VoIP Newsly

Andy at VoIP Watch, who makes good use of the Skypephone when in the U.K., reports on the launch of the Skypephone 2 in the U.K. with some very interesting usage plans. And it was launched on the announced date. I’m off to the North American Blackberry Bold launch at Rogers tomorrow morning. Seems like RIM has sorted out the 3G network issues that delayed its launch. ...

If you are free tomorrow, Thursday, August 21st, at 1pm US Eastern time, I’d encourage you to listen in to a joint Mitel / Sun Microsystems webinar. Details are available on the Mitel web page. Why am I encouraging readers to tune into this webinar? Especially when I no longer work for Mitel and have really nothing to do with them any more? Two words: Terry Matthews. During the time that I worked for Mitel from June 2001 up until last October (2007), the telecom industry went through some ...

Microsoft is putting its touchy-feely side to the test at the Sheraton Hotel. The software giant recently showed off its new Surface technology at five Sheraton hotels nationwide. The demonstration allowed the public to get a feel for Microsoft’s first fully touch-screen computer. The table-like Surface computer operates entirely through a 30-inch interactive screen, which works along the same lines as Apple’s iPhone. But the Surface also recognizes and interacts with objects su...

American Airlines began offering Internet access on long-haul domestic flights today, making American the first U.S. airline to offer full in-flight broadband, according to a Reuters report. The world’s largest airline said its passengers on Boeing 767-200 aircraft can pay $12.95 for Internet access on nonstop flights between New York and San Francisco, New York and Los Angeles, and New York and Miami.  Airlines have been racing to get reliable Internet access on their flights in ...

Hillcrest Labs has apparently filed a complaint for patent infringement with the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) in Washington, D.C., and a separate patent infringement suit in the U.S. District Court in Maryland, against Nintendo, related to the Wii video game system. At issue are Hillcrest’s U.S. Patent Nos. 7,158,118, 7,262,760, and 7,414,611, which relate to a hand-held 3-D pointing device, and U.S. Patent No. 7,139,983, which relates to a navigation interface display syst...

Intel and Yahoo announced today they are teaming up to try and make television interactive. Yahoo will manage a widget library for Intel’s OEM partners that will include social, informational and personalized add-ons for TV. Columnist Michael Wolf has the story on NewTeeVee. The announcement is a bit like deja vu, since Yahoo and Intel for the last two years have offered a neat little integration for keeping track of your fantasy football league and watching the game on your big screen. B...

Today, the Federal Communications Commission issued its formal order censuring Comcast for throttling P2P traffic as part of its network management practices, requiring the ISP to report, within 30 days, details on how it plans to manage its network. GigaOM has followed the story for the past 10 months, and an end is finally in sight. Nothing in the order is terribly new for anyone who paid attention to the Aug. 1 hearing on the topic, but you can bet lawyers from ISPs and public interest group...

Ever since Hulu, the online-video joint venture backed by NBC, News Corp. and $100 million in private equity launched in March 2008, the service has been slowly winning over critics, including yours truly. And if that isn’t enough -– the company is rising to the top in the web video rankings. According to Nielsen data, Hulu is now the No. 8 most popular video web site, it’s and rising fast. It was ranked No. 10 in June 2008 and was up two spots at the end of July 2008. More important...

<a href=”http://www.hillcrestlabs.com/”>Hillcrest Labs, a Rockville, Mnd.-based startup, says it has filed a complaint for patent infringement with the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) in Washington, D.C., and a separate patent infringement suit in the U.S. District Court in Maryland, against Nintendo, related to the Wii video game system. Hillcrest’s patents at issue are U.S. Patent Nos. 7,158,118, 7,262,760, and 7,414,611, which relate to a hand-held 3-D po...

Last month, I wrote a post wondering if VoIP is really happening, and it elicited some thoughtful dialog. August has been a busy month for VoIP, and I wanted to revisit things on a more positive note. There are definitely signs of life out there that show the VoIP glass being half full. I’ll start first with Infonetics Research, as their latest research sets the stage at a high level. Their report show that the global VoIP business is up sharply, with 2007 data being the most current period. R...

About three weeks ago I had the opportunity to interview Mobivox’s new CEO Peter Diedrich, a telecom industry veteran who brings both telecom executive and VC-funded startup experience to the table. Mobivox has traditionally provided a low cost worldwide calling service, including free calls to Skype contacts. Key features included (i) no client downloads, (ii) launch a voice call from any telephone handset and (iii) access via over 340 points-of-presence in 40 countries. However, unpublic...

