By David Sims

[email protected]

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and we’ll try to give the Robert Earl Keen a rest, leavening the CD changer with the likes of… The Best of The Byrds, for instance.

Stratos Global Corp., a global communications vendor and distributor of Inmarsat satellite services, has introduced its SecureComms VoIP service for secure data and voice communications.

SecureComms VoIP, designed, surprisingly enough, to work with Stratos mobile and fixed satellite products, is aimed at allowing government and military users to use IP networking and satellite communications to establish an on-demand, global secure voice and data network “with the reliability and performance of traditional terrestrial services,” Stratos company officials say.

The service features a small, mobile SecureComms Interface, based on the WHISPER Secure VoIP platform from DTECH LABS, and using SHOUT IP software from Network Equipment Technologies.

The SecureComms VoIP service supports up to four simultaneous secure calls per 64 kbps of bandwidth using Secure Telephone Unit, Secure Terminal Equipment and Future Narrowband Digital Terminal/Secure Communication Interoperability Protocol devices, as well as data over a variety of satellite platforms, including Inmarsat GAN and BGAN, and VSAT.

Over the satellite connection, callers can dial direct to any user on any network – PSTN, private line, ISDN, satellite, what have you – using the Stratos SecureComms gateway as a switch.

Scott Hoyt, Stratos’ senior vice president and chief marketing officer and a man who knows his company’s market, says “this service introduction demonstrates our commitment to meeting the evolving needs of our government and military customers in the areas of secure, global communications.”

SecureComms VoIP from Stratos is, in fact, currently available for use by U.S. government and military users.

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Cygcom Inc., a channel distributor of voice and speech systems and services, and Paraxip Technologies, a supplier of software-based SIP gateways, have announced the availability of their VoIP gateway product bundles optimized for speech, IVR and contact center applications.

The bundles include Paraxip Gateway Software Version 2.0, HMP Edition. This Open Gateway software from Paraxip offers Open Protocol Translation, Advanced Call Progress Analysis over the SIP protocol, and dynamic call transfer selection. Version 2.0 introduces support for purely host-based media processing, advanced line management functions and more.

It also includes Intel NetStructure Digital Interface Cards offering PSTN protocol support for support of switches, PBXs and ACDs, at reduced costs, and Intel NetStructure Host Media Processing Software Release 2.0 for software-based media processing functions using general purpose processors.

Cygcom eSupport offers comprehensive technical support services for one year.

Jeff Valliant, President and CEO of CYGCOM said their new product bundles based on Paraxip and Intel's latest technologies allow platform vendors and system integrators to obtain SIP gateway products that fit their product architecture.

This building block approach allows some flexibility in packaging the gateway tools, from low-density “embedded” gateway sub-systems co-residing with a SIP application on a single host, all the way to independent, high-density, software-based gateway appliances based on off-the-shelf servers.

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Hughes Network Systems, LLC has announced the latest addition to its family of high performance satellite broadband routers.

The DW7740 features two VoIP ports combined with two broadband LAN ports, letting international service operators deliver voice and high-speed data services from a single platform.

"International customers have been asking for more cost-effective rural telephony, e-governance, and kiosk-based services," said Pradman Kaul, Chairman and CEO of Hughes. "The DW7740 is in response to that demand,” he noted, explaining that it operates with all DW systems and supports simultaneous voice and high-speed data applications from one platform, better for rural and remote systems.

The DW7740 is suitable for carrier-grade VoIP services enabling service providers to offer telephony integrated with broadband IP support. VoIP support has been optimized, as the DW7740 will automatically reserve bandwidth on a call-by-call basis, thereby providing voice without dropped packets.

A DW Network Operations Center routes voice calls via a voice gateway to the PSTN, or to a PBX for internal enterprise voice traffic.

The DW7740 will initially be marketed to Hughes' international service providers and will begin shipping in the second quarter 2006.

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The headline for the press release reads: “Jajah Inc. introduces web-activated telephony.”

So far existing VoIP products are pretty much only popular “with technically skilled users on broadband Internet connections,” Jajah officials say. But with Jajah Web, the international VoIP “provider breaks down hard- and software barriers and introduces Internet-telephony to the common computer user.”

Freedom! Simple as ordinary phone calls, folks! It’s instructive sometimes to see how VoIP’s introduced and sold from the ground up to non-techies. Here’s how Jajah’s service is described to the layman:

Jajah Web establishes phone-to-phone connections through the Internet for cheap calls. The process is simple: Callers type in their own number (landline or mobile) on http://www.jajah.com/, then insert the desired destination number. Jajah connects the callers, and the actual call is not different to any other normal phone conversation, only significantly cheaper.

"The simple approach of Jajah Web opens the world of Internet telephony to practically everyone," explains Jajah co-founder Roman Scharf: “Effectively, no cumbersome software downloads and installations are necessary, Jajah Web can be accessed from any computer connected to the Internet and works with any phone, landline or cellular.”

Tricky word, “effectively.” Hard to pin down.

I’ll tell you, though, Jajah Webphone co-founders Daniel Mattes and Roman Scharf are onto something when they say the crucial point of success of a VoIP service is simplicity: “For the basic Internet user you need a simple-as-can-be” product, says Daniel Mattes.

That’s a truth you forget at your peril.

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Agilent Technologies Inc. today announced that its N2X multiservices test solution was used this week in the industry's most extensive trial to validate the ability of MPLS networks to support converged triple-play (video, voice and data) and business services.

The multivendor interoperability test was conducted by the European Advanced Networking Test Center in Berlin, with support from the University of New Hampshire.

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