systems? Where is Phone 2.0 for the home?

In fact, most VoIP providers simply use an analog telephony adapter (ATA) that lets you use your home analog cordless phone system. If you think about it, that's pretty kludgy. You're using an analog phone system on a digital IP network. Not only do you lose voice quality (wideband codec), but you also lose advanced functionality. Though I should point out that Packet8 has made strides in offering advanced phones that are not analog, such as the Packet8 Videophone. They also offer the Packet8 Tango, which is still analog, but adds videoconferencing, digital picture frame on the LCD, and other functionality.

That said, wouldn't you expect AT&T with their Uverse triple play (voice, video, data) service and Verizon with their FiOS triple play service to bundle advanced phones with their $80+/month service offerings? Well, John Sculley, former Apple CEO has visions for advanced home phone systems using OpenFrame created by OpenPeak. The OpenFrame devices are based on Freescale MX31 processors with two 600-MHz ARM11 chips and a proof of concept phone was developed that emulates the Apple iPhone interface.





Features like view TV schedules, send SMS, streaming video, music, web surfing, and more are possible. The phones will be heavily subsidized phones and could be shipping out in four or five months direct from the carriers.



OpenFrame is based on an "open" platform, using a custom hacked Linux kernel, however all of the software above the kernel is closed and proprietary - until the hackers hack it of course. OpenPeak will offer a full API for developing third-party apps, but only carriers need apply, not end-users. I wonder if the cordless handset depicted in the pictures is WiFi or DECT 6.0?

Update: I neglected to mention Rich's blog post from yesterday (Comcast 2.0), which reiterates my call for home "Phone 2.0" devices. Go check it out.

Due to a new FCC regulation requirement, you won't be able to perform pretexting (pretend to be someone else) to gain access to Paris Hilton's phone or other celebs for that matter. Damn, just when I was having fun too! Not to mention the whole HP pretexting debacle.

In any event, the FCC recently issued a new Customer Proprietary Network Information (or “CPNI”) order back in April that is intended to safeguard your calling records and/or billing information from unauthorized third parties who might try to acquire this information by impersonating customers, i.e. 'pretexting". The new regulation requires the use of a "pass phrase" and not simply name and phone number, which are often known by pretexters.

In fact, today Packet8 emailed me stating that beginning December 8, 2007, they will be requesting an authentication “Pass Phrase” from their customers when they contact their support team by phone or e-mail and request any of this proprietary network information.

In order to gain access to your Packet8 Call Log, Call Detail Records (CDR), and/or Billing Information, or changes to the email address, you will need to provide your Pass Phrase before they will be authorized to access these items.

Other VoIP players better get on-board as well. According to this FCC webpage, the FCC recently proposed $100,000 fines on telephone companies with inadequate certifications regarding compliance with FCC rules protecting customer information from disclosure. Ouch! Well, if my warning gave any VoIP service provider a heads-up on this massive fine resulting in instituting the new CPNI regulation, you can just cut me a 'thank you' check for $5000.

(I am kidding...)

8x8, provider of Packet8 broadband VoIP services, today announced the launch of Packet8 MobileTalk - a mobile calling service that utilizes a downloadable software application that can currently reside on any Windows, Palm or Symbian based mobile phone.

It connects the calls from the mobile phone to the Packet8 digital VoIP network to save on costs.

Packet8 MobileTalk users can dial calls directly and natively from their mobile handset, contact list or speed dial directory. Once the destination number is dialed or selected, the Packet8 MobileTalk software application identifies the international prefix being called and redirects the call to a local Packet8 network access number for terminating the last leg.

You might say Packet8 MobileTalk is similar to Truphone, except Truphone routes the call over the data connection, so the QoS is more affected. You might compare Packet8 MobileTalk with JAJAH, which offers the JAJAH Mobile Plugin, a softphone application that like MobileTalk works with Symbian phones. JAJAH Mobile Plugin, like Packet8 MobileTalk routes the call over the voice channel. However, JAJAH Mobile Plugin differs in that it only works with Symbian phones right now I believe and not Windows Mobile devices. Still, this is probably the closest comparison and it puts Packet8 in direct competition with JAJAH. Still... it's hard to compete with JAJAH's free global calling plan, but I give Packet8 credit for differentiating themselves.

Interestingly, with Packet8 MobileTalk, all calls are carried to the Packet8 network over the subscriber's existing cellular voice phone service. That is, you don't need a data plan as the voice is routed directly over the cellular voice channel to Packet8's servers. In this way, the call quality should be excellent.
 
Importantly, customers do not have to subscribe to other Packet8 VoIP or videophone services in order to sign up for Packet8 MobileTalk, though discounted service fees are offered to existing Packet8 VoIP or MobileTalk subscribers.  There is a one-time $9.99 activation fee for the service and a monthly fee of $9.99 for non-Packet 8 subscribers.  Existing Packet8 VoIP subscribers, including subscribers with one Packet8 MobileTalk account, pay a monthly service fee of $4.99.

Also, See Erik Linask's Greg Galitzine's interview with Packet8 CEO Brian Martin. Some useful insights there.

