Raketu announces the immediate availability of its Traditional Chinese language version. Currently customers who sign up for Raketu’s prepaid voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) dial out calling service will receive up to 1200 minutes of free calling per month for three months to over 40 countries globally. This same promotional offer will now be available for Traditional Chinese speaking consumers in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macao, and wherever they live in the world.

Raketu announces that the company is realizing over 50 percent increase in the number of consumers subscribing to their VoIP service due to consumer concerns over Skype’s platform stability and security issues as a result of Skype’s use of supernodes. According to one news source, Skype’s outage was due in part to the company’s use of supernodes and its reliance on its users' computers to act as supernodes in routing traffic for other, less well-connected, users. As Skype customers tried to reconnect, many of those supernodes were themselves in the process of rebooting. A bug in Skype’s software did not efficiently allocate the network resources available, and the remaining supernodes were soon overwhelmed resulting in the outage.

PeerMe and Droplet Technology announce the launch of a jointly developed multi-party video conferencing service that promises to accelerate the adoption of video as an important mode of communication and interaction in telecommunications and social networking. The service will initially offer four-person video conferencing, which will be a major differentiator between PeerMe and companies such as Yahoo!, AOL, MSN and Skype that only offer one-to-one video conferencing. This product will be targeted at the consumer with a low monthly subscription fee of $9.99 per month. Users can sign up for the service at www.peerme.com.

The two companies have integrated Droplet’s video platform into PeerMe’s existing VoIP applications, upgrading PeerMe’s global VoIP subscribers to a “many-to-many” real-time voice/video communications service. Droplet Technology's all-software embedded video device clients and server applications enable high quality video capture, playback, sharing, and networking on any PC or cell phone without dedicated and expensive video processors.

TMC has added a new trixbox Open Communication Certification course to the program at the upcoming INTERNET TELEPHONY Conference & EXPO West 2007 on September 10-12, 2007 at the Los Angeles Convention Center. Titled “FtOCC Technician”, the new course provides telephony resellers and IT professionals with in-depth technical training on Fonality PBXtra, as well as trixbox CE and the newly introduced trixbox Pro.

Companies can now download trixbox Pro, a free business-grade phone system that allows companies with five to 500 employees to make free VoIP calls. In addition to traditional PSTN dialing and PBX features, trixbox Pro also includes conference calling, unified messaging between voicemail and email, employee presence management, embedded corporate chat server, and the ability to integrate with Microsoft Outlook, Salesforce.com and SugarCRM.

Fring has closed a second round of funding that is reportedly in the ballpark of $12 million. This has not yet been confirmed by the company. Globes reported that the funding was led by North Bridge Venture Partners.

Also participating in the round were VenFin Ltd. and Fring's existing investors Pitango Venture Capital, Veritas Venture Partners, and Yossi Vardi, which made earlier investments totaling a few million dollars, according to Globes.

fring is a free, downloadable mobile phone application enabling free mVoIP calls, real-time presence and live chat with multiple IM providers over mobile data networks or a Wi-Fi connection.

Fonality announces the beta release of trixbox 2.4, the latest version of the Asterisk-based telephony platform that has become synonymous with open source telephony and home to the largest Asterisk-based community. trixbox 2.4 incorporates the newest releases of CentOS 5, Asterisk 1.4 and FreePBX 2.3 for broader compatibility, choice and usability. trixbox 2.4 is beta software and timing of the general release will be gated by stability of Asterisk 1.4, as well as integration of all of the components and testing to ensure that it is ready for deployment in a demanding production environment.

PBXpress Communications announces the addition of Web-based operator’s console interface to its range of recording VoIP PBX. The new operator’s console is a convenient way for any call center or CRM operator to handle incoming and outgoing calls with a mouse using a Web browser. The console allows a call center operator to monitor users’ activities in real time, and perform typical operations. The console displays important real-time information about extensions and active conversations, allowing the operator to see who is on the phone and which calls are connected. The operator can park a call by simply dragging a call with a mouse into the parking zone. Disconnecting, holding, and transferring calls to any extension or telephone number is just as easy and works in a similar manner. The operator has a choice of transferring any call directly to voicemail at any time by simply dragging the call onto the tape icon.

Simicomm announces EasySpeak PBX, a software-based phone management system. This complete plug-and-play VoIP PBX provides a low-cost alternative to small to medium businesses. The EasySpeak software can be completely installed, including fully automated phone configuration, in only 15 minutes!

