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News Archive - November 2006

UK: VoIP regulation could 'put lives at risk'

November 30, 2006

VoIP users could soon feel the pain when it comes to contacting the emergency services via their internet connection, according to a speculative report by the Internet Telephony Services Providers' Association (ITSPA).

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Brits Slow to Take Up VoIP and IPTV

November 30, 2006

Compared to other industrialized countries, Britain ranks near the bottom in adoption of such services as calling and TV over broadband.

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Alcatel and Lucent complete merger

November 30, 2006

Alcatel and Lucent Technologies announced the completion of their merger transaction and that they will begin operations as the world's leading communication solutions provider on December 1st, 2006.

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DyLogic PSE Broadcaster Genie - Participation TV with 3G phones coming true

November 30, 2006

DyLogic unveiled its new PSE Broadcaster Genie, an innovative appliance for audience-generated 3G video calls broadcasting.

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No 'rubber stamp' on telecom mergers, judge says

November 30, 2006

A federal judge continued to press the Department of Justice to explain why he should approve twin mergers involving some of the nation's largest telephone companies, but did not say when he will make a final decision.

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VoIP wiretapping widespread, warns Scanit

November 29, 2006

Security specialist Scanit says web phone installations in corporate environments have little or no protection against VoIP wiretapping.

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Cisco aims to plug channel knowledge gap on VoIP

November 28, 2006

Cisco says it has doubled its European channel partners in the last year to more than 2,300. It announced plans to improve the training it offers resellers, adding that many lack VoIP expertise.

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Making the switch to VoIP

November 28, 2006

A successful switchover by small businesses to VoIP is becoming more achievable as new service products become available. All rely on an underlying high-speed broadband link, but choosing the best one is not always easy.

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VoIP too big a 'pain' for SMBs

November 27, 2006

Adoption of VoIP by small- to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) remains much lower than among medium and large businesses, but not for lack of interest. Why? The pain is too great.

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Don't fall prey to these methods of VoIP abuse

November 27, 2006

VoIP technology provides many advantages to companies and individuals over both traditional telephone services and traditional IP communications. But, like other technologies, it also brings with it the potential for abuse. And as more people implement VoIP, we can also expect more frequent exploitation of this potential.

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The Telepresence Revolution

November 27, 2006

Within the next decade, nearly every major corporation will adopt a technology that few have heard of today. Telepresence, which takes videoconferencing to the next level, lets people interact as if they were in the same room.

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VoIP Patents: Innovation and Lawsuits

November 27, 2006

Even as the wave of patents and possible investment in VoIP spawns innovation and new sales opportunities for tech titans, it's also likely to breed something else: litigation. The U.S. has to date issued 2,049 patents related to VoIP.

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Google: Mobile operators want to block our apps

November 24, 2006

One of Google's senior executives has criticised mobile phone operators for trying to prevent their users from accessing Internet applications.

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Ottawa overrules CRTC's decision on VoIP service

November 24, 2006

Canada's telecommunications giants finally got their wish as federal Industry Minister Maxime Bernier confirmed Ottawa was overruling a Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) decision to regulate the emerging technology of Internet-based phone service.

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South Africa: Mobile VoIP could cost users their contracts

November 24, 2006

Using their mobile phone's data capability for VoIP calls could cost users an arm and a leg and may even result in their contract being cancelled.

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Nokia Promises An Easy Way To Kill Mobile VoIP

November 24, 2006

Mobile network and device maker, Nokia, has announced a network operator solution that is designed specifically to kill peer-to-peer traffic such as Skype and other IM-style Voice solutions.

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Residential VoIP to generate $4.1 bln in 2010

November 23, 2006

Worldwide VoIP equipment revenue will rise to $11.9 billion in 2010, expanding at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 24.7% from $3.95 billion in 2005.

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Is Skype ready for corporate use?

November 22, 2006

Is Skype just a toy for home users and techie types who don't want to pay for a "real" VoIP service, or does it have something to offer businesses? This article takes a closer look at the peer-to-peer VoIP software from the same people who brought us the KaZaA file-sharing program.

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The VoIP Peering Puzzle: The IETF SPEERMINT Requirements

November 22, 2006

This article provides a tutorial on VoIP peering, discussing some of the challenges that need to be addressed, including interoperability between peering networks, signaling interworking, security, and address resolution.

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Tesco to pump AU$12.3 million into VoIP provider Freshtel

November 22, 2006

UK retailing giant Tesco is to increase its stake in Australian VoIP provider, Freshtel (which provides Tesco's retail VoIP offering in the UK) to 12.34% by investing AU$12.3 million.

