VoIP Now

VoIPing For Profit - Skype Prime?

Skype once more releases a feature, Skype Prime [via], that's in direction competition with their developer community. While it's a very exciting feature - which allows you to bill for a Skype-to-Skype call - Skype is once more suggesting that you shouldn't even bother developing anything because they'll just take the idea or partner with someone else.

Then again, Jyve, Bitwine and other similar Extras are completely safe because Skype is charging an absurd 30% of whatever you charge your callers. As one commenter at the Skype Share blog says, isn't 30% a bit excessive. Someone charging $100/h would end up paying Skype $30/h for a call that is otherwise free.

Someone from the eBay side of things must have a plan to make Skype a laughingstock. I can't see Friis and Zenstrom's original team behaving like this. Something like 5-10% is reasonable. There's also Ether, by the way, which you can use Skype with.

Interactive Ads On Your Phone?

Where do they get this stuff? Ericsson, the telecom equipment manufacturer wants to push mobile TV while making it worthwhile for carriers. This means running interactive ads on mobile handsets.

Sorry but I don't now or ever want to see advertising on my cell phone, with the possible exception that my carrier not only pays my bandwidth costs but also increase my monthly bandwidth cap for my cellular data plan from 250 Mb to something more reasonable. Otherwise, buzz off already. On the other hand, this Ericsson proposal supposedly will not require extra bandwidth.

Now if that's true, there could be a bit of a mobile TV revolution. If you didn't have to pay to watch mobile TV on your puny handset screen, would you watch the advertising? Fact is, mobile Internet TV still needs some more features/ infrastructure, including larger screens - maybe roll-out style or HUDs (heads-up displays).

Palm In Trouble?

MarketWatch elaborates on a WSJ article that Palm is potentially up for sale, hurt by the competition. Recall that the PalmOS was once the most widely used platform for mobile devices. That's ceased to be true for a few years. I'm not sure, but I think Windows Mobile took over that status. And then there's Apple's imminent iPhone, not to mention a few Linux phones popping up. Symbian still commands a bit of presence in the market. So yeah, competition.

Nokia is being touted as a possible buyer. I have to say I hope it's Nokia; I have a lot of respect for what they are doing and the fact that they haven't ignored VoIP. As a Palm Treo owner who has increasingly grown to dislike my choice, I feel Nokia will treat Palm the best. This purely my own biased opinion.

Let Your Fingers Do The Clicking

Springwise talks about [via Etel] a digital product offered by Austrian company Herold: 4 million Austrian residential and business phone numbers, loadable onto your cell phone. Do you really need or even want such a product? That's a lot of memory, which could be used for other purposes.

Being old enough to have used computers when they had 128 Mb RAM, and having seen them increase, only to witness software companies producing bloatware, I'm really hoping that this doesn't happen to cell phones. With more sophisticated handsets like the Apple iPhone coming out soon, this is a very real danger. Request to mobile application developers: KISS = Keep it simple, stupid. Don't give us mobile bloatware.

BenQ Mobile Says Goodbye

It might be hard to believe that a mobile tech make would go bankrupt with the current economy, especially one that was a former Siemens division, but that's what happened to BenQ Mobile. The Taiwanese BenQ bought BenQ Mobile in 2005.

Since no buyers were found since the bankruptcy declaration, BenQ Mobile is being completely shut down. I don't know the full details about the company, but I'm surprised that some larger phone maker didn't snap them up.

A question poses itself about VoIP providers: what do you do if your provider goes bankrupt? Given that there are a multitude of VoIP providers offering free calling plans, it's likely some of them just might go down if they can't find a way to monetize their services.

VoIP Companies Taking In Profits

A number of VoIP-related companies are reporting profits for recent business quarters. VoIP, Inc., reported growth in minutes for Q4 2006. XFone also achieved a profit in Q4 2006. With the current VoIP boom, other companies are likely to be reporting profits for business quarters in 2007.

Texas Instruments particularly sees growth potential for providing VoIP to SMBs (Small to medium businesses) - a sector that has been slow to adopt VoIP for a variety of reasons including technical issues, project management, lack of skilled workers, and more. Nevertheless, this is a sector that should enjoy healthy growth in near future years - a growth that could very likely be exponential.

VoIP Roundup - Mon Feb 26, 2007

Apple TV Delayed
The shipping of the Apple iTV set-top box is being delayed until mid-March. The IPTV device allows you to wirelessly stream video content from your PC or Mac to a TV screen. I can hear TV junkie geeks everywhere going "damn!"

Some Communications Purchases
Two recent telecom purchases include Broadview Networks Holdings Inc.'s buyout of New York-based InfoHighway Communications Corp and phone maker Ericsson's plans to buyout Tandberg Television.

The Broadview combined company will serve 80,000 SMBs. Ericsson's planned purchase is in hopes of expanding their presence in the IPTV market.

How To Profit From VoIP
SmartBiz has an article with the enticing title How to profit from VoIP, which is actually an overview of Unified Messaging and presence. The crucial point of the article: it can't be done with the traditional PSTN system.

Vonage Passes One Year IPO Anniversary

On March 23rd, troubled VoIP provider Vonage passed their one year anniversary for going public, and their stock price has yet to improve. While recently developments such as Vonage pre-paid calling cards and possibly a service called Vonage Wireless might help boost their stock price, not everyone is holding out hope.

I've been saying from the very beginning of Vonage's stock price drop that there's a very real possibility that it was orchestrated by legacy telco interests so that Vonage could be bought out cheap. I still subscribe to that theory. If the stock continues it's trend, it's in a very real danger of becoming a penny stock that pretty much anyone could pick up for a song.

VoIP Roundup - Thur Feb 22, 2007

AT&T + GM Do A Deal
Thanks to a deal with five-year billion dollar deal with General Motors, AT&T will be building worldwide communications services for GM. There's no direct mention of VoIP, but "voice and data applications" integration is part of the deal. [TeleGeography]

Smaller VoIP Providers Consolidating
Smaller VoIP providers seem to be following a consolidation trend, with NYC-based DeltaThree being one of them, acquiring the privately-held Go2Call.com. [Telephony Online] This is a to be expected trend, with VoIP maturing and larger businesses keeping their options open for competing.

VoIP Phones Roundup
PC Mag has a roundup of several VoIP "phones", each different from the other in look and operation. Included is Vonage's V-Phone.

