VoIP Now

Deloitte Touche: Multinationals Opt for VoIP

A survey of 131 large multinational corporations by Deloitte Touche indicates that two-thirds of them will be deploying voice over IP technology to employees' desktops within two years. Cost reduction is the biggest motivator behind the deployments.

According to MSNBC News:

Some estimates have suggested that companies can save more than 60 percent of their voice communications costs by switching from traditional circuit-switched services to VoIP technology that uses a company's existing data network to route internal calls.

But the report notes that while 26 percent of those taking part in the survey said their companies had already deployed desktop VoIP, only one-third of these companies offered it to all employees, leaving room for additional cost reduction.

Beyond cost savings, the Deloitte report suggests that VoIP has the potential to transform enterprises' operations, including call centers, offshoring functions and support for telecommuting by improving network ubiquity, utilization and efficiency.

Read more: Most top companies plan to adopt VoIP

KPMG White Paper Warns of VoIP Security Risks

KPMG's new white paper, "Voice over IP - decipher and decide," warns organizations that they should fully understand VoIP before implementing it; otherwise security breaches, including DoS attacks, may become an issue.

According to silicon.com:

Although there is extensive information available from numerous sources regarding the benefits of VoIP and IP Telephony, there is a "distinct absence of information detailing the risks and associated risk management practices", KPMG said.

KPMG said that the introduction of VoIP means that voice traffic needs to be treated in the same context as data for security purposes, since it will share a common medium.

"The increased technical complexity of integrating voice and data into one network further increases an organisation's dependence on network availability.

Read more: KPMG: Watch out for VoIP risks

CyberTAN Expects Increased Demand for WLAN VoIP Products

According to DigiTimes:

WLAN-equipment maker CyberTAN Technology is anticipating an increase in monthly shipments of its voice-over-IP (VoIP) products in the fourth quarter, growing from 20,000-30,000 units to 100,000 units, according to company president David Chiang.

The VoIP product line will contribute 20-25% of CyberTAN’s overall revenues in the first quarter of next year, said Chiang, adding that the company may hit NT$20 billion in 2006, buoyed by a rise in VoIP sales.

Read more: CyberTAN expects rising VoIP shipments in 4Q

Bandwidth.com Launches BandwidthVoice VoIP

Bandwidth.com has launched a nationwide Voice over IP (VoIP) service for businesses.

According to the press release at Yahoo! Finance:

Bandwidth.com is also pleased to announce that it has signed an agreement to join the Level 3 Communications, Inc. Partner Program. As a Level(3)Enabled Partner, Bandwidth.com will offer business VoIP services to small and medium size businesses (SMBs) using Level 3's (3)Tone(SM) Business services and other Level 3 VoIP services. [...]

Bandwidth.com now offers a comprehensive suite of hosted business VoIP local and long distance solutions including a hosted PBX which eliminates the need to install expensive PBX hardware at the customer site.

Read more: Bandwidth.com Launches Nationwide Business Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP)

Tom Online, Skype to Offer VoIP in China

Chinese web site operator Tom Online is teaming up with Skype Technologies to offer a Chinese version of Skype's VoIP service. The new service is called Tom Skype.

According to ITworld.com:

While Skype is primarily used to make voice calls, the joint statement by Tom Online and Skype downplayed this capability, instead describing the software as a "communication tool and instant messaging (IM) service." By comparison, a Skype statement issued in July to announce the launch of a cobranded Skype application with PCHome Online Inc. in Taiwan described the software as "Internet telephony software." [...]

The subtle difference in language used to announce the Skype deals with Tom Online and PCHome Online highlights the sensitivity of offering VoIP services in China, where telecommunication services including Internet telephony are highly regulated and controlled by a handful of companies.

Read more: Tom Online makes VoIP move in China with Skype

Intel VoIP Network Processor Units (NPUs)

Intel's two families of XScale processors will aid in the speed of carriers' deployments of voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). The two units are named Intel IXP2325 and Intel IXP2350.

The network processor units (NPUs) introduced this week are expected to find their way to DSLAMs, wireless access switches and enterprise router line cards for traditional communications applications and for the emerging embedded networking segment.

