Tom Keating : VoIP & Gadgets Blog
Tom Keating
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SIP

Gizmo5 SIP Trunks available in trixbox CE

September 26, 2008

Gizmo5 SIP trunks have always been available in trixbox CE, but it was a manual process. The Gizmo5 team has built a module to be part of the trixbox package manager that allows you to purchase your trunks, see your account balance, purchase more minutes, and automatically setup your inbound and outbound routes. The module is now available via the trixbox package manager and will be built into all upcoming ISO builds.

Additionally, the calling service for trixbox CE is pre-configured to use the Gizmo5 calling network and includes a new UI for easy administration.

Flash VoIP calls to Yahoo Messenger, MSN Messenger, and Google Talk

September 25, 2008

Flashphone is a web-based SIP softphone, while gtalk2voip lets you make or receive calls to/from all SIP phones and SIP services, including Yahoo! Messenger, MSN Messenger, and Google Talk. Both Flashphone and gtalk2voip are free. Now combine the two and you can make free web-based Flash calls to Yahoo Messenger, MSN Messenger, and Google Talk (gtalk) users.

According to the Flashphone blog, "For example, if someone is online in Gtalk and you want to call him from flashphone you just need to enter SIP URI like sip:[email protected] and gtalk user will see incoming call. You also can easily call to flashphone from gtalk via gtalk2voip, add contact like [flashphone_login][email protected] and call to this contact, flashphone will ring if user online."

Pretty sweet!

image of Flashphone during one of my tests:









Microsoft Office Communication Server R2 ships in December plus Hosted OCS Coming

September 23, 2008

I discovered two Microsoft job postings several weeks ago and have been meaning to blog the discovery that Microsoft Office Communication Server R2 will ship in December of this year. One is for 'Software Development Engineer in Test - MBD - RTC' and the other for 'Lead Software Develpment Engineer in Test - Office Communications Server'. One of the job posting says:
"The Office Communications Server team is starting a new deployment/management/administration team at Beijing. The Office Communications Server product team must deliver both an on-premise version of the Server as well as offering a hosted Service for Small and Medium Businesses.

Laughable Blog Aggregator and Linking to news sources

September 22, 2008

I'm not going to go on another rant blasting blog aggregators or websites that steal other people's content (aka sploggers). However, I came across one website that took my content, re-worded one sentence and tried to claim it as its own. The change is so laughable I busted out laughing!

First, my blog entry titled Court Bans VoIP App on iPhone was one of the first if not the first U.S.-based news outlet to talk about how a German court banned the sipgate VoIP application on the iPhone. In the article, I wrote:
Apparently, the court felt that sipgate would "lure" iPhone users into "jailbreaking" their iPhones.


Pro vs. G.I. Joe using SightSpeed Video/VoIP App

September 22, 2008

This news about American troops using VoIP & video is a few weeks old, but I wanted to share it, since it's pretty interesting. SightSpeed VP of Marketing Eric Quanstrom mentioned the news to me awhile ago when we were on a SightSpeed video call. Using SightSpeed, U.S. troops are able to play PlayStation, XBox and the WII against professional athletes (Philadelphia Eagles) while seeing them (video) and "trash talking" them over the Internet (VoIP).

Polycom KIRK DECT SIP Phones

September 22, 2008

Polycom today announced the launch of its latest KIRK Digital Enhanced Cordless Telecommunications (DECT) wireless products. Polycom has introduced three new products: the KIRK Wireless Server (KWS) 300, the KWS 6000, and the KIRK 5040 handset. which are all SIP-based.

The name KIRK certainly evokes Captain Kirk from Star Trek and most likely intentionally, since Captain Kirk and his crew made the wireless communicator famous 40 years ago. No doubt Polycom has some Trekkies in their engineering or marketing teams.

Fonality Targets Call Centers with Advanced Call Center Features

September 18, 2008


I met with Fonality CEO Chris Lyman at ITEXPO and he gave me a demo of HUD 3.0, which includes some very advanced call center features. HUD 3.0 now not only displays the queues, but it lets you drag-and-drop individual queues off the main HUD client onto your Desktop allowing managers & agents to focus on specific queues of interest. The new version features important statistics such as abandonment rate, ASA (average speed of answer), and more. You can see all of your agents in a particular queue and they are color coded to indicate their status (on internal call, on queue call, etc.)

One critical feature is that if a call is not being answered, it immediately broadcasts a toast popup window to all the agents in the queue and allows an agent to take the call before it is abandoned.


ITEXPO West 2008 a Resounding Success

September 18, 2008

Some great news from TMC about our IP communications conference & expositions (ITEXPO) taking place this week that I thought I'd share. The show is still going on, with today being the last day. Yesterday's exhibit hall attendance was tremendous as seen by some photos I snapped and posted yesterday. I had some great meetings or saw many important VoIP companies, including Asterisk/Digium, CosmoCom, Fonality, Microsoft, Packet8, PIKA, Skype, and more.

Zeacom News

September 17, 2008

Zeacom, a provider of Unified Communications (UC) solutions for the small-to-medium sized business market, is showcasing its new Executive Mobile module at ITEXPO, which is part of Zeacom Communications Center (ZCC) 5.1. Claiming more than 2,500 enterprises worldwide, Executive Mobile gives end-users advanced UC functionality on their smart phone or other handheld device with support for Blackberry and Windows Mobile. Zeacom President, Ernie Wallerstein demo'ed the platform in the ITEXPO press room and I was pretty impressed.

Executive Mobile gives individuals the ability to manage their presence and availability status from their mobile. All functionality currently available on the desktop (single mailbox, presence profiles and directory) will be available on Blackberry and Windows Mobile devices.

Zeacom President, Ernie Wallerstein, believes that executives in today's hyper-competitive global marketplace must have access to this critical functionality.



Microsoft Response Point Adds T1 Support and SIP Trunking Service Providers

September 17, 2008


Today at ITEXPO, Microsoft will announce a few more SIP trunking service providers that come pre-configured in the Response Point unit making it virtually plug-and-play when selecting a SIP trunking service provider. At ITEXPO Microsoft will announce they are adding NGT, Cbeyond, and Junction Networks. In addition they are also adding support for broadband VoIP service provider Packet8, as well as Bandwidth.com, a provider of Internet and managed services, including SIP trunking.

At ITEXPO Microsoft will also announce that they will be supporting the ClearOne IP conference phone (MAX IP Response point), what Microsoft told TMCNet they consider one of the best quality IP conference phones out there.


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