Watch Out For Tech IPOs in 2007

Om Mailk writes about Business 2.0's Michael Copeland, who says this year will be a big one for tech companies to go public. I'd have to agree. Last year was iffy for many tech firms, who delayed their IPOs or saw poor returns after going public. A fortunate few, especially in the RFID market, managed to get VC (Venture Capital) funding.

I subscribe to theory that there will be a tech bubble burst in 2010 or 2011. The economy in North America has gone into the tank at the end of a decade, or in the first year of a new one - every decade since 1970, that I'm aware of. I think that not even a Democrat becoming the next President is going to deflect that. However, if the right Democrat wins, I'm speculating that we'll see amazing growth in the stock market over the next 4-8 years. (Though I don't know who that person is, who the voters will accept, but I have a suspicion - someone who hasn't throw their hat in the ring yet.)

That said, I don't think this will be a big IPO year for VoIP IPOs, though things may change in 2008 or 2009. Investors are probably still wary because of Vonage stock's poor performance, and they and Skype are probably the two most well-known VoIP services around the world.

Agreement on the iPhone Name

Apple and Cisco have reached an agreement on the use of the iPhone name, which Cisco owns (except in Canada). iPhone is of course the name given to the new Apple keypad-less phone due out in the USA later this year. [Sacramento Business Journal, Red Herring.]

From what I can gather, they're both going to use the name, which Cisco has owned through their Linksys subsidiary since 2000. There's no mention of the Canadian-based VoIP provider Comwave, who is claiming trademark ownership of the name iPhone in Canada.

Interestingly, same day reaction in the stock market caused Apple shares to go up about 30 cents and Cisco to go down about 28 cents.

Skype Gives You The Virtual Human Assistant

Now this is great for small business: an appropriately qualified Skyper somewhere in the world to handle your customer calls. VoIP bloggers have debated VoIP-based telecommuting because the question is one of remote trust: who are you hiring? Who will monitor them? Aside from that, a bit of tweaking and a small but diverse team means the ability to handle client calls in different languages - a truly virtual, VoIP-based team.

A worldwide Skype-based "telephonist" team would essentially act as multiplexers, with each dealing with the customers of more than one client. There is an opportunity here for someone to set up a web services web site to broker VoIP-based business communications services between people to answer calls (telephonists) and companies that need it done. This is exactly the sort of functionality that VoIP/ vVoIP affords that regular telecom cannot.

That said, Varras Consulting is in fact doing exactly that, and the necessary or preferred skills to work from home include being multilingual. Varras is also resolving the trust issue by requiring a non-criminal background and a security check.

Now Varras Consulting is not a VoIP company, so they wouldn't qualify to be in the 25 most interesting VoIP startups, but bravo to them for pushing the edge of IP communications use. Let's hope that Skype call quality is not an issue.

Be Your Own VoIP Provider

Thinking about getting in one the VoIP provider market? VT White, the private label reseller division of VoIP provider ViaTalk, is offering e-911 (enhanced emergency) services as of Nov 2006. Additional offerings include Tolll Free number origination at US$0.045 per customer. You can resell VoIP as an add on to other web services such as ISP or hosting. The service will be launching in "early 2007."

If you do decide to provide VoIP services to your clients, consider as a loss leader, not as a money maker. There's already far too much competition in the marketplace for small players to make a profit. That said, VoIP service could be a nice add on for your web services customers.

What's with this Buzz about Web2.0 Apps?

It seems like all the buzz today is about a recent list of Small Business Apps from the guys over at Aviva Directory.

So what's all this buzz about? As far as I can tell, everyone is going gaga over some of the hot new Web2.0 apps that they've compiled. Admittedly, the list is actually a really helpful and interesting compilation of small business applications. But why is the VoIP world talking about small business?

The reason is that a good number of these tips build off a VoIP framework to achieve their connectivity. Take for instance ConceptShare which will allow you to modify graphic presentations in real-time with multiple users spread throughout the world. By bringing the global real-time connectivity of VoIP to projects that used to be mailed back and forth through email, small business owners are finding that outsourcing is becoming an increasingly viable option.

While some are arguing that the ability to achieve complete collaboration through a combination of voice, video, is going to eliminate third world poverty, I am understandably a bit more reserved. I would say, however, that the rising popularity of Web2.0 apps and their incorporation with VoIP technology will likely breathe new life into small business outsourcing, and should help all small businesses, foreign and domestic to lower their operating costs.

If you want to check out the article, there are also some great organizational resources which I'd recommend you checking out as well. Not specifically VoIP related, but if you're running a small business you certainly need them.

How VoIP, Presence and IP Conferencing Can Help Your Career

Phoneboy recently asked (on Web Worker Daily) whether telecommuting affects your career, in response to a similar piece at Network World. If someone asked me that in the 90s or even a few years ago, I'd have to say yes from what I've seen of other people. It's primarily because of what he said: executives tend to want/ need to meet their charges. It's been hard to do over traditional telecom and conferencing solutions that the average company can afford.

Now, we're entering into an era where VoIP, IP conferencing and presence applications are setting up the framework where I don't think telecommuting will be as much of a barried to career advancement. A couple of things still need to change: faster computers, faster Internet connections and attitudes. It might be years (maybe a half generation?) before being a full-time telecommuting executive becomes commonplace. It might become a reward of the job. (Part-time telecommuting has been allowed at all levels of staff for years, as I learned at IBM in 2001, even for meetings.) The acceptance may take time but the technology is already here.

Skype: The Price is Right?

At the end of the month, the SkypeOut rates for Canada and the US are going up to US$29.95. That's not a monthly rate; it's for unlimited calling for a full year. The current promo rate is US$14.95 for the full year - less than $2/m. I'm probably going to take advantage of the special rate on the last day of January.

I don't typically make a lot of long distance calls anymore, now that I work out of the house, and since I use text chat or email for the most part. However, I'm moving back to the big city, Toronto, Canada, sometime this summer or early fall, to be able to make it to various tech conferences and possibly do some teaching.

That means that if I want to stay in touch with my parents, it'll be a lot of long distance (two different places). And that'll be from my cell phone, since I haven't had a land line in around 10 years and don't plan to. That'll add up, even for the occasional call every month. Skype's price looks more appealing now (though they still don't have SkypeIn numbers for Toronto while Gizmo does).

Even at the doubled price after Jan 31st, it could still be worth it. Skype Journal's Phil Wolff puts the Pro Skype pricing in perspective: 4.3 SkypeOut minutes per day pays back the Pro calling plan, when compared to the new per minute rates - which are higher than they were last year, with no promise of quality. (He even offers a spreadsheet if you want to see the calculations.)