The chipmaking giant is striking before the iron gets really hot. Jupiter Research forecasts that VoIP telephony services will grow to about 400,000 U.S. households by the end of 2004, and to 12.1 million households by 2009, which represent about 10 percent of all U.S. households.

Intel said its new IXP2325 and IXP2350 network chips can help combine data-plane and control-plane processing capabilities in a single chip and are the company's first network processors built on 90 nanometer process technology.

Read more: Intel Tweaks Chips for VoIP Revolution

FCC Proposes Regulation of VoIP

U.S. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Michael Powell speaking yesterday at the VON Conference says that VoIP will not succeed as it is currently regulated at the state level, with the carriers currently subject to 51 different regulatory commissions. Powell says that he will formally propose this power be shifted to the FCC sometime between Election Day and Inauguration Day.

According to PC World:

The public utility commission system was set up for monopoly circuit-switched telephone networks that tied voice services to the physical networks, a model that doesn't hold for VoIP. Rather the copper, fiber and wireless networks are just transport for applications, with voice being just one of those applications. "VoIP is just a different way to make a phone call," Powell says. "It is a different way, and it needs a different regulatory structure."

Read more: FCC Chair Advocates Hands-Off Approach to VoIP

Senator Sunuhu Calls for National VoIP Standards

Senator John Sunuhu (R-NH) addressed a VON conference and described what he hoped would become a major telecom bill in 2005.

According to eWeek:

Sununu said that next year he and others in a Senate committee, under the leadership of Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), will be writing a broad telecom act to deal with broadband voice, universal service reform and some spectrum issues. Universal service fees are those subsidies paid to carriers in areas of low population density, to compensate them for lower subscriber revenue.

The "Regulatory Freedom Act" (S2281) that Sununu submitted to the Senate Commerce Committee in July passed the committee hearing "with one problematic amendment that gave some power back to state regulators to impose [universal] service fees at the state level," Sununu said.

Read more: Senator at VON Calls for National VOIP Standards

Lingo, D-Link Partnership Offers VoIP to Business, Consumers

Primus Telecommunications Inc.'s Lingo has joined with D-Link to offer Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) service to businesses and consumers.

According to TMCnet:

Available at Fry's Electronics initially, and rolling out to other major retailers nationwide, the new Lingo VoIP telephone service is bundled with the new D-Link Broadband Phone Service VoIP Router (DVG-1402S/L), providing both a high-quality Broadband VoIP telephone adapter as well as fully functioning home router and firewall.

Introduced back in June of this year, Lingo is a VoIP service that offers unmatched value and geographic coverage. Leveraging Primus' global presence, and a VoIP network that reaches over 150 countries, the new Lingo service offers consumers unlimited calling in the U.S., to Canada, and to Western Europe for only $19.95 per month, something no other broadband phone service provides at such a price.

Read more: Primus' Lingo and D-Link Join Forces to Deliver VoIP Solutions to Consumers and Small Business

AT&T, NetGear Work on WiFi VoIP Handset

A report out of India indicates that AT&T and NetGear is working with Intoto Solutions to create a wireless VoIP handset that would be available by the end of the third quarter of next year.

From Cyber India Online Limited:

Intoto Solutions CEO, Sathyen Iyengar informed, "We are working closely with our partners like AT&T and NetGear to come out with Wi-Fi based VoIP phones. "He elaborated that such devices are basically cordless phones, which gets connected to an access point through 802.11 b enabling it to transmit voice over the Wi-Fi network.

"These handsets would target the business enterprises wherein the conventional phones could be replaced with Wi-Fi enabled cordless sets that use VoIP to make calls."

Read more: Wi-Fi powered handsets to debut in '05

Vonage, Intrado Plan Emergency 911 VoIP System

Internet phone service provider Vonage along with emergency telecom specialist Intrado have announced that their initial trials to create a VoIP 911 emergency phone system have been successful.

According to ZDNet:

While they have been hailed for costing up to 30 percent less than traditional dialing plans, voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services often do not include the ability to dial 911. The reason, mainly, is that VoIP calls are routed over the Internet, while most emergency calling centers are only capable of receiving calls using older circuit-switched telephone technology.

