July 2004 Archives

Avaya on Monday announced an agreement with Toshiba to deploy Avaya's Communications Manager IP PBX in its Tokyo headquarters. Part of an SIP (Session Initiation Protocol)-based telephony network to connect 12,000 Toshiba Corp. employees, the announcement represents the second vote of confidence this month in enterprise IP telephony on a multinational, Fortune-500 scale. Su also confirmed that the Communications Manager IP PBX will interoperate in all SIP functions with IP phones from Xten, Pingtel and other phones that conform to the SIP standard's RFC 3261–an RFC with specs for authentication. more...

eyeBeam v1.0 Private Beta was made available today by Xten to select companies and individuals. The eyeBeam Private Beta is expected to last 3-6 weeks or until Xten is satisfied that the product is performing well enough to be considered a production candidate. Features to be included in the Production Candidate: - X-PRO Telephony Features - Video Conferencing and Video Chat - Instant Messenger and Presence - New Sliding Panel Design - Acoustic Echo Cancellation / Speakerphone - NAT Traversal using STUN and ICE - Message Waiting Indicator - New Licensing Mechanism using Standard Keys

Verizon Communications on Thursday began offering VoiceWing, its long-awaited broadband phone service expected to challenge AT&T, Vonage and other top providers of Internet phone calls. The unlimited local and long-distance service, available nationwide, costs about the industry average: $35 for the first six months, then goes up to $40 a month, the carrier said. If a Verizon DSL subscriber signs up, VoiceWing costs $30 a month for the first six months, then $35 a month, according to Verizon. For Verizon, Net phone plans will serve as an enticement to attract new broadband customers or keep old ones, executives said Thursday. The company has also been slashing the prices of its broadband plans recently. more...

SMBs looking to cut costs have replaced — or are considering replacing — traditional telephone service with Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). Now, in what appears to good news for IP vendors and SMBs, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and Treasury Department strongly deny they are considering an excise tax on Internet telephone calls or any other IP-based services. On July 1, the IRS published in the Federal Register a request for public comments on changes in the telecommunications industry since 1965, when the tax code was last updated to define telecommunications services. Based on those definitions, the IRS currently imposes a three percent excise tax on telecom services. more...

For those who are interested, Xten is looking for 2-3 Senior IM / XMPP Client Developers immediately. Main R&D facility is in Burnaby, just outside Vancouver, BC. Here is some stuff on Xten: Xten Networks Inc. is a leader in SIP based Voice Over IP and IP Telephony softphone development. Xten software is mainly used by Internet Telephony Service Providers and New Era Telephone Companies. Xten has developed a best of breed SIP softphone to support large scalable systems. In a short period of time, Xten has become one of the largest independent suppliers of SIP [Session Initiation Protocol] compliant soft telephones. Position Available >> Senior IM / XMPP Developer (ref# XMPPSR-704) Reporting to the CTO and Project Manager, candidate will have the following main duties: - Implement, extend and maintain XMPP protocols and to add functionality to existing SIP telephony and Video client application - Implement new IM standards as they emerge - Assist client development by servicing as the implementation bridge between SIP protocol and IM user features - Fix compliance issues as discovered by QA Protocol Validation Engineer Chosen candidate will be able to bridge gap between requested user features and implementation of XMPP protocol standards. A candidate will be expected to be extremely code proficient and have deep understanding of implementing protocols. Must have competencies: - Good working command of English language (written and spoken) - Proven team player - Deep TCP/UDP/IP networking experience - Strong working knowledge of Windows OS - Exceptional knowledge of C++ - Prior multi-threading experience Desired competencies (but not required): - Asynchronous design patterns - Experience reading and interpreting RFCs - Previous work with SIP and VoIP softphones would be tremendous benefit - Previous work with SIMPLE would be tremendous benefit This position is based in Burnaby, British Columbia. Relocation for the right person may be considered. When applying please note the following: 1. Only apply for positions if you meet all the required competencies. 2. All applications must contain a ref# in the e-mail subject or they will not be considered. 3. You may apply for more than one position. 4. Longer well-organized resumes are appreciated over shorter resumes. 5. E-mailed applications are preferred. 6. Henry Vandenhoogen is not available to accept phone calls. If Henry Vandenhoogen is interested in your application, he or another member of the team will contact you. Applicants who disregard this note will be eliminated as a candidate. Contact: Henry Vandenhoogen Xten Networks Inc. Suite 188 4664 Lougheed Highway Burnaby, British Columbia Canada V5C5T5 E-mail: [email protected]

BT is gunning for rival voice-over IP (VoIP) services such as Skype with BT Communicator with Yahoo! Messenger, the UK telco's first major Internet telephony product. BT Communicator integrates VoIP functionality into the Yahoo instant messenger client. It will provide free voice calls to other PCs, and will also allow users to call landlines and mobile phones for the same price as using their BT home telephone. Andrew Burke, director of value added services at BT Retail, said that BT Communicator, which was launched on Thursday, would turn a home PC into the "smartest phone in the house". more...

SEATTLE (Reuters) — Microsoft (MSFT) will open its online messaging service for the workplace to America Online and Yahoo's (YHOO) systems, in a big step toward allowing users of different networks to communicate with each other, the companies said on Thursday. Microsoft, the world's largest software maker, will open up its instant messaging software used by businesses, but consumers using its free MSN Messenger service will not get the same interoperability, at least for now, said Taylor Collyer, a Microsoft marketing manager. more...

An obscure contest over futuristic video technologies is beginning to unfold in the broadcast industry, with dramatic consequences for the future of television, Hollywood and Microsoft. The battle for now is visible only on the fringes, where experts are carefully weighing the pros and cons of two new candidates for delivering emerging applications such as Internet movies on demand, video over cell phones and high-definition TV (HDTV) programming. One candidate, known alternately as MPEG-4 AVC or H.264, is the latest successor to the standard video format currently used by virtually all cable and broadcast TV stations. The other is Microsoft's Windows Media VC-9 format. more...

