Last week at 3GSM, Steve Ballmer introduced a service for Windows Mobile devices which allows them to become endpoints for free voice over IP calls. The immediate significance of this development is unclear–but one thing is sure: it puts Microsoft at competitive odds with Verizon, Cingular, and the rest. Whether or not Microsoft tries to heavily monetize (and therefore market) this service remains to be seen. So far, Microsoft has had very limited success with the service subscription model.
February 20, 2006
Microsoft mobile VoIP
February 8, 2006
Vonage to open their SIP credentials
Fellow blogger Tom Keating reports that “a source” has just informed him that Vonage has plans to open up their Session Initiation Protocol credentials. The move reportedly would occur in March or April of this year.
Such a move would, as Tom writes, let Vonage users configure their own Vonage-compatible SIP softphones and hardphones.
The move would be a significant strategic departure for Vonage.
“One of the main reasons why Vonage has kept the SIP credentials ‘closed,’ Tom writes, is that they charge $9.99/month for their SIP softphone client, which then gives you access to your “personal SIP credentials”.
So why would Vonage even contemplate a strategic 180 degree turn?
Tom says his source tells him that Vonage is feeling strong competition from other VoIP providers, including som such as Broadvoice and SIPgate that already offer SIP credentials.
Perhaps the most direct justification for such a move, as Tom notes, would be that in opening up their SIP, Vonage would enable users of the Asterisk
open-source IP-based phone system to use Vonage for PSTN termination.
As a postscript, I note that the Vonage Forum has already opened a thread on this issue. “Awesome,” comments frequent Vonage Forum poster blakadher about the report.
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Vonage to open their SIP credentialsFebruary 5, 2006
Voice over Microsoft Protocol?
Microsoft (MSFT) kicked the rumor mill into high gear in August when it acquired San Francisco-based startup Teleo, a provider of PC-to-PC phone calling. Was Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates plotting a foray into the booming market for voice over Internet protocol (VoIP)? Would the software giant be going toe-to-toe with such VoIP providers as Vonage and Verizon Communications (VZ)? Advertisement
More like Google (GOOG) and Yahoo! (YHOO). Far from aiming to displace your mother’s phone company, Microsoft wants to harness Teleo’s PC-to-phone calling capabilities in a bid to kick-start growth at its MSN Web business.
Microsoft has yet to make public its plans for Teleo, but BusinessWeek Online has learned that the software maker plans to weave Teleo’s bells and whistles into a number of applications, such as Hotmail and instant messaging. Microsoft also hopes to integrate VoIP into its new paid-search platform, which is being rolled out worldwide, as well as a planned classified-ad service
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Voice over Microsoft Protocol?January 30, 2006
Zimmermann to Release VoIP Encryption Software
Phil Zimmermann, creator of the PGP email encryption system, will soon publicly release the VoIP encryption software he first announced last July at the Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas. (See Encrypting Voice: An Interview with Phil Zimmermann, Creator of PGP.)
The software, dubbed zFone, differs from the encryption system used by Skype, for example, because it doesn’t involve a centrally managed system for handling encryption keys.
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Zimmermann to Release VoIP Encryption SoftwareJanuary 23, 2006
Siemens, IBM to Team Up on Internet Telephony
FRANKFURT (Reuters)—German conglomerate Siemens and computer giant IBM are teaming up to offer Internet phone calls launched directly from email or instant messaging applications, Siemens said on Monday.
The two companies plan to embed Siemens HiPath softswitches for voice over Internet protocol (VOIP) into IBM’s Lotus Notes and Domino business software.
The result will be that customers will be able to launch phone calls and conferences with one click from their email, Web conferencing or instant messaging sessions, Siemens said.
Siemens added in a statement that the integrated features were expected to be available to customers by this summer.
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Siemens, IBM to Team Up on Internet TelephonyJanuary 21, 2006
So This Explains Why Yahoo’s VoIP Team Likes Bloggers
Something many of us have suspected, and now know for sure, Yahoo likes to keep their relationship with bloggers nice and warm, unlike some other VoIP brands that do a very good job at alienating, or ignoring, and just ducking the questions from the blogosphere.
The reason I say this is the research that’s being referred to here means that people searching for information on line will actually find insightful blog content, and by feeding the blogosphere Yahoo gets better billing. AT&T CallVantage in many ways also took this approach early on, always answering my questions, supplying test units and basically keeping us informed. A few others start out being nice, but seem to look at bloggers as the papparazzi once the mainstream media takes to their story. Yahoo went the other way, and found that the mainstream media relies on the bloggers for insight and understanding.
Clearly other companies who are trying to make sure their story gets out need to have a better rapport with bloggers, ljust ike Yahoo and AT&T has done, going to great lengths to insure fair, balanced and respectful coverage.
Kudos to our Yahoo pal, VP Brad Garlinghouse for having made a gut call months before the research research was available to begin inviting bloggers to Yahoo briefings to learn what was up with Yahoo VoIP.
