Chip giant Intel is offering a voice over IP add-in board as part of its push to sell motherboards.

The firm is also bundling Nvidia products with two of its motherboards - ” Hell’s Canyon” and “White Salmon” - as part of this channel push.

The Slick Mountain card, also known as the 600SM, comes with an Intel installer with drivers and ISP diallers. Customers have been told it will work with standard phones, whether they’re wired or not, and supports Counterpath, and Skype.

Intel said that it is in the process of striking deals with Vonage, Skype, Packet 8, with Delta Three and other firms.

The “Hell’s Canyon” motherboard, known as the D925XHY, is being bundled with the Nvidia 6200LE Turbo Cache 16MB card, while the “White Salmon”, or D945WPM, comes with the same options. Intel describes these as special offers for its partners.

Separately, Intel Capital the venture capital arm of the chip giant has also formed a partnership with ISP Pipex, called Pipex Wireless. The new wireless operator will provide broadband services in major metropolitan areas, the two firms said.

“We see creation of this new wireless service provider as an incredible opportunity to provide new services to major cities in the UK,” said Peter Dubens, PIPEX executive chairman. “With a wireless service, Pipex Wireless will offer broadband access and services that are very complementary to Pipex’s existing business of DSL access, hosting and network access.”

http://www.itweek.co.uk/crn/news/2154581/intel-grows-voice

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In the 250,000-population Navajo Nation, a remote settlement known as White Rock Chapter House (pictured above) has never had any type of phone service up until now.

Residents of the settlement 160 miles northwest of Albuquerque, New Mexico have been so isolated they had to drive six miles on dirt roads to use the nearest pay phone.

Navajo Nation information technology director Harold Skow has tried to obtain standard phone line service, but was quoted a price of $100,000. And that would have been for a non-broadband service.

New Mexico State Senator Leonard Tsosie, who represents the Navajo Nation in the State Senate, helped Skow by becoming an advocate for a more practical approach.

Skow decided in favor of a 75-mile microwave connection capable of providing and supporting VoIP, Wi-Fi access points, and videoconferencing.

Cisco Systems stepped up to the plate, with routers as well as Cisco 7940 and 7940G VoIP phones for use at White Rock.

The new infrastructure at White Rock is tied in with Cisco VoIP CallManager equipment already installed in the Navajo Nation’s capital of Window Rock, Ariz.

“We wanted the most cost effective way to provide Internet to the hogan (home),” Skow tells Federal Computer Week’s Bob Brewin.

Although Skow has not specified a price tag, it sounds like there is a far more noble purpose here than just return-on-investment.

Sen. Tsosie tells Brewin that lack of access to technology is a reason why Navajo children score low on state tests, and that the White Rock installation is a first step toward closing that technology gap.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/ip-telephony/?p=1039

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EarthLink, a national ISP, and Linksys, a division of Cisco Systems Inc., today announced a co-marketed VoIP hardware and service solution that allows broadband customers to complete phone calls over the Internet.

Retail shoppers will be able to choose between two types of Linksys/EarthLink trueVoice start-up kits. One contains a Linksys Phone Adapter that works with a standard wired or wireless router, while the other includes a Linksys Wireless-G Broadband Router with a built-in phone adapter for home networking. Both kits provide products with two phone ports for connection of two standard home phones or fax machines. The startup kits are available at Fry’s Electronics’ more than 30 locations.

EarthLink’s trueVoice is compatible with any high-speed connection and is a plug-and-play solution that can be installed in minutes to work on any touch-tone phone. Customers can sign up for unlimited local, regional and long-distance calling on their home phones. Some of the standard features that are available at no extra charge include voice mail, three-way calling and call-forwarding. Calling plans start at $14.95 per month.

http://www.newtelephony.com/news/64h2016373625363.html

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Oracle came to talk telecom, and aside from a few throwaway comments about open source, execs did just that, outlining the company’s first foray into a vertical market for its middleware.

To that end, Oracle on April 18 announced yet another acquisition: This time, it’s Net4Call, a Norway-based provider of Parlay and SLEE (Service Logic Execution Environment) technology.

Oracle execs also outlined a roadmap for a comprehensive, standards-based SDP (Services Delivery Platform) for the telecommunications industry.

Parlay constitutes open, technology-independent APIs that enable the development of applications that operate across converged networks.

The APIs integrate Internet multimedia networks and IN (intelligent networks) with IT applications via a secure, measured and billable interface and has been widely deployed in telecoms networks globally.

Regarding its Net4Call acquisition, Oracle released a statement that said the company plans to continue support and development of Net4Call’s product line within this new telecom roadmap.

