April 19th, 2006

You are currently browsing the articles from the VoIP Digest written on April 19th, 2006.

Salesforce.com Adds VoIP Conference Calling Service

AppExchange offers on-demand application from Vapps.

Written by VoIP Magazine Featured Stories on April 19th, 2006 with no comments.
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NETLeMMings or How I Learned to Stop Thinking

FYI: draft-bombadil-netlemmings-00



Ceterum censeo, IMS esse delendam!

Written by VoIP and ENUM on April 19th, 2006 with no comments.
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Save The Net

Jeff Pulver finally lost his temper and is launching a Viral Marketing Contest to Save The Internet. I will follow up this activity and comment on it later. Of course the whole issue is currently very US centric and DC centric, but one should be aware of these issues globally, because sooner or later (I think sooner than later) we will have a similar discussion also here in Europe. I fully support Jeff in this regard, so I simply post here his full blog entry:

Ok, I am officially putting my money where my mouth is. I am initiating a Viral Video "Save the Net" Marketing Contest.



I am fed up with the current wave of soundbites, platitudes, ads and marketing flooding the airwaves that profess to speak for the advancement of the Internet and communications. These ads are influencing the U.S. Congress and governments around the World as they write the rules that will shape the future of the Internet and communications.

But, where is the voice and message of the Internet community -- the Internet innovators, entrepreneurs and enthusiasts -- in this world-changing discussion? We are primarily sitting out the battle, or perhaps comfortably blogging and Monday-morning quarterbacking on the sidelines. Sure, we'll be able to point to our blogs and do a big "I-told-you-so" if the rules ultimately prove to undermine the promise of the Internet. But, we will not be justified in our criticism if we don't at least try to affect a positive result.

Rules have to be written to enable us. If we do not participate in the debate, if we do not transform the messaging, the rules will not be written with our best interests at heart. And, frankly, we will have no one to blame but ourselves. We have to take over the messaging, both within the corridors of power and within the public zeitgeist.

We need soundbites of our own, messaging of our own. We are allegedly the revolutionaries of the Internet and communications. Shouldn't we be the ones revolutionizing the way advocacy is done and communicated in the 21st Century? Shouldn't we be the creative forces verifying that the medium is the message? Who better than us to harness the enabling power of the Internet to bring our message to legislators, to policymakers, to the public? Let's throw away the old rulebook and try to think outside the box to send a message to Congress from the global community of Internet innovators and enthusiasts.

We might not have the lobbying muscle, money, resources, or connections of the entrenched players in the communications debate, but we surely have the individual and collective will and creativity to transform the debate.

Here is my pitch:

We need to harness your individual genius and our collective genius (for isn't it the collective power of the Internet that makes it so remarkable?) to save the Internet, and we are willing to pay and give you eternal glory (or at least glory for as long as the Internet lasts).

Send us short, creative ideas -- videos, flash ads, other Internet-based gimmicks -- that you think might effectively communicate to government that they must write rules to enable us the Internet innovators to transform the Internet and communications experience.

I send out this call to arms to all you next-generation Internet-based Scorseses. I even send it out to all you potential Ed Woods of the Internet. (Who knows where genius will strike?)

The prize and glory goes to whoever comes up with the message (viral video ad or other creative marketing tool) that we use to spread the word and save the Internet. In order to be eligible for the prize (and also to ensure maximum impact during the great policy debate, both in DC and around the globe), entries must be submitted by June 6, 2006. Please refer to the Save the Net Contest Rules to enter.

The contest starts today and will run until June 6, 2006.

Let the battle to save the Internet begin!

Written by VoIP and ENUM on April 19th, 2006 with no comments.
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Boom… But What Kind of Boom?

Imitation is the highest form of flattery. Which is why I was totally flattered by corporate big brother Fortune’s latest cover story, How To Invest In The New Net Boom (Carefully.)