And that's my main beef. The quality of my Skype calls weren't great in December. What's more, since my mother doesn't have a computer and my father doesn't want to use VoIP, for them to call me is going to be costly for them. One the one hand, it's a piddly sum for a full year of unlimited calls. On the other, both parents have complained to me of the quality of my Skype calls to them, even though we all live in the same town. The other problem, as mentioned above, is that SkypeIn doesn't support Toronto yet. It'll be expensive for my parents to call me (my brother just emails me).

That means I need some other option, possibly SkyNET-tel's 1-800 number and a Toronto VoIP number for inbound calling. Why can't there be a single computer-based VoIP solution for a city as large as Toronto (as large as Atlanta, Georgia, if I'm not mistaken). No doubt people in other cities are wondering the same thing. So is the price right or isn't it? I'm undecided.

VoIP Roundup - Thur Jan 25, 2006

TellMe: What's The 4-1-1?
TellMe, a new service for Java-enabled mobile phones, is a potential 411-killer, and voice-activated at that. See Techcrunch for details.

Skype Gross Profits Heading Upwards
Apparently in Q4 2006, Skype sold a lot of minutes: US$1.5 billion worth, compared to $1.1B in Q3. More at GigaOm.

Bring The Woize
UK-based Woize is bringing it stateside in February. All 50 states will have VoIP service and DID numbers. [via VoIP News] So the already competitve US market will have yet another contender.

I Think I Cracked My (Blue)Tooth
One flaw of Bluetooth is that it's susceptible to easy hacking. Well, that just got even easier with Bluetooth cracking tools released by a couple of German programmers. Companies apparently don't put as much emphasis on security for Bluetooth, and these cracking tools are proof-of-concept.

The All-New Ford/ Microsoft Car: Now With VoIP + Conferencing

Bwah ha ha ha ha. Just imagine it now: in the near future, all over North America, you'll see drivers talking to themselves.

What they'll really be doing is talking to Sync, the new automobile operating system from Microsoft, to become available in a number of Ford, Lincoln, and Mercury models starting in the 2008 model year. Like drivers don't have enough distractions such as mobile phones, now they can talk to a Ford car courtesy of Microsoft? What will Sync do when someone has a case of the road rage?

Couldn't Ford have come up with a better business partner? [NYTimes free reg needed] Like working with a company with operating system software that actually works? Microsoft's the company who in 2006 had 284 unsafe web browser days due to flaws through which malware attacks could be made (and they only issue software patches once a month). Do you really want to be driving a car that runs an operating system created by Microsoft? I'd considered a Ford for a future vehicle, but this move ensures I will never, ever buy a Ford.

Surely Stock Options Steve would have entertained the idea of an iCar. Or one of the Linuxes maybe? Ford Ubuntu. I like the sound of that: able to go where no vehicle has gone, and now with cron tables. You can grep your car. But Ford, being a fiercely loyal American car company, probably thinks Linux is for communists.

Let's just hope that when you have to inevitably reboot Sync, the car's engine doesn't shut off and restart. Unless you're already stuck in traffic Though the full Sync feature list is pretty impressive. Everything is voice-activated and Bluetooth-enabled, hence my quip about talking to yourself. There's VoIP, call waiting, call conferencing, a push-to-talk button in the steering wheel, and transfer of conversations from phone to car. But my feeling is that if a car company builds in conferencing abilities into their vehicles, the country has a serious workaholism problem. Can't wait until the first virus, worm or Trojan hits Sync. Color me unimpressed.

RIM Mum On Stock Options Review

The NY Times had a story on Christmas day regarding a RIM stock options review. RIM, maker of the BlackBerry, initiated the review in Sep 2006 themselves but have not provided investors or regulators much in the way of details. Even the letter submitted to the OSC (province of Ontario Securities Commission) didn't clear things up much. The stock jumped approximately US$50 between Sep and Dec. More details at the NY Times (free registration may be required).

RIM got out of a patent infringement lawsuit earlier this year and recenty levied a copyright infringement lawsuit on Samsung's Blackjack device, amidst a great Q3 2006 in terms of revenues. Regardless of the hubbub, RIM seems like teflon, able to weather the goings on, fair or otherwise. I've met former employees who retired early because their stock options made them young millionaires. My feeling is that the company will continue to make millionaires for a long time because of good overall management and vision. [I own no RIM stock, but may purchase some in late 2007.]

VoIP Is Movin On Up, To The Enterprise

CIO Today has an indepth look at VoIP in the enterprise, giving examples of planned rollouts at the Bank of America, the New York Times, Amazon, Chicago Public Schools, and more as an example of VoIP's scalability. They also point out that a shift in the telecom market from TDM (Time Division Multiplexing) to IP became evident in Q1 2006. The quote Current Analysis analyst Brian Riggs, who says "IP telephony has gone mainstream." Which is what Ken Camp was saying recently.

For those of us who write about VoIP, this is great news indeed, as I think we'd all agree that this is the kind of result we've all been hoping for.

The US Presidential Race: Pushing The Viral Video Angle

Senator John Edwards has already announced his plan to run for the 2008 US Presidential race under the Democratic banner. Edwards is the politician who had experienced a recent faux pas dissing Wal-Mart's labor policies on the same morning that one of his campaigners asked them to provide a (free) Playstation gaming console for one of his family members. Wal-Mart of course told him to stand in line like everyone else. Maybe they thought it had YouTube?

At any rate, he seems to have taken Peter Csathy's advice about video campaigning and had someone post an initial campaign clip on YouTube. Now if every politician listened to Peter, imagine how much in campaign savings they would garner. Wouldn't that show some proof of fiscal responsibility?

[sources: 21Talks]

Reading: Some VoIP/ IP Comm Lists

Light Reading presents Heavy Reading's top ten noteworthy tech research findings for 2006. Several them are about VoIP or are directly related. This is one of those must-read lists. While you're there, you may also want to check out bad tech demos, about tech show demos the writer does not want to see in 2007. To supplement these lists, VoIP News has top 10 VoIP predictions for 2007.

In terms of predictions, eWeek's Paula Musich talks about the new roles that VoIP will take in 2007 (via Ken Camp and Luca Filigheddu). She quotes Burton Group's Dave Passmore in sayiing that Microsoft's joint partnership with Cisco, which will allow MSFT "to develop IP PBX functions that can run on any Windows server," and that this "will in 2007 hasten the demise of the hardware-based IP PBX." The gist of what Ken says in response to the eWeek piece is that "2007 is the year to watch the small players, not the big ones".