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Secure caller ID for VoIP

November 21, 2006

SIP is used widely for the setup, teardown and management of VoIP calls. Much of its functionality is related to the setup of calls, as its name implies. Part of this setup involves the delivery of the caller's identity so that the called party can decide how to treat the call - what is, essentially, Internet caller ID.

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VoIP still illegal in India

November 20, 2006

VoIP, the technology which allows a call from a PC to a landline at a cheaper rate than landline to landline, is still considered illegal in India.

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IT directors still concerned about VoIP

November 20, 2006

A survey of 300 large enterprises across Europe has found that 73% of IT directors are still worried about basic quality and reliability of VoIP, despite a strong industry trend towards converging voice and data traffic onto a single data network.

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VoIP gets ready to make some noise

November 20, 2006

Although there have been rumblings of acquisitions in the VoIP market and there is bound to be some consolidation, it is set for long-term growth when end-users finally understand its true benefits.

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Wi-Fi standards face patent threat

November 20, 2006

A federal judge in Tyler, Texas, ruled last week that an Australian government agency holds the rights to patents on the underlying technology used in two Wi-Fi standards and a third proposed standard.

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Cisco, Teleware team on VoIP

November 20, 2006

Telecommunications systems providers Teleware and Cisco are offering a new VoIP bundle aimed at small and medium businesses, that combines Teleware's application server and Cisco's Unified Call Manager Express system.

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Giving VoIP a Bad Name

November 20, 2006

The chairman of VoIP service provider, Engin, in his address to the company's AGM says the growing number of small VoIP players are giving the technology a bad name in the eyes of consumers.

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TRA: VoIP will not be liberalised in the UAE

November 19, 2006

The director general of the UAE Telecommuni-cations Regulatory Authority (TRA), Mohamed Al Ghanim has stated categorically that the UAE market will not be opened up for the provision of VoIP services.

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More trouble than it's worth?

November 19, 2006

Debra Kiehn wanted to save some money by switching to the Internet-based phone provider Vonage. Now she has only regrets. But there's one thing Kiehn no longer has: the phone number she held for 25 years.

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Embedded VoIP Aiming For The Mainstream

November 17, 2006

Thomson, which makes phones under the GE brand, said it would launch cordless phones that include VoIP features next year that will work with popular service providers like SunRocket.

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UK: VoIP industry fears over-regulation

November 17, 2006

Ofcom's upcoming VoIP regulation is being anxiously awaited by the internet telephony industry, many of whom worry that the regulator will be too heavy-handed.

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Canada: Ottawa's VoIP decision good news

November 16, 2006

Overturning CRTC regulations, the Canadian Prime Minister said phone company VoIP services over the public internet won't be subject to price regulation. VoIP that a phone company limits to its own network will continue to be regulated.

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Cablevision, Verizon Team on Content

November 16, 2006

Verizon announced a multi-year pact with Cablevision's Rainbow Media Holdings unit for the rights to distribute Rainbow's movie, sports, music, and video-on-demand (VOD) programming networks.

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Where's Wireless VoIP?

November 14, 2006

Wireless VoIP is a popular, if not divisive, topic these days. Despite the clear benefits of making cheap VoIP phone calls using a cellular or Wi-Fi phone, there's a hot debate over which nascent technologies will complement the service, how best to bridge the gaps between the worlds of WAN and LAN, and conflicting views about what role cellular carriers will play in all of this.

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VoIP Security Gets Noisy

November 14, 2006

It is one of the most potent threats to the corporate network, but Internet voice remains perhaps the least understood and most poorly defended security gap in the enterprise.

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Get ready for attacks on VoIP?

November 14, 2006

As VoIP products and services become more widely used by businesses, analyst Ovum has warned that while companies are concerned with voice quality and functionality they are not considering all of the potential security risks associated with VoIP.

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Waiting for Skype to pay off for eBay

November 12, 2006

The managers of eBay had something else in mind in September 2005 when they decided to pay at least $2.6 billion to buy Skype, thinking the software would bolster eBay's online auction and PayPal payment businesses, driving sales and profit.

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NetLogic Announces PBX-Preferred Certification Program

November 10, 2006

NetLogic announced the creation of its "PBX-Preferred" Certification program, recognizing Asterisk-based software and systems as those that are preferred.

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Dial S for Skype, P for profits

November 10, 2006

Free Internet phone service was always likely to change the world - but until recently we had no idea how. A little more than a year after eBay bought Skype for $2.6 billion, the service has become a business tool on a surprising scale.