I don’t just mean that Fortune’s cover reminds me of ours (see photo). I mean that big brother is actually venturing into my territory, trying on my clothes, listening to my music and hanging out with my friends. Metaphorically speaking! (Of course, we’ve done the same thing to big brother.) So I figured, since it’s all in the family, I’d offer some respectful advice to my elders…

The Fortune story is certainly very different from a Business 2.0 story. It is about investments, for second-hand participants. Business 2.0, on the other hand, is about those who do things, not simply invest in stocks, and then pray. And that’s where Fortune gets into trouble. Fortune talks about the New Net Boom, only it is not so new. It’s been going on for quite a while, and readers of Business 2.0 have lived it.

An even bigger problem is that the investment-opportunity twist of the story and the predictable recommendations—Googles, Yahoos and Ciscos— is completely out of sync with the current boom, which is more of a “do-it boom.” Google and Yahoo are experiencing a shift in ad-dollars to the online platforms. It has been happening for almost five years; even big brother has noticed it before.

But please don’t confuse the “do-it” boom—which is all about new startups—with an investment boom. The boom here is about people starting companies, getting funded. Where’s the opportunity for second-hand participants? None of these companies are making money, or going public anytime soon. Only a small fraction will end up getting acquired. In other words, stock market investors, move along, for there is nothing for you in this boom … yet. And when it is time, if you are a reader of Business 2.0 you will just know.

Written by Om Malik on April 19th, 2006 with no comments.
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RANT ON:// Idiotic User Interfaces and Airlines

As readers of my blog may have noticed, I am currently in Boston at the 2nd ENUM Summit of IQPC. The meeting is going very well and I will report in a separate entry soon. Going to Boston involves airlines and airports and I had some "fun" again.



But first I have to report something else: my mobile phone stopped working, but of course I am not incommunicado, thanks to free broadband access in the Radisson at Boston and Skype. I turned off my mobile phone as law-abiding citizen on entering the plane and put it in my pocket. The phone decided to turn itself on im my pocket and, as GSM mobile phones normally do, asked for the PIN. A 7 hour flight provides enough time to push a button now and then and when I tried to turn my phone on in Boston (of course AFTER immigration, for the avoidance of doubt), I first discovered that it was already on (good grief, how many laws did I break without even knowing?), then I discovered that my phone has run out of PIN tries and wanted to get the PUK. Do you know your PUK? I don't, maybe back home if I am lucky.



The airline rant: Since they lost my luggage several times, I am travelling only with hand luggage since one year. Always the same piece of luggage, no problems to take it into the plane. This time at the check-in in Vienna KLM requested that I have to check-in my luggage because it is too large, and the plane is too small (a Fokker 100 ?!). Of course I resisted, trying to explain that I do not trust the Amsterdam Airport, because they lost my luggage alreay 3 times. While I was still discussing this issue with the lady at the check-in counter, a superviser lady stopped this discussion by simply stating: If I do not shut up immediately, I will not fly anywhere today. That's exactly the best method to attract new customers.



To be fair: they did not loose my luggage in Amsterdam, but I am done with KLM.

Written by VoIP and ENUM on April 19th, 2006 with no comments.
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Back Online

Being on Easter vacation for a week, I had to stop blogging. One reason was of course that I really needed a time-out and to get my act together again, the other was that I was only connected via a very reliable narrow band GPRS mobile connection, just broad enough to get some e-mails per day (over the weekends it stopped working completely).



Did I miss anything?

Written by VoIP and ENUM on April 19th, 2006 with no comments.
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Think Skype traffic is easily detectable? No it’s not, expert tester says

 ExtremeVoIP gave Art Reisman this weighty Sherlock Holmesian assignment- try to get under the hood of Skype and see how easy it is to detect and block. Or not.Chief Technical Officer of  APConnections, (known for thier NetEqualizer packet-shaper products) Reisman came more than qualified for the assignment. But guess what. He came away with the sense [...]

Written by Russell Shaw on April 19th, 2006 with no comments.
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Is this the world’s fastest video phone?

 Ashod Apakian is quite likely the most brilliant programmer you've never heard of.But if you want to use video over your Skype connection, this is someone whose work you might want to become familiar with.He's come up with VWHO, a new 10-party video conferencing system that runs over Skype and is downloadable as well as [...]

Written by Russell Shaw on April 19th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on Skype and General and Software and trends and Products and Softphones.

Six miles from nearest pay phone, Navajo settlement gets VoIP

 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 [...]