Most second- and third-tier providers have problems routing calls to the appropriate emergency call centers and suggest that customers keep a cell phone on hand just for such a purpose. While the industry's elite have licked the routing problems, it's questionable whether an emergency operator knows the caller's location with any real certainty, which is a life-saving demand federal regulators put on traditional landline and cell phone service providers.

Read more: Vonage talks about 911 advancements

AT&T and Linksys Form VoIP Partnership

Beginning later this month, AT&T and Linksys will offer VoIP to home users across the United States. The service will be available to AT&T's CallVantage customers.

According to internetnews.com:

To take advantage of the nationwide VoIP service, which lets users make telephone calls over their broadband Internet connection, users will need to have broadband Internet access at home—either DSL or cable—and then purchase a Linksys Wired Router with 2 Phone Ports or a Wireless-G Router with 2 phone ports. The Ethernet version is currently available directly from AT&T, and Linksys expects that all versions will be available at retail outlets such as Staples, Best Buy, Circuit City and Office Depot later this month. The routers will also allow users to network several computers while simultaneously talking over their high-speed Internet connections.

Read more: Linksys, AT&T Team for Consumer VoIP

Open Source VoIP

Jon "Maddog" Hall, president of Linux International, said Wednesday that the opportunity should arise for open-source VoIP to become bigger than Linux.

According to ZDNet UK:

"I predict that over next three years, VoIP using an open-source solution, such as Asterisk, will generate more business than the entire Linux marketplace today," said Hall.

Halls explained that the open-source project Asterisk provides a cheaper alternative to proprietary PBX solutions, which are used by many companies today to provide telephone services. [...]

According to the Asterisk Web site, the software can interoperate with almost all standards-based telephony equipment using relatively inexpensive hardware and provides features such as voicemail services, call conferencing and call queuing.

Read more: Open-source VoIP 'will be bigger than Linux'

Household VoIP Usage to Jump

JupiterResearch expects that by 2009, 12 million U.S. households will be using VoIP Net phone technology.

Accoriding to CNet News:

About 17 percent of all homes with broadband in the United States will use Web telephony in 2009, up from just 1 percent by the end of 2004, according to a study released Thursday by research firm JupiterResearch.

But companies that offer voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services may have to fight off two key challenges: landline companies that already have strong brand recognition with customers and the increasing popularity of wireless telephony among the younger population, JupiterResearch said.

Read more: Study: VoIP to proliferate in U.S. households

Earthlink Announces Free VoIP Service

Earthlink is now offering free VoIP calls to other SIP-enabled phones for its 1.2 million high-speed users.

According to internetnews.com:

"It shows a continuing move towards ISPs adopting and thinking of voice over IP as another application they offer along with online gaming and streaming video and links to special content," said Daryl Schoolar, a senior analyst at research outfit In-Stat/MDR. "VoIP is entering that evolutionary channel of content -- an application provided by an ISP."

It's another feather in EarthLink's VoIP cap, which has more than a year's head start on AOL and MSN.

Read more: EarthLink Offers Free VoIP Calls

VoIP Providers Start Price War

With Vonage and AT&T cutting prices last week, it is appearing to look like providing VoIP services will be much less profitable than earlier anticipated. The price cutting could also affect local service providers negatively.

According to Forbes:

According to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission, local phone service is the only major telecom service whose price has risen in this century. Vonage's and AT&T's main VoIP offerings already include far more features than traditional phone service does, including unlimited free long-distance calling. The recent price cuts will make old-fashioned phone service look even more expensive.

Read more: Cheap Talk

AT&T, Vonage Reduce VoIP Costs by $5

Shortly after AT&T announced a $5 decrease in monthly VoIP charge, Vonage followed suit by also dropping their monthly VoIP service price by $5, thereby remaining $5 cheaper than AT&T.

According to Tech Web:

With the new prices, AT&T's monthly charge is $29.99, while Vonage's price is $24.99. Both services are similar, offering local and long-distance service in the U.S. and Canada, in addition to a host of advanced features, such as call forwarding, which can be managed over users' PCs.

"Over the past five months, we've noticed a trend in the industry away from calling certain minutes local and others long distance," said Vonage chairman and CEO Jeffrey Citron, in a statement.

Read more: Both AT&T, Vonage Cut VoIP Prices By $5.00