The solution is designed for enterprises without the technical abilities to implement or maintain phone systems. It provides resellers with a low cost, reliable solution for companies looking to migrate slowly into a VoIP infrastructure. Based on the Asterisk open source PBX, EasySpeak works with both VoIP and analog phones. A novice-tested, web-based toolbox enables simple configuration and management.

Thrane & Thrane has licensed HelloSoft's award winning VoIP technologies for their next generation EXPLORER handset. HelloSoft provides the most optimized and comprehensive software solution for enabling VoIP on mobile handsets without having to make changes to existing hardware designs.

"We are excited to work with HelloSoft towards the essential VoIP technologies needed to expand applications on the next generation of the EXPLORER handset family," said Lars Lindgreen, Product Manager, of Thrane & Thrane. "By integrating HelloSoft's voice engine, we will be able to provide satellite users the benefits of higher quality voice coupled with superior noise cancellation which is critical for aeronautical, landmobile and maritime applications."

Vyke shall soon release an upgrade to its mobile VoIP software that will restore full mobile VoIP functionality to mobile handsets that have been intentionally crippled by mobile operators.

Expected for release in the fourth quarter of 2007, the forthcoming version of Vyke Mobile IP will provide users with a fully functional, stand alone mobile VoIP application that circumvents the mobile operator orchestrated removal of built-in handset VoIP capabilities.

Vyke's long term mobile VoIP strategy is based upon empowering the user to make his or her own choices regarding their communication services. In pursuing this strategy, Vyke has recently announced an agreement with The Cloud Networks Limited, the dominant European metropolitan area wireless network provider, giving Vyke users the ability to access mobile VoIP services across a network of 9,000+ hotspots and 16 large area, metropolitan networks, including such areas as the City of London, Canary Wharf, Manchester and Amsterdam.

fring announces that it has further expanded its mVoIP (mobile VoIP) community by adding all Windows Mobile 5.0 and 6.0 series devices to its list of compatible handsets. Now fringsters can choose to communicate for free between fring, Skype, Google Talk, MSN Messenger, hundreds of SIP providers and twitter on about 300 Windows Mobile phones and pocket PCs in addition to 20+ Nokia devices over any 3G, GPRS or Wi-Fi Internet connection.

“fring is excited to let Windows Mobile users leverage fully integrated VoIP & multiple IM experience enabling calls, chat and real time presence via their mobile device’s internet capabilities, previously only possible on their PC,” said Avi Shechter, Co-founder and CEO, fring. “Like all fringsters, Windows Mobile users now have real mobile independence to make VoIP calls at no extra cost with rich presence indicators and hold multiple live chat sessions with their mobile, PC and landline contacts all from one integrated contact list.”

VONaLink DialBridge now supports Skype. Previously, DialBridge supported VoIP systems based on SIP only. Directly making a long distance call from a cell phone, especially international, is so expensive that it is unthinkable. With DialBridge, cell phone calls can be routed through Skype to benefit from low SkypeOut rates. DialBridge software runs on a personal computer, along side the Skype client. When a user calls his or her SkypeIn number from a cell phone, DialBridge connects the call to the configured SkypeOut number. Up to 10 SkypeIn numbers may be mapped to SkypeOut numbers, and changed at any time. Optionally, DialBridge could do a callback so that instead of a long outgoing call from a cell phone, the call is turned into an incoming call, allowing the unlimited incoming minutes of a cell phone plan to be used.

SIPphone announces Palm Treo users can now instant message with all major IM networks using Gizmo Project. Users will have the ability to add buddies, see who's online and send/receive messages with users from AIM, MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, GoogleTalk, iChat and dozens more networks. The program allows for importing all existing contacts with just a few mouse clicks, allowing immediate use with minimal setup time.

This new version of Gizmo Project built for Palm devices currently supports a wide range of devices, including Treo 600/650/680/700p, Sony UX-50, Tungsten T3 and Palm Zire. Users have the option to download directly from their mobile device or download to their computer for 'Quick Install' via synchronization, both at http://gizmoproject.com/treo. The software is available completely free and functionality is not limited by a trial period or other restrictions. Existing Gizmo users will be able to log in and interact with their contacts immediately.

With over 23 Million downloads and 3.5 million active users covering 187 countries across 7 continents, Globe7 has moved ahead to meet the communication and information needs of their clients. Globe7 is established as the world's No-1 VoIP provider integrated with Free Videos, Free PC-to-PC and the lowest priced international calling rates to any landline or mobile telephone.

Subsequent to Globe7’s huge success on the Windows platform, the Company is now ready to launch for multiple platforms, which includes: Windows XP, Windows Vista, LINUX, MAC, Windows Mobile, and Pocket PC.