Written by Russell Shaw on April 19th, 2006 with no comments.
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Why I’m OK with Chinese censorship of Skype IM

Skype has admitted that its Chinese partner company Tom Online - which doesn't yet offer SkypeOut by the way- is censoring some Skype text messages."Tom had implemented a text filter, which is what everyone else in that market is doing," Skype CEO Niklas Zennstrom tells the U.K.-based Financial Times business newspaper. "Those are the regulations."As [...]

Written by Russell Shaw on April 19th, 2006 with no comments.
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Yahoo! testing Wi-Fi access for Yahoo! Messenger

 According to Beta News, Yahoo! is testing Wi-Fi access for its Yahoo! Messenger users. The service will enable users to send instant messages and make phone calls from selected Wi-Fi hotspots.On Addict3D, poster ^A^C^E highlights a survey he apparently has received from Yahoo! during a Yahoo! Messenger download. As you can see in the screen [...]

Written by Russell Shaw on April 19th, 2006 with no comments.
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Mossberg’s Buying a Digital Camera Guide: All You Need

Easter, Mother's Day, Father's Day, Graduation Day, the days of summer -- this is the start of prime picture-taking time.

With that in mind (or maybe not), today's Wall Street Journal features the as always excellent "Buying a Digital Camera: Our Annual Guide" by Walt Mossberg.

I'll leave it up to the author to provide the details, but here are the key areas to consider:

Snap away!

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Written by VoIP & Gadgets Blog on April 19th, 2006 with no comments.
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Alan Meckler versus Jason Calacanis

What: Wall Street Journal is hosting an e-debate between Alan Meckler, chief executive of Jupiter Media, and Jason Calacanis of Weblogs Inc. (now part of AOL, a dvision of Time Warner) The debate is about can bloggers make money and a living off their blogging efforts. Jason says yes, Alan says no.

What it really is: A cheap way to generate page views for WSJ. Alan says no, because blogs are putting the hurt on his business, and he did not get a piece of the action first. Jason says yes, because he has many million reasons to say so.

What it really is #2: A debate as important as arguing why April comes before May.

Question to ask: Can blogging networks pay between 50 cents to $2 a word to their contributors and make money?

Bottomline#1: Bill Tai, general partner at Charles River Ventures in a chat pointed out that that “publishing is a few moguls make a lot of money off the people who love to write.” I think in some ways, that is not going to change, with or without blogs. What is not going to change is that people (like yours truly write) because they love to write and have something to say.

Bottomline#2: From a business perspective, I think Cynthia Brumfield has the best response... “blogs are much more akin to old-fashioned, high-priced dead-tree newsletters. Newsletter publishers (how quaintly archaic that terms seems) used to target niche markets, put out a steady stream of insiderish content ignored by the consumer and trade press and charge through the nose for it. Now, however, blogs are starting to fill that niche.”

Written by Om Malik on April 19th, 2006 with no comments.
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Asterisk forms Advisory Council

Looks like Asterisk's growth has resulted in the formation of the Asterisk Advisory Council. Somehow when I think of open-source I don't think of a "centralized" council. Isn't the whole point of the open-source model to allow for distributed input by your programming peers? Also, when I think of "Council", I think of the United Nations Security Council or a cabal of men and women plotting for worldwide domination. Didn't Dr. Evil also have a council of advisers - though he killed off a few.

Let's just hope Asterisk and the Asterisk Advisory Council doesn't have any plans on world domination.

Anyway, here's their news...

Digium, the creator of Asterisk and pioneer of open source telephony, today announced the formation of the Asterisk Advisory Council. The Council was developed to respond to the increased interest and participation in the Asterisk open source telephony project.

Composed of five experienced Asterisk community contributors, the Council will assist in the management of the Asterisk open source telephony project. Responsibilities of the council include the selection and supervision of community developers, management of release cycles, and maintenance of Asterisk contributions, among other duties.

"As the Asterisk market continues to grow rapidly on a daily basis, we saw the need to expand the team managing the open source project," said Kevin Fleming, co-maintainer of Asterisk and senior software engineer at Digium. "By identifying these key community members to participate in our council, we can ensure that the project continues to add innovations and improve without any delays."