Myngle picked up €800k in first round funding last week. Language teachers offer their services through the site, students shop for teachers, they pay through Myngle, study through Skype. Co-founders include alumni of eBay, Berlitz, Razorfish and Proctor & Gamble. Teachers set market prices, publish hours when they are available (Myngle takes care of time zone arithmetic). Students shop and sign up for lessons. Myngle augments instruction. Teachers can use a whiteboard during a class....

Someone compared flying these to a stint in the prison. I am sure for many it has been as mind-jarring an experience as it has been for me. And that is why you need broadband in the sky - so you can put your noise-cancelling headphones and answer emails. Sometimes that is the “zen” you need in order to not focus on the declining quality of the flying experience. Good news is that starting today, American Airlines will launch Aircell’s inflight mobile broadband service, Gogo. O...

The summer of 2008 has been the best of times and worst of times for cloud computing. Many companies –big and small - decided to throw in their lot with cloud computing, betting that it is the future of technology infrastructure. At the same time, cloud computing took its lumps as some of the early large-scale cloud applications hit the skids. Apple’s MobileMe went on a blink for many while the GMail blackout that left millions angry and frustrated. Even Amazon’s seemingly fool pr...

Looking at the proposed joint venture between European wireless chipmaker STMicroelectronics and equipment maker Ericsson this morning, all you need to know is that making wireless chips is no longer enough. The emphasis is shifting beyond the individual radios on a chip, to a platform that contain as much of the silicon-related radios as a phone or laptop needs, packaged neatly for consumption in a handset or on a 3G modem. It’s the difference between buying the individual tomatoes, onio...

Leading internet search engine, Google, remains eager to generate revenue from its YouTube video website, and is testing mobile ads for the service, according to a recent statement on the company’s mobile blog. “You may have noticed that we started running a test of display ads on select pages of the YouTube mobile site in the U.S. and Japan,” explained YouTube product marketing manager, Christine Tsai. “This is our first step in testing mobile advertising for YouTube.&#...

Telecom and wireless giant, AT&T Inc., has launched an American Idol-style contest for mobile application developers in the New England states. The program, which the company calls “Fast-Pitch New England,” will reward the #1 mobile software developer with $10,000 in cash, as well as free promotion of the winning application in AT&T retail outlets and the AT&T devCentral website. “Programs like Fast-Pitch New England help ensure that customers have the best applica...

Reports are surfacing that Skype has been playing a significant role for many of the Olympic athletes. Canadians have the option of watching Olympic activities during 18 hours of the day (from 6:00 p.m. to noon the following day - EDT or GMT-4) over two major networks: CBC and TSN. Canada had a dearth of medal action for the first week - causing a national angst in the mainstream Canadian media. Our two man rowing team came through with a first medal last Saturday morning and the medals have flo...

A few months ago, Facebook and I called it quits after a lengthy but volatile relationship. After being in lust to the point where I visited Facebook several times a day, the social network service started to lose its appeal. The hype, the invitations to groups that have little purpose, the onslaught of productivity-killing applications, friend requests from total strangers, and the controversy over Beacon all started to be too much. So, we split up. It was over. There was no going back. It was ...

Cloud computing is based on a pay-as-you-go, self-provisioning utility model. Users are billed by the hour. On the other hand, software vendors are accustomed to shrinkwrap licenses, making it hard for cloud users to get the software they want on an on-demand basis. But as CNET reports, Microsoft has relaxed licensing for virtual machines licensing, opening the door for hosting providers to reinvent themselves as true clouds. Until now, Microsoft’s software was tied to a physical server. ...

I have been getting a ton of API related press releases the last two months. So many that at one point I contemplated why Smith On VoIP did not have an API. I mean, if everyone is doing it, why not me? (more…) ...

Always with the new! VOXOFON is the latest in VoIP. The company is billing itself as low-cost and easy-to-use for international internet telephony. The service has a good deal of flexibility as well. Calls start at 1.3 cents per minute, and can be made from computers, landlines or cell phones. “We think VOXOFON will appeal to a […] ...

I have this thing for online videos … well a lot of people do. It’s so nice to see and hear someone describing whatever — feelings, ideas, hopes, dreams . . . Certainly the same is true for a video of a guy explaining why he thinks VoIP will be the next cell phone type thing. […] ...

Fluke Networks has acquired Viola Networks. The network performance management company didn’t say how much it said for Viola, a VoIP management company. According to Network World: The deal brings to Fluke Networks the technologies and source code the now-defunct Viola Networks used to underpin its NetAlly product line. NetAlly offered such products as its Lifecycle manager, […] ...

