Packet8 and MobileMax have successfully launched a user-friendly mobile calling service that offers a simple, affordable and high quality digital voice solution to overseas calling.

The new service, called "Packet8 MobileTalk" , is based on MobileMax Residential Edition software for carriers and service providers. MobileMax’s solution utilizes a downloadable software application that can reside on any smart phone to automatically route international calls from the mobile phone through the Packet8 digital VoIP network. This will enable cell phone users to significantly reduce their international phone bills while maintaining high international voice quality and the ability to enjoy the convenience and flexibility of mobile calling.

Packet8 is once again continuing its holiday season tradition of providing pediatric patients in children's hospitals throughout the U.S. with opportunities to have live videophone visits with Santa Claus at the North Pole.

Now in its 4th year, the "Videophone Visits with Santa" program enables children who are hospital bound to see and chat with Santa over the Packet8 Tango videophone service at his "North Pole" workshop at 8x8's Santa Clara, California headquarters. The visits take place from either the child's hospital room or a centralized patient lounge area and are followed by the special delivery of requested toys and gifts.

Children's hospitals participating in the program this year include:

• Cincinnati Children's Hospital - Cincinnati, OH
• Miami Children's Hospital - Miami, FL
• Johns Hopkins Children's Medical Center - Baltimore, MD
• Barbara Bush Children's Hospital - Portland, ME
• Schneider's Children's Hospital - Long Island, NY
• Shriner's Hospital for Children - Tampa, FL
• Vanderbilt Children's Hospital - Nashville, TN

Packet8's Complete Contact Center has received a 2007 Product of the Year Award from Technology Marketing Corporation's Customer Interaction Solutions magazine. Designed specifically for small to medium sized businesses with call center operations consisting of less than 100 seats, the Packet8 Complete Contact Center is a multimedia distribution and management platform that works with any broadband Internet service and provides enterprise class contact center functionality combined with Virtual Office hosted iPBX calling features and Packet8's cost efficient business VoIP calling plans. Developed in partnership with Contactual, Inc., a global leader in on demand contact center technology solutions, the Packet8 Complete Contact Center lets companies quickly deploy and operate multi-channel contact centers within Packet8's hosted iPBX infrastructure without the time and expense of purchasing, installing and maintaining costly, specialized equipment.

Packet8 MobileTalk international calling service is now compatible with nearly 450 different mobile phones including Blackberry, Nokia, Palm, Motorola, Samsung and other popular makes and models.

The Packet8 MobileTalk service seamlessly connects international calls from the mobile phone to the Packet8 digital VoIP network, enabling cell phone users to significantly reduce their international phone bills and maintain high digital voice quality while still enjoying the convenience and flexibility of mobile calling. Packet8 MobileTalk removes the barriers associated with existing carrier, calling card and call back services that often dissuade individuals from using their cell phones for overseas calling. These include obstacles such as costly per minute rates, poor call quality, cumbersome dialing procedures and unreliable service availability.

Packet8 has signed an agreement with SYNNEX Corporation calling for the distribution of Packet8 Virtual Office hosted iPBX phone services to small and medium sized businesses. SYNNEX will offer the telephony solution as part of its Technology-as-a-Service offering. The agreement enables SYNNEX Corporation's resellers to tap into the rapidly growing SMB hosted VoIP market with Packet8's leading business iPBX solution, now in use by over 9,000 U.S. companies.

8x8 launches Packet8 MobileTalk, an easy to use mobile calling service that offers a simple, affordable and high quality digital voice solution to overseas calling. Packet8 MobileTalk utilizes a downloadable software application that can currently reside on any Windows, Palm or Symbian based mobile phone to seamlessly connect international calls from the mobile phone to the Packet8 digital VoIP network. Routing these calls over the Packet8 network enables cell phone users to significantly reduce their international phone bills and maintain high international voice quality while still enjoying the convenience and flexibility of mobile calling.

Packet8 released a free firmware upgrade for the Packet8 Tango Video Terminal Adapter that enables the device to function as both a videophone and digital photo frame. With the upgrade, the Packet8 Tango can now display up to 16 high resolution digital images on its built-in 5" LCD screen when the device is not in use for videoconferencing. To employ this feature, users simply connect their Tango to a computer via an Ethernet cable, enter the IP address for the device into a web browser and upload desired images in JPEG format. Images may be programmed to scroll at pre-set intervals when the Tango is in screen saver mode.

"Now, for substantially less than the cost of most dedicated digital photo frames, consumers can purchase a device that enables high quality two or three-way videoconferencing, low cost worldwide internet phone service and digital photo display," said 8x8 Director of Product Marketing Karen Hong. "Priced at just $99 after mail-in rebate, the Packet8 Tango is an amazing value that makes it easy and affordable for the average consumer to benefit from the features and cost saving of advanced VoIP and videophone technology."

8x8, originator of the Packet8 VoIP and video communication services for business and residential customers announce that it has been issued U.S. Patent No. 7,289,491 for an arrangement and method of Internet telephony. The patent issued from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on October 30, 2007.

The invention covered by the patent relates generally to an arrangement which includes a telephone and an interface unit which interfaces the telephone to both a standard switched telephone communications network and an Internet communications network.

Since its establishment in 1987, 8x8 has been awarded seventy (70) United States patents covering a variety of voice and video communications and storage technologies.