The following members have been appointed to the council:

     Brian Capouch, Assistant Professor and Chair of the Computer Science Department at Saint Joseph's College: Capouch has integrated Asterisk with a number of other processors including home automation, network monitoring, camera-based security, and the openWRT distribution of Linux. He teaches a college course on VoIP, has presented at a number of industry conferences, and is working on a forthcoming book on Asterisk to be published by Addison-Wesley.

     Olle E. Johansson, Asterisk Developer, consultant and Evangelist, founder of Edvina AB, Sweden: Johansson has contributed to the SIP channel among other parts of Asterisk, worked as a bug marshal and has written documentation on the software and the Asterisk wiki. He is also one of the founders of Astricon - the Asterisk conference, and regularly performs Asterisk training sessions.

     Tilghman Lesher, Developer for VCCH, Inc., a leading provider of innovative solutions based on open source software: Lesher has contributed a large amount of code to the core of Asterisk and is the author of a number of applications and dialplan functions.  He has been programming for over twenty years, with eight years of professional experience.

     Jeremy McNamara, Founder of The NuFone Network, the first Asterisk-based Inter-Asterisk eXchange (IAX) provider: McNamara has been working in all aspects of the telecommunications industry for more than nine years and has extensive experience with the development, testing and deployment of Asterisk-based solutions.

     John Todd, Tello Corporation: Todd comes from an IP networking background, having worked in several large ISPs, ITSPs, and application service providers. He is currently developing next-generation network elements and systems, some of which involve integrating Asterisk with proprietary systems for customers and providers. Todd is also an active participant and speaker at various VoIP forums and conferences.

Details of the Council's organization, membership, management policies, decisions and current projects will be available on www.asterisk.org.

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Written by VoIP & Gadgets Blog on April 19th, 2006 with no comments.
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Joint VoIP Offerings

Juniper Networks and ShoreTel have teamed up under Juniper's J-Partner Solutions Alliances program, which recognizes ShoreTel as its VoIP technology partner. The program identifies potential infrastructure partners for Juniper. Both companies have completed the interoperability tests of their products and will commence joint sales and marketing avenues that merge Juniper's firewall, VPN, and routing products with ShoreTel's IP telephony solutions. CRN reports:

"Juniper's advanced IP and security solutions combined with ShoreTel's VoIP portfolio would provide a unique solution that solves the customer problem of securing VoIP. Based on this, Juniper decided to partner with ShoreTel to bring a joint solution to market. It's a win, win, win," said Tony Scarfo, vice president of global alliances at Juniper Networks, in an e-mail.

Written by pushpa27 on April 19th, 2006 with no comments.
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Copper Prices Threaten Cost of Technology

It's a known fact __ the cost of any technology is high only at the outset, after which mass manufacturing techniques bring down the price sharply. On the other end of the spectrum are the natural resources that are rapidly depleting and also climbing to great heights in terms of cost __ oil is worth its weight in gold, gold is more dear, silver is more precious, and copper is more expensive. These trends, especially the rise in the price of copper, may have a negative impact on the cost of mobile phones, PDAs, and VoIP and WiFI technology, since 19 percent of a cell phone is made of copper. With the Copper futures for May 2006 rising to $2.439 a pound on the Comex, as of March 31, the question hangs over our heads? Will the cost of technology that uses copper shoot up or remain stable?

Written by pushpa27 on April 19th, 2006 with no comments.
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CCI Switches To VoIP

Competitive Companies Inc. (CCI) is milking the VoIP technology for all it's worth. The voice, video, and data services provider has successfully implemented the technology for all outbound calls from its corporate office and from several apartment complexes in Northern California. The company has cut back on its costs by routing most of its outbound traffic using VoIP, and also increased revenues through the sale of features not found in older analog switches. Chron.com reports:

With its existing customer revenue base of 1.2 million, CCI's margins are expected to increase from 22% to over 60%. With the newer features, CCI expects to grow revenue to more than $10 million over the next year, with margins exceeding 50% on new business. With the new state-of-the-art services CCI will be able to expand its customer base to underserved regions, such as Alabama, Mississippi, and Kentucky, where CCI already has business presence.