For the next few days you will only see new posts for Skype Journal. Let’s just say that we found it necessary to move off of Yahoo’s hosting service and are setting up (with an update to Movable Type 4.2) at a new hosting service recommended to us by some who already use this service. Fortunately we do have access to all our content, including comments, and are having that reformatted and reorganized for incorporating into the new location. (Our goal is such that the only content no...

Remember not all that long ago when just about every computer notebook manufacturer was having problems with batteries — like catching on fire!  Now we have battery problems with cell phones!   Apple is blaming a problem its problem with overheating iPods in Japan on faulty batteries. In response to reports that Japan is investigating incidents of iPod nanos getting hot enough to scorch paper placed nearby, Apple acknowledged that “in very rare cases” first-gener...

We have received quite a few submissions for the Startup LaunchPad at our Mobilize 08 conference that is scheduled to be held on September 18, 2008 in San Francisco. I wanted to remind everyone that the deadline for applications ends tomorrow, August 20. We will announce a short list of companies on Monday, August 25. As a reminder, I want to stress the fact that you don’t need to be a venture-backed company. If you are a single developer with a great app and are ready to show off, you ar...

Who would have figured that Wal-Mart would have become the exclusive retailer for classic rock bands coming back to life? In the latest news in this area, the king of retailers revealed that the new AC/DC album, Black Ice, will be sold exclusively in Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club stores starting in late October. The deal is part of a wider strategy for the world’s biggest retailer to get exclusive deals to sell CDs. It is the latest album to be sold under such an arrangement, as Wal-Mart g...

The music has stopped at Muxtape.com, the free, online music site that allows users to create a playlist or mixtape of up to 12 songs and share the list with friends. It was temporarily shutdown as the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) flexed its copyright protecting musclea. The Manhattan-based startup has informed users that it “will be unavailable for a brief period while we sort out a problem with the RIAA.” The RIAA has been cracking down on illegal shari...

Most Cowetans who call 911 from their cell phones don’t have to worry about location errors such as the one that may have contributed to the recent death of a woman in north Fulton County. When a call comes in to Coweta’s 911 center, the location instantly pops up on a map of the county on the operator’s screen. Landline calls additionally show the address where the phone call originated. Cell phones, for the most part, can be instantly pinpointed to within 100 feet, said...

IPC Systems, a provider of communications solutions to financial services firms, announced today that Bank of Beijing has chosen the IQ/MAX, IPC’s voice over IP-enabled desktop tool, for its trading floor.   With its main focus on transitioning to VoIP technology in order to support a technologically modern trading floor over the long-term, Bank of Beijing evaluated numerous vendors after formerly relying on PBX phones. Features of the IQ/MAX turret include call logs and caller ID. &...

If you think solar and wind power are important for decarbonizing the atmosphere and/or for reducing our need for expensive imported energy from dangerous places, then you ought to be in favor of a massive buildout of America’s electric grid. Too often self-styled environmentalists (not genuine environmentalists like you and me), are a significant obstacle to making alternative energy an actual achievable alternative to traditional energy sources. This sad story is told well in a Wall Str...

Got some nice news to share about a former client that hit the wires this morning. Micromethod Technologies is a tiny company most of you have never heard about, and they’ve been quietly doing some leading edge work in the SIP server space. Today, at their big industry event - SpeechTEK - Voxeo announced the acquisition of Micromethod. The news was a key highlight from their event today, and colleague Dan York provided a more detailed take on the Voxeo blog. Last year, Micromethod engaged ...

Research and Markets has announced the addition of the “Voice over Internet Protocol in SA 2008” report to their offering. A sequel to the first study of the potential for Voice over IP among SA businesses, including a survey of 100 corporations, more than 1000 SMEs. The 2005 study correctly forecast that VoIP would achieve limited takeup among small business during its first year of legal availability. The new study examines the impact of VoIP during the first two years, and provide...

VoSKY introduces the industry’s first Skype-certified, enterprise-grade PBX-to-Skype gateway for SIP networks. Designed to enable medium and large-sized enterprises to maximize the value of their IP-PBX, the new VoSKY Exchange Pro VISIP-EX connects an IP-PBX to Skype to dramatically reduce telecom costs and enhance business communications. This latest addition to VoSKY’s award-winning PBX-to-Skype gateway family is based on the company’s next-generation Linux platform ...

I must really suck at marketing. Rick Seagal is pondering the effect an Outlook Add-in would have in the conferencing world if it worked seemelessly with Outlook Calendar and simply called everyone at the time of the meeting. Rick has perfectly described the Lypp service and our Outlook Add-in. ...