VoIP Regs are heating up, here is what Powell has to say of late... "I think we're going to do this nation a big disservice if we try to chop the Internet into 51 pieces and every state is allowed to regulate economically any way it chooses. That's no indictment of states, only as the good of the whole won't be maximized," he said. "You're going to have a hard time. It's one thing to say, 'Should you do it?' but I don't even understand how they would do it." more..

The Consumer Federation of America (CFA) today presented a new framework for evaluating the importance of open communications networks to the success of the Internet. Federal Communications Commission proposals to abandon the requirement that advanced telecommunications be operated in a nondiscriminatory manner threaten to undermine the vibrant competition and dynamic innovation that the Internet unleashed. CFA will file the 110-page white paper, The Public Interest in Open Communications Networks, in nearly a dozen proceedings pending before the FCC and the Courts, proceedings that will affect the future of broadband communications. The paper argues for principles of open architecture and includes a 12-page Issue Brief that summarizes the full white paper. more...

Cisco is set to announce one of its largest Internet telephony contracts to date. On Tuesday, the company will announce that Boeing has selected Cisco to be its main supplier of Internet Protocol telephony gear, as the airplane manufacturer migrates from a traditional telephone network. The entire project will take roughly five to seven years from start to finish, said Mike Terrill, program manager for network convergence at Boeing. The company, which is one of the world's largest makers of commercial jetliners, military aircraft and equipment for the United States space program, has more than 150,000 employees in 48 states and 70 countries. more..

The Treasury Department said it doesn't plan to tax telephone calls made over the Internet after a lawmaker asked for a clarification of a notice the government issued last week. The Treasury Department and Internal Revenue Service said Friday the government will seek comment from telecommunications companies on whether telephone tax regulations first developed in 1965 need updating to keep pace with technological advances. "Nothing in the notice said anything about taxing" the technology known as voice over Internet protocol, or VOIP, Treasury Department spokeswoman Tara Bradshaw said. California Representative Christopher Cox, a Republican who leads the House Energy and Commerce Committee, yesterday sent a letter to President George W. Bush urging him to "direct the IRS immediately to affirm" that a tax on telephone calls does not apply to those placed over the Internet. Jeff Pulver, chief executive of pulver.com, which operates Free World Dialup, a voice-over-the-Internet service, said he was pleased by the government's clarification and said it ratifies an earlier ruling by the Federal Communications Commission that traditional telephone rules don't apply to his industry. "The IRS needs to get a grip about how VOIP technology is evolving," he said. more...

LOUISVILLE, Colo.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 12, 2004--Key cable operators aiming at offering voice services for small-business and commercial customers joined with CableLabs(R) today to issue a request for proposal (RFP) for Multi-Line multimedia terminal adapter (ML-MTA) equipment. RFP responses are due August 12 with the anticipation that equipment would be available for testing later this year. CableLabs is working with its members to collect information from manufacturers regarding ML-MTA that comply with CableLabs' DOCSIS(R) 2.0 and PacketCable(TM) 1.0 specifications. Based on the current state of DOCSIS technology and the business needs of many cable operators, a minimum eight-line unit is specified. By providing a common set of technical requirements for an ML-MTA for this emerging application, CableLabs anticipates that this may provide enough scale that it will enable suppliers to offer this product economically in a timely manner. The RFP is available on the CableLabs website http://www.cablelabs.com/downloads/ML_MTA_RFP.pdf for vendors to download. Any questions or comments should be directed to Jerry Bennington via email at [email protected]. Founded in 1988 by members of the cable television industry, Cable Television Laboratories is a non-profit research and development consortium that is dedicated to pursuing new cable telecommunications technologies and to helping its cable operator members integrate those advancements into their business objectives. Cable operators from around the world are members. CableLabs maintains websites at www.cablelabs.com, www.packetcable.com, www.cablemodem.com, www.cablenet.org, and www.opencable.com. CableLabs, DOCSIS, CableHome, PacketCable, OpenCable, OCAP, CableCARD(TM), and CableNET are trademarks of Cable Television Laboratories, Inc. Go2Broadband(SM) is a service mark of CableLabs.

WASHINGTON -- Exempting Internet telephony from state regulations can't wait for Congress to pass an overall telecom reform bill, U.S. Representative Chip Pickering told fellow lawmakers Wednesday. While several bills to exempt Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) from state regulations have been introduced in both the House and the Senate, lawmakers have been reluctant to carve out a special niche for VoIP from the overall reform of the 1996 Telecommunications Act planned for next year. "At a minimum from today, [telecom reform] will take three years," Pickering told the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet studying telecom reform. "We need to do pre-emption now. If we wait, it will be three years and the market can't wait." Pickering is the sponsor of a bill preventing the FCC from delegating VoIP regulatory authority to state and local officials. The legislation also exempts VoIP applications from the FCC's access charge regime. John Sununu (R-N.H.) is sponsoring similar legislation in the Senate. "We should have three policy objectives: promote broadband investment, promote competition and protect consumers," Pickering said. "We should not have a patchwork of 50 states with different regulations." Tuesday's House hearing drew an overflow crowd to hear an unusually large panel of witnesses, which included officials from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), BellSouth (Quote, Chart), Vonage, At&T (Quote, Chart), Covad, Level 3 (Quote, Chart) and Cablevision (Quote, Chart).

Nikotel recently launched their new softphone, provided by Xten. Nikotel is one of the most suceesful PC to Phone services available today serving hundreds of thousands of customers. Considering they already had a their own softphone and replaced it with the Xten SIP softphone is a great credit to Xten.