What small to medium players do I predict might stir the VoIP waters some in the coming year? Gizmo Project. Or at least, that's what I'm hoping. SightSpeed, who are already stirring things up in the video calling arena, with their free video click-to-call web page buttons.

Verizon Will Allows Ads On Mobiles

Subscribers of Verizon Wireless who visit certain websites on their mobile phones will soon find advertising as part of the content served to them [NY Times]. As I've no doubt said before, I'm opposed to advertising if I have to foot the bill. Cellular data bandwidth is not unlimited everywhere, and some data plans are expensive.

So if someone is going to make money off of me, I'd expect that there'd some concession, such as free bandwidth or at least reduced monthly rates. At least the rumored Google phone is expected to be free, to counter the fact that you'll see ads. Or so the rumor says. So, if your cellular provider is planning hit you up with ads, protest to customer support until they either reduce your monthly rate or, welll... You decide.

More Tips For Video Calling Etiquette

Andy Abramson recently offered his own six tips for video calling and planning, in response to something Peter Csathy said about video call pre-planning. Andy's tips are sort of supplemental to my own video calling etiquette tips of past months. However, we seem to be of differing opinions on some issues. I guess it depends on who you are and whom you're talking to.

• Vanity. It should be more about appearance than vanity, per se. If you look like a slob and are video chatting with someone that doesn't know you, what'll they think of your work?
• Multi-tasking. Sorry, but I have to disagree. Most people would consider it rude, especially if they don't know you. People who know me don't mind, usually because they are busy themselves. But don't do it for a first time meeting, unless you're very discreet.

Microsoft Gives Laptops To Bloggers

So what's the big deal? Microsoft and AMD gave away [InformationWeek] Acer Ferrari laptops to select bloggers (six are identified in the InformationWeek article). It's not like they were the first to do this. Other companies have given stuff to bloggers, though Nokia only loans out their phones for review. Is this more integrity-preserving? Meh, I don't think so. I praised Nokia for their program, but unless Microsoft is demanding something in particular, I don't see a problem.

The laptops sound pretty sweet: over $2200, 64-bit processors, and the new Vista OS. I have no plans to switch to Vista, ever. Personally, I miss not using Linux and Mac, so my next two computers/ laptops are going to be Mac OS X and some undecided flavour of Linux.

So if anyone wants to send an Apple iPod Phone (when it comes out) or a Linux cell phone, I'll do a thorough review. I'm not proud and have no shame. Laptops with wireless and VoIP tech are welcome, too.

Skype Roundup - Tues Dec 26, 2006

Skype Journal
One of my fave VoIP blogs, Skype Journal, hasn't been been posted to in several weeks. Phil Wolff commented elsewhere on some technical problems that they are trying to sort out. But I just now looked and it appears the domain expired on the 19th. Jim, Phil, I really hope you guys get this sorted out, as it'd be a bloody shame if you lost the domain. Hopefully you didn't forget, while trying to sort out the other technical problems.

Share Your Music
A Last.fm playlist badge is one of the popular ways that bloggers let people know what music they've been listening to. Now, you can share your Last.fm playlist in Skype 3.0 with an Extra, as well as build a customizable radio for yourself. The Share Skype blog gives more detail.

Disruptive VoIP Pricing To Come
Skype has already announced disruptive SkypeOut pricing for North American users. But they've also let on that there'll be a disruptive pricing strategy for all 136 million users. That'll be revealed Jan 18th, 2007. Will this move forever set the standard for VoIP pricing around the world? We'll know in a few short weeks.

Skype For Business?
With a poor and subdued showing in Skype 3.0 For Windows - Business Edition, many of us VoIP bloggers have been wondering what it's really in store. A recent article quotes VP Mobile + Telecom Services Michael Jackson joking about no Skype trucks in the future (to configure business installations), though there may be independent Skype integrators. Also mentioned is that Skype for business functions will evolve, but that they'll be relying on an "ecosystem of third parties" in the short to medium term. Wait and see, I guess.

Communication Breakdown: Ahem. How's My Voice... Tech?

While Clearwire is pushing WiMax and attempting another go at an IPO, One IP Voice is filing Chapter 11. BCE Inc. (Bell Canada Enterprises) sold its satellite division for $3.4+B, and Nortel signed a $2B CDMA EV-DO contract for 5 years with Verizon Wireless. (Nortel is the Canadian company once known as Northern Telecom that pretends it's American. I think that's because it has so many American shareholders. BCE used to be part owners, but I don't know if they still are.) Google is planning a Google Phone, possibly with Orange, and Linksys/ Cisco beat Apple to the punch with their own registered iPhone brand. Apple's Steve Jobs is expected to announce their iPod Phone in January at MacWorld. Skype announced disruptive pricing for SkypeOut in North America, though they have more disruptive plans after Jan 31st, 2007, for the whole world. More to come.

More Cheap or Free VoIP/ Voice

Just a reminder that Jajah has free calls to 80 countries today, Christmas 2006. Vinay at VoIPGuides weblog also has several posts for free calling:

• 5 free VoIP providers for international calls (one of which is Jajah).
• A hack for free calls through Free Call Planet.
• MediaRing free calls from Dec 20 - Jan 6.

Nuno at 21Talks pointed out that Jajah is also offering ad-supported calling in Europe. This is something that Globe7 has been offering for quite some time, though in their case, you have to watch video ads and trailers. Of course, Google is planning to give away mobile phones in return for your eyeballs watching advertising on the phones.

RIM's Profit Cup Overflows But Balsillie Doesn't Get Penguins

RIM, who recently sued Samsung over their Blackjack phone name, had an overflowing Q3 2006, taking in just over US$800M, a near 50% increase from Q3 2005. This meant nearly $180M in profit and almost $1 per share. Part of this increase is due in part to the over 800K new BlackBerry subscribers, mostly from North America, probably thanks to their Pearl camera phone. European interest has not been as strong, though the Pearl is now offered by 20 mobile carriers there.

Now as much money as CEO and billionaire Jim Balsillie probably will make due to the lovely quarter, he doesn't have what he really wanted: the Pittsburgh Penguins. NHL hockey commissioner Gary Bettman wouldn't allow the team to be moved, even though former player and majority owner Mario Lemieux has said the team will possibly be seeking relocation outside of Pennsylvania state. However, depending on what article you read, people still interested in the team include Pittsburgh native and motormouth Dallas Maverick's owner Mark Cuban, Canadian owner of Steelback brewery Frank D'Angelo, and even Jim Balsillie himself, who is reconsidering now that the Penguin's new stadium deal fell through. (They've got the oldest rink in the league, at 45 years.)

