September 2004 Archives

The Ministry of Information and Communication yesterday revealed a plan to promote Internet-based telephony services by creating a dedicated dialing code for voice-over-Internet protocol calls. The IP-only prefix, 070, could be used anywhere in the country and will be assigned to operators providing services that meet the quality requirements set by the Telecommunications Technology Association. The association will require operators to provide services with a minimum 70 rating, a voice quality evaluation standard used by the International Telecommunication Union, that translates to greater than 95 percent connection success rate. Signals must be transmitted to receivers within 1.5 seconds. more...

SBC Communications Inc. (NYSE:SBC) today announced that the SBC family of companies has been rated as the leading provider of business hosted IP voice services by International Data Corporation (IDC), a leading global market intelligence and advisory firm focused on the information technology and telecommunications industries. In the report, IDC predicts that hosted services will emerge as a leading platform for business IP telephony, also known as Voice over IP (VoIP). IP telephony is rapidly growing in the business market as companies look to take advantage of the cost efficiencies and advanced features enabled by the technology. Hosted services deliver IP telephony functionality over carrier networks rather than premises- based equipment, allowing businesses to adopt the technology without extensive equipment purchases or ongoing management concerns. IDC's forecast of the U.S. business hosted IP voice services market is based on analysis of service providers and end-user demand for hosted IP voice services. The industry analyst firm analyzed all of the existing hosted IP voice service providers, looking at criteria such as market opportunity and the ability to gain share. Based on this research, the SBC family of companies was ranked ahead of all other service providers - including incumbent local exchange carriers, competitive local exchange carriers and virtual network operators - and cited as the "top contender for market leadership in terms of revenue and market reach." more...

In a private sale of stock, Burlington-based iBasis Inc. has raised $31.5 million which it intends to use for general corporate purposes. IBasis carries telephone traffic between countries by sending voice over Internet protocol, cutting costs by lessening the need for carrier clients to reserve dedicated circuits to transfer signals. It also sells retail prepaid calling cards that use VoIP technology. The company sold 15 million shares at $2.10 each, 2 cents below their closing price Friday. The company did not immediately identify the purchasers except to say they were both new and existing investors. more...

This week, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission has been holding hearings about whether or not it should regulate the industry that's developing in Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). VoIP is a new technology that can transform a phone conversation into digital packets that are shipped over the Internet and reassembled at their destination. The entry of a large number of VoIP competitors is likely to change completely the telephone and telecommunications industry.

EV-DO, EDGE and EV-DV will do great things for VoIP Mobility. Feature rich, ubiquitous mobile voip is sure to be the holy grail in IP communications. Take your free SIP account and place it anywhere in the network and chop off that last mile of legacy, as long as we can get a flat rate on the bandwidth life would be bliss

Companies see opportunity for delivering high-end VoIP solutions Santa Clara, September 23, 2004 – /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ – Xten (OTCBB: XNWK), a provider of VoIP (Voice over IP) and Video over IP SIP softphones, today announced that they will work with Plantronics, the world leader in communications headsets, to offer enhanced VoIP solutions, combining Xten's softphones with Plantronics full line of PC headsets. Both companies will feature links on their respective web sites. "Xten softphones represent some of the best technology in IP telephony today," stated Joe McGrogan, product marketing manager for Plantronics. "Combining our headsets and Xten's softphones offers consumers, road-warriors and enterprise users, excellent sound quality, comfort and convenience for IP-based communications." more..

P-Cube's flagship product, the Engage v2.1 Service Control Platform, is used by broadband service providers to monitor, control and bill for services such as voice over Ibternet Protocol [I think that is Internet Protocol], interactive gaming, video on demand and peer-to-peer applications. more...

This is really cool! Brad templeton, the first guy to create a .com back in the day, errected a Wireless VoIP phone booth and connected it to BroadVoice's service. Over 1600 calls were made.

Calabasas, CA (Monday, September 20, 2004): Tekelec (NASDAQ: TKLC) today announced that it has acquired VocalData, Inc., a provider of hosted Internet protocol (IP) telephony applications that enable the delivery of advanced telecom services and applications to business and residential customers. With the acquisition, Tekelec, a global supplier of telecommunications products for next-generation fixed, mobile and packet networks, enables operators to deliver time division multiplex (TDM) and IP services such as IP Centrex, hosted PBX services and voice virtual private networking (VPN) as they migrate to next-generation networks. more...