Packet8 has signed a deal with CompUSA to offer the Packet8 Virtual Office small business phone system, now in use by over 9,000 U.S. based companies, and the Packet8 Tango Video Terminal Adapter. Beginning this month, customers who shop at any of CompUSA's 103 stores nationwide will be able to purchase the Packet8 Virtual Office hosted iPBX retail package for just $79.99 (after $50 mail-in rebate) per extension and the Packet8 Tango VTA for $99.99 (after $100 mail-in rebate).

Packet8 Virtual Office lets small and medium-sized businesses implement a distributed, hosted iPBX telephony solution for a fraction of the cost of traditional business phone system alternatives such as premise-based Private Branch Exchanges, Key Systems or Centrex. In addition to complete PBX functionality, Virtual Office service plans provide unlimited local and long distance calling in the U.S., Canada and eight additional countries for a flat-rate of only $49.99 a month, as well as lower-priced metered plans and international calling at highly competitive rates.

Packet8 announces it has signed an agreement with a service provider that will soon exit the VoIP market calling for the exclusive recommendation of Packet8 as the replacement VoIP service for its soon-to-be-orphaned subscribers.

According to the agreement, Packet8 will be the only brand presented and promoted to the roughly 12,000 subscribers who will be left without VoIP phone service after the company winds down its VoIP operations over the next three months. In return, 8x8 will offer these subscribers a specially-priced Packet8 monthly service plan along with a free month of service, free activation, free shipping and a free Uniden 165P 5.8 GHz cordless phone to transition to its award-winning VoIP phone service.

Packet8 has expanded the calling area of its Packet8 Freedom Unlimited residential calling service and reduced the monthly fee for the Packet8 Freedom Unlimited Global international calling plan. The Packet8 Freedom Unlimited VoIP calling plan, which previously offered unlimited local and long distance residential calling in the United States and Canada, now includes unlimited calls to regular, non-mobile phone numbers in Puerto Rico, Guam, U.S. Virgin Islands, France, Italy, Ireland, Spain and United Kingdom along with unlimited in-network calling to other Packet8 subscribers worldwide. The monthly service fee for the expanded Freedom Unlimited calling plan remains unchanged at $24.99.

Packet8 expanded the market for its Packet8 Virtual Office hosted iPBX phone service with the introduction of a new, fully integrated hosted call center solution designed specifically for small to medium sized businesses with call center operations consisting of less than 100 seats.

The Packet8 Complete Contact Center is a multimedia distribution and management platform that works with any broadband Internet service and provides enterprise class contact center functionality combined with Virtual Office hosted iPBX calling features and Packet8's cost efficient business VoIP calling plans. Developed in partnership with Contactual the Packet8 Complete Contact Center lets companies quickly deploy and operate multi-channel contact centers within Packet8's hosted iPBX infrastructure without the time and expense of purchasing, installing and maintaining costly, specialized equipment.

After hearing from Giga Om that Packet8 has been selected as the replacement VoIP service provider for SunRocket customers I immediately went to checkout Packet8's home page. Upon arrival I noticed their great little advertisement that you see here. I couldn't help but laugh and spread the word. You really get the warm fuzzy feeling that Packet8 has a lot of sympathy for SunRocket's implosion.

Just refresh to watch the entertaining animation again.

Packet8 announces the availability of new features and services for its Packet8 Virtual Office small business phone solution, recently rated the most popular hosted IP-PBX phone service in the U.S. by telecom research firm AMI Partners. The new offerings include Microsoft Outlook Integration, Overhead Paging and Toll Free Fax Numbers.

Available at no additional cost to subscribers, Virtual Office Outlook Integration seamlessly integrates a user's Microsoft Outlook contacts with their Virtual Office extension, allowing subscribers to place and receive calls through their Microsoft Outlook email client. Users have the ability to select a contact and then place a call to that party through a variety of options such as right clicking on the contact and selecting "Packet8 Call Contact" or double clicking the contact and selecting the Packet8 tab. When placing a call through the Microsoft Outlook email client, Outlook contacts the Virtual Office server and triggers it to ring the Virtual Office phone on the user's desk. Outlook Integration also allows Virtual Office users to see who is calling them by displaying screen pops containing the caller's contact information retrieved from any mailbox and any field (Business/Home/Mobile). If the contact is not found, a simple dialog box showing the phone number of the person calling is displayed. The Virtual Office Outlook Integration software client is available for free download at http://www.packet8.net/business_services/features.aspx#outlook_integration.

8x8 provider of Packet8 broadband VoIP and videophone communications services, announces that it has been awarded an additional VoIP U.S. Patent (No. 7,218,721) for a communication routing system utilizing a broadband data network. The patent issued from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on May 15, 2007.

Claim 1, the first of sixteen allowed claims, of the patent entitled "Virtual Telephone Extension," reads:

• A communication routing system having a plurality of local and remote communication devices communicatively coupled through local and remote PSTNs, respectively, the system comprising: a user-programmable database associating each of a plurality of user identifiers with a device identifier, each device identifier corresponding to one of the communication devices; a call-routing switch arrangement coupled to one of the PSTNs through a portal communication device having a portal identifier and responsive to a received call designating a destination user identifier, the call routing switch arrangement adapted to use the user-programmable database to route the received call via the other of the PSTNs to a destination communication device.