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So This Explains Why Yahoo’s VoIP Team Likes BloggersJanuary 17, 2006
Is ENUM the key to true VoIP directory assistance?
That’s part of an E164.org configuration.
I admit, what I just showed you there won’t qualify as eye candy. But it is something you should care about. I would like to explain.
Remember the old days when one phone company - the regional Bell or local company serving a given area, was all you needed for directory assistance?
Well, that was then. Now, with so many VoIP, cell and other telecom service providers, how are you going to find the person’s phone number you are looking for?
It’s not that you can call Vonage and access their directory.
Well, as IP name and address software company Nonimum’s CEO Chris Risley explains in this month’s edition of Converge! Network Digest, the key to all of this is ENUM.
ENUM (TElephone NUMber Mapping) is the name for an Internet Engineering Taskforce standard for directing Internet traffic using traditional phone numbers. It integrates E.164 phone numbers with IP addressing using the Domain Name System.
E164.org is a directory of telephone numbers that can be reached over the Internet.
The system works by publishing a DNS zone, ‘e164.org’, that can be used by various Internet applications including SER, Gnome Meeting and Asterisk. The concept here is to be able to map your phone number to an Email address, website, or VoIP address.
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Is ENUM the key to true VoIP directory assistance?January 16, 2006
Will VoIP carriers drop the ball on new TI tool?
Marguerite Reardon at ZNet reports that today, Texas Instruments will announce software that will enable VoIP carriers to better manage devices sitting at customer’s offices and homes.
This software will be called Piqua.
Update: Piqua has, in fact, been introduced today.
Sounds like a diagnostic trouble-shooter. For example, if there is an echo on the call, Piqua might be able to pinpoint the problem. The software won’t fix the problem, but will be able to alert a tech to it.
“In an IP service, like VIP, the intelligence is in the phone and not at the central office, like it is in the traditional phone network,” TI’s packet voice and business unit general manager William Simmelink tells Marguerite. “So it’s important for technicians in a call center to be able to control the devices sitting at the customer site.”
Sounds good, but if I am the VoIP subscriber, I would want assurances that the techs are watching. And that the techs are there, not hundreds of thousands of miles away, from where a series of electronic messages that may or may not reach the local foot soldiers are sent much too often.
If VoIP service providers don’t let Piqua do its job, I’ll be piqued.
And so will you.
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Will VoIP carriers drop the ball on new TI tool?The coming war for real-time collaboration solutions
Siemens OpenScape, one of several powerful suites that provide for real-time collaboration in the enterprise.
Other utilities in that vogue include Nortel’s Multimedia Communications Server and Avaya’s Converged Communications Server.
Network World’s Johna Till Johnson makes a good point about real-time collaboration going mainstream, and telecom vendors and carriers gearing up for it.
Recent research demonstrates that enterprises are getting read to take the plunge,” she writes. “Job titles such as ‘SVP of Collaborative Services’ are starting to crop up, and the average per-seat price that companies are willing to pay for ‘real-time communications dashboards’ has leapt from less than $300 to more than $400.
But I see the opportunity for vendor alliances, costly battles, or both.
What’s going to be real interesting is the bulking up of traditional IM tools to provide some of these same services as the costly branded offerings of Nortel, Siemens and Avaya. Some of this may be done by vendor alliances between the IMs and the companies I’ve just named. But there’s no reason that traditional IMs cannot build their own real-time collaboration offerings.
Melanie Turek of Nemertes Research views these dashboards as compatible with voice-capable IM, but a signficant expansion of corporate IM tool capabilities:
Real-time communications dashboards improve on basic soft phones with robust find me/follow me capabilities and better integrated voice and data communications (so that, for example, caller who’s available by IM might get a text message, rather than a voice mail, from the person he’s trying to reach). Typically, these dashboards are PC-based, and are designed to work with both IP and analog or digital phones.
Melanie then offers a view about how this would work:
Picture a window that displays all your corporate contacts and indicates whether they’re available by phone, IM or e-mail. Most offer click-to-talk capabilities, so users can make a phone call right from their PC, as well as detailed management capabilities at both the end-user and administrator levels, so people can get very specific about who can reach them, as well as how and when. For instance, a user may opt to have the system send his manager directly to his cell phone after hours, but send all other callers to voicemail. Some have built-in audio conferencing, multi-party chat, and even Web conferencing capabilities.
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The coming war for real-time collaboration solutionsJanuary 13, 2006
Ipoque launches network Skype-killer
The backlash against Skype is gathering momentum with the announcement of a product that hunts for and aggressively blocks communication from the program.
Ipoque’s new add-on filter for the company’s PRX Traffic Manager PRX-250 system is another symptom of a change in attitude towards the ever-spreading VoIP client among some businesses.
Costs about $3,000