Nomadic Workers + The Global Village

Andy Abramson writes about his Working Anywhere project, which, as he puts it, is about the nomadic worker. He talks about how he has to work in a virtual office because of far-flung clients and colleagues. As a former nomadic worker myself, I know exactly what Andy is talking about. At one point, I lived in one city, worked in another, sometimes visited clients in several nearby cities, then hung out in yet another city at the end of the day, where most of my friends lived, oddly enough.

To swing this nomadic behavior, at one point, I had two pagers and two cell phones. One pager and one cell phone had 1-800 toll free numbers (which was allowed at the time; no more) so that friends could call me. The second pager was for work. The second cell phone was mine but had the same area code as work. I had to replace my trouser belt a lot, what with the weight of VoIP didn't exist then, or at least not reliable. And smart phones were just popping into existence. So mobile VoIP was not even an option. And high-speed connections were hard to come by due to poor coverage in my neighborhood, so telecommuting wasn't an option back then for me, either.

Now, I work entirely from home but regularly collaborate with people in at least six time zones across the world. I've been using text mode chat for many years, and it's helps me get by now, too. For collaboration, I have several desktop sharing options including AIM Pro and the Unyte add-on for Skype. And for voice chat, I've used Skype and Google Talk, the two most common VoIP and VoIM soft clients amongst my colleagues. Without IP communication, there'd be no way for me to work entirely from home, away from the rat race, road rage and traffic jams of my previous career. Yay VoIP.

The electronic global village is enabled by IP communications. Though strangely enough, despite the growing e-learning/ e-tutoring and online education markets, there are some things that just can't be done over the Internet: attending live workshops and industry conferences. And that means that despite all this great technology, I'll be moving back to the big city within the next year for that reason.

6 Ways To Give Your Customers Free Calls To You

There are oh so many ways to give/ get free calls via VoIP services and software. But if you are running an SMB (small or medium business), you're really close to the concept of value for money. And you probably want to reduce costs for your customers as well. Here are five ways you can give your customers free calls via web-based voice/ VoIP services, sometimes from anywhere in the world.

1. SkyNET-Tel 1-800 number.
   Forward your SkyNET-Tel toll-free number to any VoIP "call in" number (such as from Skype, Gizmo Project, and SightSpeed), and reduce costs on your end, too. Customers can call you from any phone.
2. Sitofono.
   Pay a flat rate, provide your business telephone number (no mobiles), add a click-to-call button on your website, and voila: free calls to you from your worldwide customers via their computer. That's Sitofono.
3. Sitofono, iotum, and GrandCentral. If you want customers to be able to reach you while you're about, read Andy Abramson's A natural hat trick, about combining these three services to route calls to wherever you are. There's so much going on in features with this trio, though you should understand all options as some may result in charges for some customers, depending on geography. That aside, this trio means being able to change your contact numbers without having to inform everyone, as well as being "found" whenever and however (office, mobile, etc.) you dictate. By the way, Phil Wolff shot a video of GrandCentral in action, and Luca Filigheddu explains some GrandCentral's options.
4. Gizmo Project + Voxbone.
   Brian McConnell gives a great explanation of how you can set up "local" numbers in 40 countries around the world. That means they can use any phone. You can also use just Gizmo Project, but that means that each and every customer would need to register with Gizmo first. (GizmoProject offers free calling in 60 countries.)
5. Skype click-to-call.
   Place a Skype Me button on your website. You will need to have Skype on your computer and so will your customer.
6. SightSpeed click-to-call.
   Now with video support. SightSpeed just released their "enhanced" Version 5.0. But what really excites me is the video click-to-call functionality. Your customers can see and talk to you, and it won't cost either of you anything for the service. Of course, they have to use a computer.

If you really want to cover your bases and satisfy the widest range of customers, use a combination of all of the above. Your total monthly bill will probably still be a lot less than with just regular telephony and an internationally-usable 1-800 number. So as not to clutter your web page, use a single custom "call me" button to link to a special contact page displaying all specific. Your customers will call you to thank you.

New North American Skype Promos

A quick glance at the Skype website shows not only a brand new home page but a new 50% off promo for North American users. If you'll recall, N.A. Skypers can call any phone in the US and Canada for free until Dec 31st. Now, you can get one full year of unlimited calling in these two countries for only US$14.95. (Skype has also had promos in the UK, France, and other places.)

Not a bad deal, and you can use PayPal to pay. Except that my most recent conversation using Skype, which was actually to another Skyper, was of terrible quality. It may have had something to do with my running Audacity to record the conversation, but having successfully used HotRecorder and Skype on a laptop with one less processor and half the memory, I'm not so sure of that. In fact, because of this, I opted to use my mobile phone to make a long distance call today to a tech support team (not Skype) instead of worrying that sound quality would suck.

The sum of $14.95 is paltry, especially if it'll save you more than $1.25/mth in long distance. But if the quality is questionable, you have to decide on your priorities. (That said, my cable Internet connection has been terrible the last few days, so maybe it's not Skype's fault.) Though if you do opt for it, they throw in US$50 in coupons for a Motorola headset, Netgear Wi-Fi phone, and Polycom speaker phone. What I would have liked to see is, say, an unlimited calling plan for $39.95-$59.95 for one year that includes a free Skype-certified Wi-Fi phone.

A couple of notes. After Jan 31st, 2007, the plan's price goes back to US$29.95. During the first three days after signup, you can only use Skype for 7 hours per day. Seriously. Even a chatterbox like myself has never spent more than 6 hours on the phone in a single day.

Talkster Interview With James Wanless

James Wanless, one of the three entrepreneurs behind Canadian-based mobile-to-VoIM service provider Talkster has been a busy man, flying here and there to promote the service. Talkster relaunched this past Monday, but he managed to fit in an interview chat with me last Friday - a follow-up to a previous chat.

You may have already read about Talkster elsewhere, so instead of repeating that Talkster is a cool mobile-to-VoIM voice service, I'll quickly synopsize what James told me about what's happening with the company.

Their plan, he said, is to market to businesses. As he mentions on his blog, in the post The Great Race (To Zero), VoIP/ VoIM providers can give some of their services away for free but they have to have a monetization model to keep the business going and offer quality. And when you're a company started by three self-employed, self-funded people, you have to find a way to monetize.

