Microsoft and Japan Telecom in integrated communications alliance
By: By Tim McElligott
Microsoft's communications sector will join Japan Telecom and Softbank BB in a cooperative effort to develop an integrated communications service using Microsoft's solution for enhanced voice-over-IP services, Softbank's voice platform and Japan Telecom's managed network services....
Yak opens up to pre-paid
By: By Vince Vittore
Yak Communications, which previously mostly been operating in the dial-around long-distance market, has launched a new service that allows its users to make pre-paid video and/or audio IP calls to others outside the Yak system while still connecting to each other for free....
Covad banking on hosted VoIP
By: By Carol Wilson
Hosted VoIP services represent Covad's growth engine of the future, President and CEO Charlie Hoffman says, and the broadband wholesaler has laid the groundwork for that engine to start moving forward (Photo by Robert Houser)...
Airvana developing ground-to-plane base station
By: By Kevin Fitchard
CDMA base station maker Airvana is retooling its CDMA 1X EV-DO kit to act as an air-to-ground backhaul link, enabling Wi-Fi in airplanes...
Brightpoint builds Skype Web store
By: By Dan O'Shea
Brightpoint, the device distributor that has been branching out from its traditional mobile business and into voice over IP and other sectors during the past year, announced that its Brightpoint North America subsidiary is developing, hosting and maintaining a Web store for VoIP juggernaut Skype....
BridgePort Networks launches mobile soft phone
By: By Dan O'Shea
Voice-over-IP software vendor BridgePort Networks has announced availability of its new SoftMOBILE solution, bringing together the company's NomadicONE Network Convergence Gateway, a standard mobile phone and a soft phone client designed for PCs or laptops....
EarthLink buys New Edge Networks
By: By Carol Wilson
EarthLink today announced that it is acquiring New Edge Networks, the Vancouver, Wash., based CLEC known for its small to mid-sized enterprise data services...
InFocus: Transforming communications with VoIP
By: By Kirti Devi
Small and large enterprises alike are realizing the benefits of adopting voice over IP. Read this brief history of VoIP, which includes a section on complementary technologies as well as a list of key drivers for VoIP adoption by businesses...
BellSouth adds conferencing to VoIP
By: By Carol Wilson
BellSouth has added Cisco Systems’ media conferencing capabilities to its premises-based managed VoIP offering, the company announced today...
Yahoo! says partners approve its VoIP offer
By: By Carol Wilson
Yahoo!’s telco partners in broadband are “both aware of and involved in” its recently announced plans to offer voice over IP, the company said this week...
Reports: Yahoo Launching VoIP on IM
By: By Dan O'Shea
Internet giant Yahoo will soon add voice-over-IP capability to its Yahoo Messenger instant messaging software, according to reports published in Newsweek and the San Jose Mercury News and its affiliates....
Cisco jumps on session border bandwagon
By: By Vince Vittore
Cisco Systems today announced that it is adding session border control capability to its newest XR 12000 router line, marking the first time the company has made the technology available. The move was widely expected even among specialty vendors in the session border control market, who say it simply adds credibility to their previous work....
Skype adds video, blogging
By: By Carol Wilson
Peer-to-peer VoIP provider Skype today launched the beta version of its 2.0 software, which includes video calling and is designed to be easier to use. The company also announced partnerships with Webcam makers Logitech and Creative and weblog software and services company Six Apart...
Vonage says Bell companies triggered E911 crisis
By: By Carol Wilson
Vonage’s inability to meet the Federal Communications Commission’s E911 deadline is a direct result of foot-dragging by major incumbent telcos, the company said today. ...
VoIP market holds breath as deadline passes
By: By Tim McElligott
The FCC-imposed deadline for filing Enhanced 911 compliance reports by voice-over-IP service providers came and went yesterday with little fanfare. The fanfare will come when the FCC tallies the reports and makes its decisions on enforcement of the potentially show-stopping penalties with which it has threatened the emerging industry...
Survey says: Skype OK for business use
By: By Carol Wilson
A new survey of Web conferencing users claims they are accepting Skype’s peer-to-peer VoIP product for business calls, even though most of them aren’t using the service...
Cox integrates voice, data and messaging
By: By Carol Wilson
Cox Communications today announced new integrated messaging tools for its voice and data customers in Georgia and Florida...
VoIP vendors in flux, says Merrill Lynch
By: By Ed Gubbins
Equipment vendors are rapidly shuffling positions within the carrier voice-over-IP market--the fastest-growing segment in telecom gear, according to a research note issued today by Merrill Lynch citing data from Synergy Research...
Softswitch market not gone yet
By: By Tim McElligott
Domestic carriers have been reluctant to part with their legacy Class 5 digital switches. And so the heyday of the softswitch awaits...
Dittberner reports Q3 growth spurt for VoIP
By: By Tim McElligott
The summer season reaped quite a harvest for vendors of equipment for voice over IP as analyst firm Dittberner Associates reported this week what it called an impressive 67.8% worldwide market increase over last quarter...
Veraz aims new gateway at the network edge
By: By Tim McElligott
Looking to help carriers bring voice-over-IP service to their most remote locations and perhaps extend its own market as well, Veraz Networks introduced a compact media gateway this week for distributed low-density sites...
Coalition blasts per-number USF plan
By: By Vince Vittore
The Keep Universal Service Fund Fair Coalition today hammered FCC Chairman Kevin Martin’s proposal to base USF contributions on a per-number basis...
NetZero gets a voice with Ubiquity
By: By Vince Vittore
United Online, which operates a number of consumer ISP brands including NetZero, Juno and Classmates, announced it has deployed Ubiquity Software’s SIP Application Server as the softswitch platform for its new voice-over-IP service...
Cbeyond posts first profits
By: By Carol Wilson
In its first-ever earnings call, Cbeyond was able to report its first positive operating profit and net profit, as well as record customer growth...
Sony, GlowPoint move to consumer VoIP
By: By Vince Vittore
Sony Electronics and GlowPoint said today they have launched a new consumer voice- and video-over-IP service targeting the consumer market...