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Motorola to acquire Good Technology

November 10, 2006

Motorola will buy enterprise mobile-computing software company Good Technology, maker of Good Mobile Messaging and Good Mobile Intranet.

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Telcos call on convergence to fight VoIP

November 9, 2006

Fixed and mobile network operators will invest more than $450M in capital infrastructure over the next five years to provide fixed-mobile convergence.

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VoIP peering: Pipe gets competition from Symbio

November 9, 2006

Symbio, which provides the VoIP platform underpinning a number of offerings in the Australian market, says the platform will provide Telstra network independence for Australian VoIP service providers.

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China business VoIP exchange spending to triple

November 9, 2006

Businesses in China will triple their spending over the next four years on hardware that saves money by routing phone calls over the internet.

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IP Multimedia Subsystem to Become Dominant Architecture for VoIP

November 9, 2006

Driven by the increasing implementation of VoIP systems, the worldwide VoIP control equipment market will surpass $5 billion by 2010, with 77% of the market based on the IMS architecture. — Why is that? IMS is a very fat, expensive cow which offers little potential for ROI. I need to talk sense into somebody.

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Linksys, Yahoo team on Net cordless phone

November 9, 2006

Linksys and Yahoo have joined forces to sell a cordless phone that is specially designed for use with Yahoo's Internet phone service.

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Phone, cable companies embracing Web 2.0

November 8, 2006

Verizon Communications is in "advanced" talks to bring video on the popular YouTube site to mobile phones and TVs, while Comcast is enabling users to offer up homemade videos that could eventually end up on Comcast's video-on-demand service.

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Microsoft To Launch Major VoIP Move Early Next Year

November 7, 2006

Microsoft's VoIP rollout will include videoconferencing and be combined with e-mail, video, and instant messaging technologies.

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Open Source VoIP Takes A Few Steps Forward

November 7, 2006

Several vendors, including Fonality, Digium, and Polycom, unveil new VoIP software, gear, and partnerships designed to move open source telephony into the mainstream.

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Cisco Seeking VoIP Masters

November 6, 2006

Cisco Systems launched its much-anticipated Master Unified Communications specialization, a new top-level badge for partners with the skill set to deliver complex VoIP solutions.

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$13M Provides Jolt for Chicago-based VoIP Provider

November 6, 2006

BridgePort Communications, the Chicago developer of software that merges Internet and mobile phone services, has received an infusion of $13 million from its current investors, boosting investment in the company since 2004 to $51 million.

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NTP slaps Palm with patent infringement suit

November 6, 2006

In a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Virginia, NTP asserted that Palm's products, services, systems and processes infringe on NTP's patents.

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AT&T Rages at FCC Delay

November 3, 2006

The FCC has once again been forced to postpone a vote on the $80 billion-plus merger of AT&T and BellSouth because the four voting commissioners couldn't agree on the regulatory conditions that should be imposed on the marriage.

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Time Warner VoIP Growth Slows

November 3, 2006

Time Warner Cable reported signing up only 187,000 new VoIP subscribers this past quarter, down from the more than 200,000 new subscribers per quarter it typically sees, and much lower than the 270,000 new subscribers during the same period a year ago.

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Just how far can WiMAX go?

November 3, 2006

Last month's WiMAX World conference further raised the profile of a technology that's gotten a lot of attention for years, despite the fact that the standards are only now starting to gel. WiMAX is seen as a kind of broadband for the masses, a form of fixed wireless that will break the monopoly of wireline broadband players.

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Mobiles for under $15 likely by 2008

November 2, 2006

Mobile phones costing less than $15 will be available in developing countries by 2008, Motorola Chairman David Brown has predicted.

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Juniper, Avaya put security,VoIP, apps acceleration in the branch

November 2, 2006

Juniper Networks announced new editions of its J-series enterprise router this week in a move that tries to keeps pace with Cisco's ISR platforms, which lead the industry with a set of rich VoIP capabilities.

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AT&T-BellSouth merger vote delayed for third time

November 2, 2006

The Federal Communications Commission delayed for a third time a vote on whether to allow AT&T to acquire BellSouth—a postponement that's due to the commissioners' inability to agree on conditions of the deal.

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Chicago Public Schools convert phone lines to VoIP technology

November 1, 2006

Chicago Public Schools will switch to VoIP at a cost of about $28 million for technology from Mitel in what is expected to be the largest such conversion of any U.S. school system.

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Tekelec to Sell Switching Business

November 1, 2006

Tekelec plans to sell is switching business, and it appears that Ericsson is interested in making the purchase. With the sale, Tekelec wants to move forward with more focus on its IP-based technologies.

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