Written by pushpa27 on April 19th, 2006 with no comments.
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Don’t Just Communicate — Collaborate!

Using technology to increase worker productivity, lower operational costs, and improve customer satisfaction is a corporate tradition. With labor and travel costs up and productivity down, collaborative tools may just be the "technology fix" that companies are looking for in 2006.

Written by VoIP Magazine Featured Stories on April 19th, 2006 with no comments.
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Life After Mickey: Eisner Goes Veoh

It's not a bad life when you're post-CEO.

Much ado yesterday about Michael Eisner, the former Walt Disney CEO, has joined the board of Veoh Networks, a Web-based distributor of video and TV programming. Eisner also teamed with Time Warner and venture-capital firm Spark Capital to invest $12.5 million in broadband TV startuo.

Check out the site at www.veoh.com and let me know if that looks like a smart investment ...

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Written by VoIP & Gadgets Blog on April 19th, 2006 with no comments.
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VOIP applications for hospitals

An increasing number of hospitals in the United States are using VoIP systems to lower costs of communications. Take the example of Queens Long Island Medical Group (QLIMG), which operates 22 medical facilities in and around New York City.

Quality of Service is big issue with hospitals, for obvious reasons. The earlier IP based system did not perform to expectations. Then, the hospital group switched to a new solution from Mitel. Mitel supplied and successfully installed its flagship 3300 IP Communications Platform (ICP) in QLIMG's medical centers, featuring embedded standard unified messaging, auto-attendant, Automatic Call Distribution (ACD) system and included in-building wireless from SpectraLink.  Mitel also supplied the 22 medical facilities with 1,500 IP phones.

Via TMCnet

Written by gautam.chabbra on April 19th, 2006 with no comments.
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Packeteer’s Release 8.0 features VOIP capabilities

Packeteer is a leading player in the business of WAN application optimization in the world. Recently, Packeteer launched the next-generation operating software for its PacketShaper appliances. Packeteer has unimaginatively named it Release 8.0.

Release8.0 has the usual augmented feature–list, but what interested me is that Packeteer is prepared for trend of multimedia networks that companies are setting up. All this multimedia, especially voice traffic needs quality-monitoring and bandwidth management software that will seamlessly handle this network convergence. Release 8.0 can also examine Real Time Protocol (RTP) traffic for jitter, delay and packet loss.

Moreover, Release 8.0 has new real-time traffic compression capability, which allows it to expand bandwidth capacity for increased voice and video traffic loads.

Via Playfuls

Written by gautam.chabbra on April 19th, 2006 with no comments.
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VoIP phone adapter with fax support

China-based Tiger NetCom Ltd has introduced the GATE 104, which is a SIP technology-based VoIP phone adapter. What is better, this adapter model also supports fax. This adapter model is useful in businesses where they still use fax machines extensively. The adapter also has a built-in DHCP/NAT router.

A Compact and ultra-lightweight design means that users can easily carry this VoIP phone adapter with them anywhere. This machine supports SIP 2.0 (RFC 3261), TCP/UDP/IP, RTP/RTCP, ICMP, ARP/RARP, DNS, DHCP, NTP, PPPoE, STUN and TFTP. Moreover, the adapter also features password enabled VoIP-to-PSTN and PSTN-to-VoIP call routing.

It also has the standard VoIP feature-set such as caller ID display, 3-way conference calling, call blocking, call hold, call waiting/flash, call transfer, call forward, DTMF and dial plans.

Via Global Sources

Written by gautam.chabbra on April 19th, 2006 with no comments.
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Speakables for Skype released

This is one more reason to cheer for Mac users to cheer. San Francisco-based Speakables has introduced Speakables for Skype.

Speakables work with Apple's voice recognition application in Mac OS X. Using Speakables, users can create a Skype contact list and then can make calls by just calling out the person's name. Moreover, Skype users can also disconnect ongoing calls by voice command.

Users can download Speakables for Skype (for Mac OS X 10.2 or newer) for no cost the Speakables website.

Via ComputerPartner

Written by gautam.chabbra on April 19th, 2006 with no comments.
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