I saw this on today's wire. Looks like Sphere Communications has finally taken the covers off its Release 5 of Sphericall. I've summarized the release below wiith a focus on what I think are the more significant elements of this news.

Sphericall 5 features communications Web Services for business application software integration, SIP trunking and expanded SIP device support, software-based call recording and Assured Services for optimizing emergency communications.

Sports Web site Sportal.com is offering free calls, voice and video messages online. Sportal announced a deal with the Voice Commerce Group to stream a World Cup warm up match between Trinidad & Tobago and Iceland on Tuesday February 28, with video, voice and chat features.

The deal will see Sportal.com provide a VoIP service offering video Casts and access to live sports events, along with free PC-to-PC calls, phone calls and video and voice messaging to lets fans discuss events as they happen.

T&T finds itself in difficult Group B in this year's World Cup.

eLEC Communications Corp.  a telecommunications holding company and the parent company of  VoIP services provider, VoX Communications Corp., today announced that it has signed a letter of intent to acquire Liberty Bell Telecom, LLC, a privately-held telecommunications company that provides local and long distance telephone service in the State of Colorado.

For more information, check out the companies' Web sites:

Vox Communications

eLec Communications

In November 2005, the Keep USF Fair Coalition�  released its report entitled “Losing Numbers:�  How America’s Most Vulnerable Consumers Could Suffer Under Universal Service Fund (USF) ‘Reform’” noting:

“The currently consumer-friendly ‘pay for what you use’ approach to funding the Universal Service Fund would be replaced under the Martin plan with a regressive, flat-fee arrangement of $1–$2 or more per phone line — regardless of whether or not consumers even make a long-distance call. For a consumer who now dials only a handful of long-distance calls per year and pays correspondingly low USF taxes, the effective tax rate under the Martin plan would soar by more than 1,000 percent on an annual basis! With low-income and elderly consumers already socked with high gas prices, the prospect of soaring winter heating bills and continued inflation in medical prescriptions, the wide range of diverse groups in the Keep USF Fair Coalition are opposing the Martin ‘numbers’ based plan.�  These groups caution against balancing USF finances on the backs of the very consumers who use long-distance the least and are unable to afford phone bills that would rise under “numbers” simply in order to subsidize high-income/high-volume callers.”

Today the group announced it will present data disputing the FCC’s claims on Monday February 27..

Interested parties can join the live, telephone-based news conference and Q&A, by dialing 1-(800) 860-2442 prior to the 1:30 p.m.

Change. Growth. Evolution.

My wife and I took our children to the American Museum of Natural History in NYC this past week, and it was an interesting study of human evolution.

The Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) Council and the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA), today announced new estimates showing FTTH deployments now passing over 3.6 million U.S. homes, an increase of almost 1 million homes in four months.

The new figures show the most rapid growth of FTTH deployment to date, with more than 230,000 additional homes passed every month.

“Typically telecom construction slows in winter months,” said Michael Render of market research firm Render, Vanderslice and Associates, which prepared the estimates.�  “To see acceleration at this time of year indicates increased preference for FTTH as an infrastructure of choice.”� 

The figures also show acceleration among homes connected by FTTH, which normally lags homes passed by several months.�  Over the last four months, the estimate shows, homes connected with FTTH have increased by 70% — to 548,000 subscribers from 322,000.

FrontRange Solutions� today announced the release of IP Office Suite - their new complete IP telephony phone system and the foundation of their Communications Management solution family.

Designed entirely in software, IP Office Suite is designed to provide IP-based telephony functionality to the SMB and distributed enterprise. According to a press announcement, FrontRange's expanding Communication Management family demonstrates a tipping point in the adoption of VoIP by proving that IP is no longer just being adopted as a 'tech' application but truly being used to improve business processes and customer satisfaction throughout the organization. Moreover, these new solutions enable the SMB and distributed enterprise to benefit from enterprise level technology without having to sacrifice enterprise level resources.

In today’s news emanating from 3GSM in Barcelona, Nortel announced aggressive plans to evolve its wireless and wireline platforms to the Advanced Telecom Computing Architecture (ATCA).

As part of its strategy to provide open, carrier grade solutions, Nortel is bringing to market a second generation, carrier grade ATCA-based platform - the Versatile Service Engine (VSE) - to support the unique market requirements of wireless, wireline and cable operators.

Nortel's Call Session Control Function (CSCF), which is in multiple global customer trials, will be the first IMS product delivered on the VSE platform, with planned commercial availability in the second quarter of 2006. Nortel intends to introduce additional IMS and core products such as the IMS Home Subscriber Server (HSS), wireline/wireless call servers (MSC) and Home Location Registers (HLR) on the VSE in 2006 and 2007.

It looks like West is into VoIP for the long haul.

The news came down today� that West Interactive Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of West Corporation, has selected the Sonus IP Multimedia Subsystems (IMS)-ready architecture as a component of its next generation voice network. West Interactive, which specializes in interactive voice response (IVR) services, is deploying a new VoIP network to cost-effectively increase network capacity and support the development of new revenue-generating services.

Last week West announced that it had purchased Intrado, a Colorado-based company that� provides 911 operations support systems services to� LECs and wireless telcos in North America.