You can check out and download the Packet8 MobileTalk here: http://mobiletalk.packet8.net

Viseon Media, a video phone manufacturer, has apparently bitten the dust. Vonage was supposed to offer Viseon's VisiFone (image right) to their subscribers to compete with Packet8 which was first to market with a VoIP videophone. Obviously, Vonage decided to OEM from Viseon rather than develop their own video phone.  Now, people that signed up with Vonage  hoping to at some point upgrade to a videphone will have to wait till Vonage signs up another OEM video phone partner. I wonder if Vonage pre-paid for any of the Viseon videophones and was left holding the bag?

Funny, I saw the early warning signs a couple of years ago when Viseon kept promising they'd send me a review unit and it never arrived. I started to think the whole thing was vaporware. Let's recap, shall we?

December 2005, I wrote, What's wrong with Vonage? Oh let me count the ways...
Excerpt:
First, they've been promising the Viseon video phone for I about a year and it's still hard if not impossible to get. In fact, I checked my trusty email archives and found this email dated December 4, 2004 - "Vonage(R) Announces Partnership with Viseon to Develop Videophone Service". Ok, you announced the partnership in 2004 and it's almost 2006? C'mon already!

On September 30th of this year, I emailed a "certain" PR firm that invited me to check out the Viseon's videophone called the VisiFone. She wrote me saying, "We invite you to be one of the first editors to check out Viseon’s VisiFone, the first Digital Home Telephone for broadband. If you are interested, we will send you a set of two VisiFones. The trial VisiFone will come preloaded with a Vonage/Sipphone.com test account, a Quick start guide, and tech support for assistance." Sure, I said - send me the two VisiFone review units. I waited and I waited and yep, I'm still waiting. Nothing in the mail. Rich Tehrani also emailed her and also didn't hear back. If both Rich and I, two well-known VoIP journalists can't get our hands on the Viseon VisiFone, then who can?

October 2006, I wrote:
"What would be cool is if content providers can push video content to this video screen. Which reminds me that ViseonMedia, a subsidiary of Viseon, Inc. a provider of TV-quality content to their VisiFone Multimedia digital home telephone was supposed to send me a review unit. I've been hearing this product is largely vaporware, yet I have a press release from them stating they signed up the Fox News Channel and Discovery Networks, as part of a U.S. VisiFone consumer pilot that was slated for late 2005. I haven't heard much from them, so I'm going to have to look into that some more.

November 14, 2006 (today)
I received an email from a lawyer asking me if I ever received my Viseon phone because they are pursuing a case against Viseon on behalf of their common shareholders. This sparked my interest to see what was indeed going on. If you go to Viseon's two website domains (www.viseonmedia.com and www.viseon.com) you'll see neither one works. I used Google's cache to view the website and get to the Contact Us page to find the phone number. I then dialed the phone number and it says the number cannot be completed as dialed. The latest cached page I can find is October 1st, 2007, so Viseon could have gone under a few weeks ago, but strangely nothing on Google News or the news wires. I do see that on 06/22/2007 Viseon Inc. was deleted from the OTC Bulletin Board effective June 25, 2007 on account of its failure to comply with NASD 6530 and its Primary Exchange Listing changed to OTCUS from OTCBB.

They must have "limped" along for the past few months and finally gave way around early October - going by the Google cache date anyway. After all, no company still afloat would drop their website(s).

This is great news for Packet8 since they are now the only large residential VoIP player offering a videophone. Vonage? Not so much.

Tyntec launched their new Voice Network Query service that enables major carriers to route voice calls to mobile phones directly to destination operator, minimizing network load. Now that regulations force the carriers to allow customers to port their mobile phone numbers, this introduces some network traffic issues. Of course, I should mention that you can port your traditional landline phone number to a VoIP provider such as Vonage or Packet8, but that introduces its own series of number portability problems.

in any case, mobile messaging services provider TynTec, announced Voice Network Query, a service which will allow major telecoms carriers to route voice calls to mobile phones directly to their destination network operator. The new service overcomes the issue of onward routing of voice calls to ported mobile numbers, thus reducing the issue of excess network traffic generated by voice calls misrouted due to mobile number portability.

When a mobile user switches network but retains their current phone number, calls have traditionally been routed via the user's former operator's infrastructure, which then routes calls to the operator which now provides service to the customer. This double handling of calls generates additional network traffic and transmission costs which, ultimately, are passed on to subscribers. With TynTec's Voice Network Query, TynTec customers can check the actual network of a mobile number before routing the call, thus routing the voice call directly to the correct network and avoiding unnecessary network traffic.

TynTec is able to offer this service by leveraging its SS7 connections into the global mobile network. Using their access directly into mobile operators, TynTec can query any mobile number to establish its home network, whichever operator that number might have originated on.

Michael Kowalzik, CEO, TynTec, said: "Mobile Number Portability is a great thing for consumers but has caused huge amounts of problems in the routing of voice calls and lack of tariff transparency for the subscriber. Because mobile numbers are attached to a particular operator, when that number is ported onto a customer's new operator, the routing process can become hugely complex.

"Voice Network Query overcomes that problem with a simple and elegant solution - by 'asking' the phone what network its sitting on before routing the call it's possible to connect directly to the right network without the hassle and cost of unnecessary connections through intermediary operators."

Rich Tehrani has word that Packet8 is going to be picking up 12,000 VoIP subscribers from some unknown VoIP provider that is folding up shop over the next 3 months. Let the guessing game begin, who is it?

Well, we know it isn't Vonage, since they have millions of subscribers, but they have their own problems, including another patent loss in the courts yesterday to Sprint Nextel, which I also wrote about here.