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1950678,00.asp?kc=EWRSS04069TX1K0000701

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That’s a converged networks wiring closet, from enterprise networks solutions provider Foundry Networks.

According to an article in Network World, the temperatures in wiring closets typically used for IP phone AP power supplies can be so high as to be risky.

The problem is that in the typical wiring closet, you’ve got PoE (Power over Ethernet) switches to light up the phones as well as to support Ethernet traffic; UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) equipment to allow switches to run during a power outage, and the fact that all this equipment in a confined space produces a cumulative heat effect.

The article quantifies this effect. Start with a product such as Cisco’s non-PoE 24-port Catalyst 3750 LAN switch. That generates 176 BTUs of heat per hour.

Then if you add the PoE option, the switch will spike up the BTU burn rate to 534 BTUs of heat per hour.

But wait. What about the UPS? That adds another 80 to 100 BTUs of heat per hour, in a small space at that.

“In certain climates, you could have very high humidity, with the ambient temperature getting above [104 degrees],” Patrick Ferriter, vice president of marketing for IP PBX maker Zultys tells Network World’s Phil Hochmuth.

Sounds bad enough, but depending on your set-up inside that wiring closet, things could get even worse for you.

“If you have an IP PBX which has built-in gateways, and if you have a lot of analog connections — FXS boards that provide ring voltage — it could start to get even hotter,” Ferriter tells Hochmuth. “It’s going to be hotter than a traditional key system for sure.

“There are places where it does get hot,” Ferriter adds, “and you’re going to have problems if you don’t have air conditioning.”

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As buzz continues to build over Apple’s fabled ‘iPhone,’ speculation increases that such a cell phone will eventually take advantage of voice over IP (VoIP), which is projected to eventually cause serious problems for cell carriers.

According to a blog post at Innovation Analysis Group (IAG): “UK consultancy Visiongain believes that this spring Apple will launch its rumoured ‘iPhone’ - a high-end cellphone to which VoIP capability will subsequently be added. Apple and networking partner Helio are targeting the same young-consumer market as the one in which the iPod music device has been such a runaway success, according to Visiongain telecoms analyst Pam Duffey.”

Helio is an MVNO, or mobile virtual network operator. It uses another cell carrier’s network to offer its services. According to IAG’s blog, Helio has said it expects to sign up three million customers and hit the US$2 billion mark by 2009.

IAG also quoted Ms. Duffey as saying: “iPhone will probably be as disruptive to the existing carrier market as the iPod was to the mobile music industry. And when VoIP capability is added it will be even more disruptive.” VoIP is growing in the United States and the market for it could be worth as much as $3 billion by the end of the decade, according to IAG.

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An Internet phone service called JaJah will become standard on a significant cell phone operating system, and the Opera Web browser for computers and cell phones, the company announced April 5.

The announcement was expected from the Palo Alto, Calif.-based company, and the enhancements will be available in June.

With the moves, JaJah is advancing its VOIP (voice over IP)-based feature further than a lot of its competitors have.

While VOIP is common on personal computers and home phones, cell phones remain relatively virgin territory.

JaJah is seeking the benefits of being first to try a particular market, but also risking the equally as spectacular first-mover pitfalls.

VOIP is a way to make phone calls using an Internet connection rather than a traditional home or cell phone.

VOIP’s attraction is how cheap calls are, due to the efficiencies of using the Internet over analog telephone technology developed a century ago.

Many VOIP operators piggyback a basic free service with premium features to call cell or landline phones at per-minute rates.

There are scores of VOIP operators, the biggest being U.S. cable providers, which are using VOIP to sell unlimited monthly calling plans that compete against local phone companies.

There’s also Vonage Holdings of Holmdel, N.J., and Skype, the peer-to-peer VOIP operator based in Luxembourg and owned by eBay.

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1946758,00.asp?kc=EWRSS04069TX1K0000701

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Internet telephony provider JaJah will soon introduce a cell phone version of its features, company co-founder Roman Scharf recently said, as the firm prepares to battle some heavyweight competition.

For now, JaJah’s veritable Internet phone booth requires a personal computer. But when the mobile version debuts in May, it’ll be possible to trigger the JaJah service from a cell phone, Scharf said.

He hopes the new facet significantly expands the five-month-old company’s potential customer base. After all, according to the latest tallies, Internet-enabled cell phones outnumber personal computers by about 10 to 1.

JaJah is the latest, and hottest right now, of the companies to dabble in VOIP (voice over Internet Protocol), which is freely available software that turns an Internet connection into a low-cost local, long-distance and international phone.

- Ben Charny

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1944488,00.asp?kc=EWRSS04069TX1K0000701

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