That said, James said that Talkster is not only looking for funding but channel partners. If you have an idea for a way to integrate Talkster into your own voice application, they encourage you to contact them. The interface is based on the open standard XMPP (Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol), but their API is only revealed to channel partners. (This is the same approach that SightSpeed seems to have.) If you think you might have some ideas in this regard, contact someone at Talkster.

Show Me The Money In VoIP: Is Free A Four Letter Word?

Pat Phelan asks where will it all end, in regards to all this free VoIP and VoIM going around. How long can a free model sustain itself? Will ad-paid models like that of Globe7 be accepted? Will Google's rumored free phones in return for ad-watching take over the world?

I had a second chat last Friday with James Wanless, President and COO - one of three entrepreneurial spirits behind Talkster, a new mobile-to-VoIM service that just relaunched on Monday. He made a very astute comment to me regarding free services, and wrote The great race (to zero). I'm paraphrasing him (so any misquote is my fault), but he said that so many [startups] think that giving away everything for free and grabbing a subscriber list is sufficient enough for someone with deep pockets to buy them up. He then pointed out that while Skype gave away a lot, they still had a monetization plan that they implemented, including CallOut minutes.

Exactly my point. We can hope that maybe we'll have some sort of idealistic moneyless society as portrayed in the Star Trek TV series, but the truth in my eyes is that we are very distant from any such reality. And that means that if you're giving away your VoIP for free, without any monetization plan, you are not going to last very long. And as James Wanless said in his blog, quality costs money. Would you use a VoIP service because it's free but the quality was poor? [Irony of ironies: Skype was misbehaving when we had our chat.]

Acatel-Lucent Scores British University Contract

Alcatel-Lucent is the merger that took an American President to approve (ever heard of that before?) and already they are gaining large deals. The University of the West of England (UWE) is implementing VoIP with Alcatel-Lucent's converged communications solutions. The project will take place over several years and will tie 4,400 UWE users over seven campuses. The resulting system will have both IP and TDM (Time-Division Multiplexing) components instead of pure VoIP. The university claims that new buildings already linked have reduced costs and management overhead. What prompted the entire project is a new student village and sports center.

sources: Irish Dev.

Covad and Centrepoint Offer IP Phone System For SMBs

Small business owners cringing at the cost of telecom solutions may want to check out TalkSwitch from Centrepoint Technologies. Covad is offering TalkSwitch and a bundle of services for US$459/mth. The system is said to be easy to install and can handle eight simultaneous calls, which Covad feels is suitable for offices of up to 25 employees.

Another offering is SpeakEasy, which is priced by the number of users (minimum 10) plus the cost of a T1 broadband connection. SpeakEasy VoIP services is available in 22 countries. Covad's Chair Charles Hoffman was selected as one of the 50 most influential people in VoIP, for "leading a major push into small business VoIP."

sources: Sharewatch.

Show Me The Money In VoIP: Emerging Markets

Could emerging markets hold the key to the future growth of telecoms? That's what a new Gartner report says. There is promise in emerging markets, especially because of the large potential customer base. But the fact is, disposable income is smaller in many of these countries compared to developed nations. Thus cost per call is is higher relative to income compared to other parts of the world. (Then there's the minimum startup and infrastructure costs.)

Those are the hurdles telecom operators face. Regardless, the Gartner Group says that emerging markets will account for nearly 90% of the 1.5Bln increased mobile phone connections by 2010. Throw fixed connections in the mix and emerging markets may account for as much as 70% of all new total phone connections by 2010. Cellular News has several tables showing a breakdown of potential revenues by region.

VoIP Roundup - Sat Dec 09/06

MIT Runs VoIP Pilot
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is running a VoIP pilot involving 500 users. That's a tiny fraction of the 20,000 phone lines (desk, fax, form, circuits, elevators) at the educational institution, but the IST (Information Services and Technology) department will announce detailed plans in early 2007. [source: The Tech]

GPS Services To Enjoy Huge Growth
Currently in the North American, there are about a half million subscribers to "personal locator" services for their GPS-enabled phones. ABI Research says that this number will grow to over 20M by 2011. sources: Cellular News.

SunRocket Damage Control
Alec Saunders has been talking about the problems he had with cancelling his SunRocket VoIP account, which he tried to do via email and which they refused to accept. However he reported recently that SunRocket's PR guy and contacted him and the matter has been sorted out. The issue is simply that you can't cancel by email.

Show Me The Money In VoIP - Small Business Services

With all the innovative VoIP companies popping up, it's hard to keep track of them all, let alone the ones getting venture capital. One such company is the Canadian-based Natural Convergence, who recently acquired US$10M in Series "C" funds. They've been in business five years, serving SMBs (Small and Medium Businesses) in North America, parts of Europe and the Caribbean. [Light Reading].

Though Natural Convergence has only 10,000 active users, they're catering to a VoIP niche that many other companies have been ignoring: the SMB market. And the "Long Tail" theory applied to IP communications suggests that in terms of enterprise sales, the money might just be in the SMBs. This is simply a numbers game: take the sheer volume of SMBs, multiply by the high expected conversion ratio. Even inexpensive IP PBXes (i.e., under US$5,000) will generate a profit by volume.

On the other hand, the conversion rate of larger businesses and enterprises will likely be smaller, as they have more invested in traditional communications. Thus a per head cost of conversion may be much higher, especially in lost productivity if the implementation is stalled or runs into problems.

Show Me The Money In VoIP - Stocks

If someone offers you stock in an IP communications business, learn everything you can about it, including whether or not it'll make money. Pretty obvious, right? Well a man in Tokyo is suing an "IP phone" (VoIP) company for not telling him and other investors upfront that they might not make any money. The man, 61, invested millions of yen and is suing for 27M yen. He also wants his investment contract cancelled.

Now if I understand the story correctly, there may be some connection between the company, Kinmirai Tsuushin Inc., and the Japanese underground. That's just what VoIP needs, doesn't it? On the other hand, the man did receive just over 8Mln yen in dividends - less than what he put in. But does that sound like organized crime? There are other lawsuits pending against the company, who collected funds from around 1,000 investors. [via Asterisk VoIP News]

Interesting way to make money, but no evidence of wrongdoing, aside from not openly telling investors that returns were not guaranteed. It's certainly better than the two young Americans who were stealing VoIP service from other vendors and resold around ten million minutes worth.