PARIS, September 17 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Alcatel (Paris : CGEP.PA and NYSE : ALA) today announced it has acquired privately held US-based eDial, Inc., a leading provider of conferencing and collaboration solutions for enterprises and service providers. The acquisition of eDial enables Alcatel to continue expansion of its enterprise software offerings. eDial is based in Waltham, Mass. and employs approximately 30 people. The company currently serves more than 100 customers, including enterprises and service providers, through direct and indirect channels. The acquisition was made for approximately $27 million (approx. EUR22 million) in Alcatel stock (ADS) and cash. The deal closed today.

EarthLink's R&D lab on Thursday released a proof-of-concept application to show how a popular messaging protocol can be used for purposes other than what it was designed, including sharing data. Dubbed SIPshare, the peer-to-peer application is designed to show how SIP -- for Session Initiation Protocol -- can be used for chores other than its typical collaboration and voice over IP (VoIP) duties. "The emerging ubiquity of SIP as a general session-initiation enabler provides a rare opportunity to offer users all manner of P2P applications over a common protocol, instead of inventing a new protocol for each new P2P application that comes along," EarthLink explained on the SIPshare site. Although SIP is primarily used for VoIP, EarthLink said the Internet standard "is too important to consider use only for voice, or only for video," and created SIPshare to show the protocol's flexibility. However, said EarthLink, SIP could also be used to build a P2P-style VoIP network, something that would rival the proprietary Skype in scope, but be based on open Internet standards. "SIPshare demonstrates that it is conceivable that voice over IP, where voice is just content of a different form, itself can be implemented using SIP in a fully standards-based P2P network. In other words, the effect of Skype, but with one important difference: using standards-based protocols, as EarthLink SIPshare does for content sharing," EarthLink wrote. SIPshare is open-source -- it was released under a BSD-type license -- and can be downloaded from the SIPshare site.

Software developer Xten Networks Inc. has an edge when it comes to meeting deadlines: a Web-based collaboration system called a Wiki, which has shortened its product development time by 20 per cent. Wiki technology, invented by Oregon programmer Ward Cunningham, is server software that allows users to quickly create and edit on-line content using any Web browser ("wikiwiki" means "fast" in Hawaiian). The software is available from commercial developers, and there are also free open-source packages. more..

Everyone agrees that IP Video is going to have a pretty huge impact on many forms of Video communications and entertainment. Imagine watching your favorite new movie on VOD and while watching you receive a Video call, picture in picture and whalla you are watching your movie AND having a video call. With the advent of H.264 and open standards SIP we are going to see some very cool stuff coming down the pipe within a short timeframe.

Xten launches its new video over IP SIP softphone, which supports SIP and the H.263 video codec to deliver revenue-producing applications such as videoconferencing along with enhanced voice quality Santa Clara, September 13, 2004 – /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ – Xten (OTCBB: XNWK), a provider of SIP-based video and voice over IP softphones and software, today announced the launch of eyeBeam, a video SIP softphone. eyeBeam supports open standards video utilizing SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) and the H.263 video codec, which supports video transmissions that are television-like in their quality. This enables service providers to easily deliver high-quality videoconferencing via IP to their customers, thus opening new IP revenue streams. The eyeBeam feature set includes an array of robust SIP telephony features offered in the award-winning X-PRO SIP softphone, including call transfer/forward, caller ID, and 10-point conferencing. eyeBeam enhances this feature set with the addition of acoustic echo cancellation, voice activity detection, adaptive jitter buffer and message waiting indicator. more...

With better codecs like H.264, Video on Demand and Video over IP conferencing will become common place. Set-top boxes are being designed and there are several triple play projects well under way. eyeBeam is now live on the Xten website. There is an eyeBeam prototype for H.264 available today to vendors who wish to perform interop with Xten. Those interested should email [email protected]. Soon it will all be under one hood, P2P IM, VVoIP using SIP and VOD. Things are really getting exciting now!