VoSKY just announced the VoSKY Exchange Pro VISIP-EX, a SIP-to-Skype gateway product that bridges the Skype network with SIP-based IP-PBXs and SIP gateways. The VoSKY Exchange Pro VISIP-EX enables companies with SIP-enabled PBXs to add Skype trunks for inexpensive calling. This isn’t the first SIP-to-Skype gateway, I’ve written about others here, here, here, and here, however, this is the first “Skype-certified”, enterprise-grade PBX-to-Skype gateway for SIP networks. The...

Yesterday, Digium released version 1.2 for the Digium Asterisk Appliance 50 (AA50). It’s been awhile since I’ve heard any news about the AA50, so I’m glad to see Digium is still developing for the AA50 even with their new Switchvox-based AA60 appliance offering and their even newer AA300 & AA350 offerings. Actually, I discussed whether Digium’s AA60, AA300, and AA350 would compete against their original AA50 Asterisk appliance, which might be worth a read. In a nutshe...

Muxtape, a startup that quickly became a favorite of the Tumblr-set, has taken a nose dive, thanks to the machinations at RIAA. There are lot of folks bemoaning the loss of the service. To them, I have one word: 8Tracks. I talked to the New York-based startup’s founder, David Porter, formerly of Live365, a few weeks ago and he walked me through the service. I have been using it sporadically and, well, it works better than Muxtape. (Thrillist thinks so, too — take their word over a W...

Earth2Tech: Bill Clinton: 10 Things the U.S. Government Should Do For Clean Power. NewTeeVee: Ultimate bloke show, Top Gear, has its own YouTube channel. Awesome! jkOnTheRun: Houston, Texas has launched city wide WiFi. NewTeeVee: Vuclip is big on mobiles. Who knew? OStatic: Waiting for a new class of devices: Mozilla, ARM & Others. ...

When I was growing up, my brother was one of those kids who would get into all kinds of trouble. Unlike the rest of us, however, he would escape the wrath of our parents by smiling or giving my mother a bear-hug. In many ways, Apple reminds me of my brother. No matter how often it drops the ball with a service (MobileMe) or product (3G Apple iPhone) that doesn’t work, batteries (iPod Nano, MacBook) that over-heat or slashing prices only a few months a product has been released (original iP...

Okay that is a bit over the top! Nielsen Mobile came out a report that points out that there were 13 million mobile data cards in the US at the end of June 2008. Not a big surprise, since wireless carriers in the US are having a blockbuster year as far as mobile Internet revenues are concerned. GigaOM Team has about seven of them and uses them for business and filing stuff when on the road. Apparently, so do a lot of people. However, Nielsen points out that there is a change in the making. R...

Internet giant, Google Inc., confirmed yesterday that mobile devices based on its much-anticipated Android operating system will be commercially available in the fourth quarter of this year. Google, which has been working with its partners in the Open Handset Alliance to develop the first wave of Android-enabled phones, is now almost finished developing v1.0 of the open source mobile operating system, according to Android Developer Advocate, Dan Morill. “We’ve been working with our ...

Who Wins: AT&T U-Verse or Verizon FiOS AT&T U-Verse Verizon FiOS Neither. Cable will still beat them Verizon recently launched its FiOS TV & fiber-based broadband service in New York City, The New York Times is taking stock of the service which seems to be doing well. Verizon’s $23 billion investment into wasn’t viewed kindly and Wall Street viewed AT&T’s cheaper U-Verse plan more practical and affordable. Despite that early s...

Enterprise broadband provider, XO Communications, announced yesterday that it has expanded its Ethernet infrastructure to allow for greater service availability and more speed options in several major U.S. cities. XO’s business and wholesale customers can now order bandwidth speeds of 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 200, 300, 400, or 500-Mbps at locations with direct access to the company’s fiber-optic network. Locations served by XO’s last-mile copper network can get bandwidth of 15 ...

This is one that really makes a lot of sense. It’s cutting edge and perfect for the atmosphere of a trading floor . . . The Bank of Beijing is going to convert to VoIP. The trading floor will have a system by IPC Systems. VoIP and stock trading? Well, except for that pesky security issue. […] ...

Lijit, a two-year-old startup based in Boulder, Colo., recently raised $7.1 million, bringing the total venture capital it has raised so far to a shade above $10 million. Whatever way you look at it, that is a lot of money for a company that on face value is nothing but a widget that allows bloggers to offer search on their blogs and their profiles in other social media sites such as Flickr. Curious as to how it plans to build a business to justify the money it raised from VCs such as Brad Feld...

Are you considering switching your call center to a VoIP-based operation? If so, you are going to want to check out this article on Inside CRM (which, in the interest of full disclosure is a sister site to this one). Some things you should think about? What kind of a system do you currently have? How […] ...