VoIP Becomes More Free For Schools

The US FCC's E-Rate program means US$2B in federal grants for K-12 schools to Internet, telephone, and hardware costs. While that doesn't mean all schools will opt for VoIP, there are provisions on the application form for VoIP as well as mobile devices such as RIM's BlackBerry and Palm Treo. [via ExtremeVoIP]

A number of schools in the US have started using IP communications for their intercom system, and others for actual VoIP outbound calling. The most important technical issue for schools in this case should be the implementation of E911 emergency calling.

VoIP Roundup - Mon Nov 20/06

California Hospitals Implement Multi-Language VoIP Project
A number of public hospitals in California are implement VoIP technology with live multi-language call support in order to serve the large non-English speaking community AT&T is part of the project. Implementation was completed recently. [via TMCNet]

Phonezoo Ringtones Social Network
Diehard cell phone ringtone lovers now have a social network of their own. Phonezoo lets you create your own ringtones, share them with other members, and discover what they have. You can even rate and discuss each ringtone. [via Roam4free] Color me cynical, but do people have nothing better to do, or am I hopelessly out of touch?

How Now, Apple iPhone?
So if Apple really does come out with a so-called iPhone, how do you think it'll operate? Unlocked with SIM cards? Carriers? Daniel Raffel at O'Reilly Emerging Telephony provides his insights, concluding that a carrier partnership might be more painful to them.

VoIP Roundup - Fri Nov 17/06

Free Asterisk Voice Prompts Until Nov 21, 2006
Digium recently changed the deal on their Asterisk voice prompts, so Ward Mundy at Nerd Vittles has generously decided to give away a block of IVR (Interactive Voice Response) prompts, 20 words or less (hyphenated words are multiple) until Nov 21, 2006. If you don't know what voice prompts are, you probably don't need them :)

Verizon Business Conferencing
Everyone's getting into the VoIP conferencing market, and Verizon Business is the latest.

Google Maps Click-to-Call
[UPDATED]Thanks to the new click-to-call integration, you can find a business on Google Maps and then click on the displayed phone number to initiate a call to the business. Of course, you can't do this with Google Talk. You enter your phone number into an available form field on the map result, and a call is initiated. Google's service rings up the business and then you.

Show Me The Money In VoIP - What's With Vonage Shareholders?

Having once held share options, which couldn't be sold until they matured - thus costing me profit - I find this very odd on the surface: a bunch of major Vonage shareholders have petitioned [Russell Shaw] the US SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) to delay a change that would make it easier to sell their stock. Insiders and some other shareholders typically have to wait a grace period after an IPO before they can sell. But let's dig deeper.

As Russell points out, one of the petitioners is Jeffrey Citron, Chairman, once worth nearly a billion on paper. Are they trying to suggest to the public that maybe something good is going to happen, hence they don't want to sell their stock just yet? Maybe those with the greatest number of shares are pushing for this so that remaining major shareholders won't bail out and sell off their stock. That makes a great deal of sense. Even though the petitioners own about 2/3 of total shares, a sell-off from the remaining 1/3 might devalue the stock even further, causing the 2/3 owners to lose even more money. Keep in mind that the latter have been invested since the IPO, and they've lost about half their investment.

But pure play VoIP providers like Vonage are not the ones making money in VoIP. For them, I fear, it's going to be an uphill battle. And maybe being acquired might not be such a bad thing. Maybe.

Show Me The Money In VoIP - The Fabled Skype ROI

Recently, I did some rough math on how long it might take eBay to recoup their US$2.6B purchase of Skype last year. My admittedly rough calcs showed about 4 years (17 quarters), not counting inflation and taxes, based on recently observed quarterly increases in gross revenues. But Russell Shaw thinks that it'll take years for the ROI to show on Skype, which is in agreement with Kevin O'Brien's Where's the return on investment. Oh ye of little faith! Didn't I just agree with Andy Abramson that eBay has too many smarts to not monetize Skype in some manner? Granted they'll need some "disruptor" type management to replace those old-school Skypers heading for the door.

Russell also says that Skype doesn't understand how business users think, in relation to the quietly released Skype 3.0 for Windows - Business version, and explains his reasoning. Jim Courtney of Skype Journal echoes this sentiment, partly because Skype did so little to promote this version. Now I have to agree with Russell there, despite reserving judgement the other day. Their software, pre-eBay, was never intended for enterprise. This new "business" version has a few concessions for enterprises, but there's a lot that's left out, such as an IP PBX, etc.

If eBay is smart, they'll buy Canadian Pika Technologies, who've married Skype to an Asterisk IP PBX. Though I don't know how the open source license would work in this case. Still, an alliance with a company as smart as Pika would do post-eBay Skype a world of good in terms of business solution potential.

Business Skype 3.0 For Windows?

Skype's gone release mad these past few days. First it was Skype 3.0 for Windows Beta, then yesterday 2.5 for Mac Beta. They also released an update for 3.0 Windows Beta, and very quietly, Skype 3.0 for Windows - Business Version. What gives? Why not announce it? Are they shy because they themselves said Skype's not meant for the enterprise? The download page does say that it's only for experienced users, because they're still working on it.

The so-called "business friendly features" include a Windows Installer (MSI), increased security, easy deployment, admin control, and multiple account management from the "Business Control Panel". And then there's the standard features. I'll have to look into these further at some point in the near future (probably after it's out of beta), but this version could go a long way towards assuaging the fears that several companies and a few universities have had about security and other issues. And since it's still free, the monetization will have to come from SkypeIn, SkypeOut, and Skype-certified Wi-Fi phones, I guess.

Now, marrying Skype with an IP PBX, such as Pika Technologies has done, makes sense.

VoIP Roundup - Wed Nov 15/06

Skype Enterprise Features Coming?
Skype execs have hinted at upcoming enterprise and call center features. So maybe this will be how eBay finally monetizes Skype?

Speed Demons
The 100-Gigabit Ethernet (100-GbE) technology is here, being demonstrated by a number of companies and the University of California Santa Cruz. A test run sent a signal from Tampa, Florida to Houston, Texas, and back - a first for a live production network. If I understand this correctly, IP backbones will get this technology fairly soon. And as 100-GbE becomes commonplace, likely in several years time, it should mean some incredible real-time video conferencing ability, superfast downloads of movies, and live video broadcasts, to name just a few benefits.

Legal Issues Surrounding VoIP Enterprise Implementations
TechRepublic details legal issues to be aware of when planning a VoIP implementation. They have real alphabet soup of issues, some of which I've only peripherally aware of: SOX/ Sarbox (Sarbanes-Oxley Act), GLBA, HIPAA, E911.

50 Most Influential People in VoIP

Wow. VoIP News just published Brian Provost's 50 most influential people in VoIP and a lot of deserving people, communities and companies were listed there, along with some surprises (Microsoft, 3com, Intel, US Congress, FCC, and others), including this weblog, under the "daily show - voip bloggers" category. I clicked on the link twice, to make sure that my eyes weren't deceiving me. (Not so long ago, VoIP Now was on Garrett Smith's Top 30 and Luca Filigheddu's Top 30 VoIP blogs lists.) But I think some names were left off the list (more on that later, when I have the nads to come up with my own list, from a different angle). Though it's never easy compiling them, so hat's off to Brian.

If I had to pick just one person to add to the list, it would be Peter Csathy, CEO of SightSpeed. Why do I think he's an influential person in VoIP? Not just because he's the CEO of a company with an impressive video VoIP soft client but also because of his engaging blog, Digital Media Update, where he's been blogging a lot lately about vVoIP and video on mobile, it's importance, it's coming ubiquity, due to the number of camera phones that will ship.

Hey, I've been dreaming of videophones since I was a kid watching The Jetsons TV cartoon in the '70s. I've always figured it's just a matter of time and technology. So you can imagine how pleased I was when I first tried SightSpeed. Yeah, I fawn a lot over SightSpeed, but I make no apologies for doing so. Can't wait for mobile SightSpeed. But it'll mean buying a new smartphone, since my Palm Treo will never handle mobile video calling.

Microsoft Hearts VoIP?

You'd expect a software giant like Microsoft to have already been playing a big role in the IP communications market. But beyond the high number of users (active + inactive) of MSN/ Windows Live Messenger VoIM clients, it's hard to say they have any great involvement in VoIP and related services. They have announced this or that sort of IP communcations-related project in the recent past, but seemingly done little to compete with the dominant forces in the market (beyond launching Windows Live Messenger, which is okay, but not as good as Yahoo Messenger). But CEO Steve Ballmer indicates that they are going to change that with their new Vista operating system, come January 2007.

The Vista OS - which someone touted as not requiring anti-virus software - will integrate a variety of IP-related offerings including VoIP, IM (Instant Messaging), and video-conferencing in desktop and server applications. There will also be Microsoft PBX. * Yawn * I'm not buying it, sorry. They're late to the game (though Garrett Smith thinks otherwise) and can't offer anything new to the individual. However, the Microsoft brand name may encourage enterprise to get more involved in IP communications - so that could be a big sell for them. (In which case I do agree with Garrett.)

There was no word about whether Ballmer raged across the stage screaming like a lunatic while saying how much he loved "this company". This is your brain on Microsoft.

Think this will help your company's share price? Hmm. Could be. Dance little Ballmer, dance.

Why Switch To Asterisk IP PBX?

John Edwards lists 5 good reasons for switching to Asterisk for an IP PBX, and 9-step guide to getting started with Asterisk. Asterisk is of course open source software (OSS) so the full source code is available.

Open source IP telephony is getting a push by companies like Fonality, Digium (makers of Asterisk) and Polycom in terms of new partnerships, hardware and software. While I'm a big fan of open source, history shows a reluctance on the part of middle managers in larger enterprises to accept such software. I'm really hoping that this isn't the case with IP telephony, because such options afford robust, customizable solutions that have as much power as more expensive offerings.

If OSS IP telephony companies are smart, they'll go after the SMBs and not worry about enterprise, who'll want more "name brand" solutions from companies like Cisco or even Microsoft, who have vowed to integrate IP communcations into their new Vista operating system in Jan 2007. My feeling is that there are enough SMBs out there that would benefit OSS IP telephony, and would welcome such an option as well as the price. But since the cost and availability of "experts" who can add modules or debug problems may be a factor, solutions with a  set of plug-and-play SMB/ CRM modules will likely capture the most interest.

VoIP Roundup - Sat Nov 11/06

NZ Telecom Blocking VoIP?
A computer scientist at New Zealand's Otago University is accusing Telecom of limiting bandwidth use for VoIP software on some of their Internet plans, essentially discriminating against certain uses.

Google Talk By Phone On Camrivox
I love Google Talk but Camrivox's decision to offer a phone with Google Talk support just makes me ask "why?" With Google Talk, you can only communicate with fellow users and anyone with a SIP account. Unless I'm missing some crucial new piece of information, you can't call regular landlines from this VoIM client without Talqer. [sources: Digital Lifestyles, PR Web]

UK Businesses Lacking VoIP + VoIM Policy?
An online survey by YouGov suggests that over half of UK businesses have no VoIM or VoIP policy. Email use is generally more common, and policies for it are more likely to be in place.

VoIP Roundup - Thur Nov 09/06

Cisco Partner Education Programs
Unified communications (i.e., convergence of voice, video and data over IP) is hot, and Cisco wants its partners to be prepared. So, they're offering a "Master Specializations" certification in this niche. [via Extreme VoIP]

Google Talk Adds Offline Messages
Google Talk has a new feature to help deliver messages if one member of a chat (text) conversation in progress disconnects: offline messages. When the disconnected party signs back in, whenever that is, they will receive the rest of your message. This will also work with other open clients. [via Google Talkabout]

Alcatel Gains Huge Communications Contract
The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) has awarded Alcatel a contract of US$300M over several years, starting next year. The contract work includes "the upgrade of UPMC's wired and wireless data infrastructure, enterprise telephony system, and contact platforms and applications to a converged IP infrastructure." The UPMC awarded this contract on several factors including Alcatel's previous installations. [via Lightwave] Earlier this year, Alcatel was awarded a Euros 70M contract by Telekom Malaysia.

VoIP Roundup - Wed Nov 08/06

FierceVoIP Declares Top 15 VoIP Companies 2006
FierceVoIP (love that name) website's editor Dan Rosenbaum has declared his picks for the top 15 VoIP companies for 2006. The list is presented in alphabetical order and notably missing are Skype, SightSpeed, and Vonage - though I'm not saying I'd necessarily put all of them in my own list. I'll be honest - I've only heard of about half of the companies on Dan's list. I guess I have some reading to do.

NTP Lawyers At It Again
Possibly buoyed by the hundreds of millions they grabbed from RIM, make of BlackBerry mobile devices, NTP is now after Palm, claiming patent violation for a mobile email product used by Palm Treos using the PalmOS platform. Palm already suffered lower than expected profits last quarter (Q3 2006) and obviously, this is the last thing they need. [sources: The Wireless Report]

Verizo