Sylantro Systems will provide hosted VoIP solutions to HT Mostar, one of Bosnia-Herzegovina's incumbent telecom operators partially owned by Croatian Telecom, part of a Deutsche Telekom group. Beginning in Q3 2008, HT Mostar will launch VoIP services based on Sylantro’s renowned Synergy Multiplay Application Feature Server. HT Mostar will also utilize Sylantro’s ComMarketing program, under which Sylantro will work with HT’s sales and marketing departments to develop processes for strategy, provisioning, market launch and service delivery, highlighting Sylantro’s end-to-end solutions-oriented approach to customer engagements.

The latest Current Analysis IP Telephony Product Assessment report rated Orange Business Services above its competitors in Europe. Current Analysis rated Orange Business Services by studying its converged telephony offers Business Talk and Enterprise Telephony. Some of the strengths cited by Current Analysis include:

• service reach: customers benefit from a single global provider for consistent voice service worldwide because Orange Business Services provides VoIP in 102 countries with Business Talk and IP Telephony service in more than 150 countries with Enterprise Telephony, surpassing all other competitors.
• local voice services: with service available now in Austria and the Netherlands, Orange Business Services also leads in local voice service. These countries join Belgium, France, Poland, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Local voice coverage will expand soon to include Italy, with service to 14 countries by year’s end. Customers find this service attractive when they want to expand outside of their headquarter country and need a partner that can provide all their voice services including local and international voice services.
• PSTN interconnects: in 33 countries, PSTN interconnects give customers the benefit of best cost routing to the PSTN and in-bound applications like Contact Center and switched access.
• mobile access: this fixed-mobile convergence service is made possible by the PSTN interconnects. Users of mobile access can route their mobile-originated, international calls over the Business Talk service and benefit from substantially reduced costs. End-users do nothing different, and the service works with any mobile service. This service is launched today in 22 countries.

Thomson's VoIP softswitches have been selected by the telecommunications group artelis for deployment of IP telephony by its subsidiaries in Luxembourg and Germany with more than 250,000 subscribers.

The owner of two telecommunication companies - Cegecom in Luxembourg and VSE NET in Germany, artelis also provides wholesale communications services to other operators. artelis has chosen Thomson's Cirpack VoIP platform in order to launch a double play offer packaged with primary line telephony to its residential customers as well as "IP centrex" services with advanced business features to enterprise customers.

Cedar Point and NetCologne announce an agreement that marks a major milestone for Cedar Point in Europe.

NetCologne is utilizing Cedar Point's SAFARI C Multimedia Switching System for the delivery of VoIP throughout the Cologne region, where NetCologne serves more than 500,000 customers today. The deployment represents a significant expansion of Cedar Point's footprint in the German and European markets, and follows the successful trial and simplified integration of SAFARI C into the NetCologne network.

Voipfone launched a brand new advanced telephone service using ordinary BT telephone landlines and existing telephone equipment. Voipfone’s new service means that customers can have many of the advantages of VoIP - like call transfer, call hold, music on hold and call recording – without actually using VoIP or even a broadband connection.

Customers need absolutely no new equipment, keep their existing telephone number. In fact everything works exactly as it used to do - except calls are cheaper and new services are available – most of them free.

VoSKY names two new distributors in Europe to support its growth plans for 2008 and help meet the growing business demand for its VoSKY Exchange PBX-to-Skype application gateways. VoSKY has signed key distribution agreements with Cohort Technology in the UK and with Swedish distributor Electryon Communication Products. The strategic appointments will play a key role in helping VoSKY to further boost penetration in the UK and European SMB and enterprise markets. VoSKY opted to partner with the two distributors because of their established reseller base and strong presence across key European markets.

According to InfoCom’s most recent report on VoIP retail consumer offers, the three largest VoIP providers in Western Europe are Orange, Neuf Cegetel and Free. All three are French providers whereby Orange, with its Livebox, is also active in the Netherlands, Spain and the UK in addition to France. All in all Orange had 3.57 million VoIP customers in these four countries at June- 2007 (it has also 71 000 VoIP subscribers in Poland) and is thus clearly the largest VoIP provider in Western Europe with an estimated 14% market share. Neuf Cegetel and Free (Iliad group) are then clearly the number two and three, followed by BT and United Internet. All main providers are basing their VoIP service mainly on DSL rather than on cable modem.

Vyke launches its commercial mobile VoIP service from any of The Cloud's 9,500+ UK and European hotspots and metropolitan area networks. This brings free access to Vyke's mobile VoIP service to the millions of individuals that enter into The Cloud hotspots each day. To use Vyke's mobile VoIP service from a The Cloud wireless network, Vyke users need only to connect to Vyke as normal from their mobile phone, no separate The Cloud account or signup is necessary.

Domestic and business Skype users in London are still reeling from the announcement that they are being ditched on the 20th December, but now a free rescue package has been put together by a leading UK based VOIP technology company. Voipfone will be offering to help the anticipated 10,000 Skype users with London 0207 numbers who have been informed that as of 20th December 2007 they are having their numbers disconnected. Those who take up the offer will also discover that once they have switched over they will pay less than they currently do via Skype.

A free-phone rescue helpline has been set up by Voipfone to help Skype customers easily switch over their 0207 numbers; 0800 5200 949.

Telefonica Deutschland has selected Nominum's Foundation Caching Name Server to deliver consistent and high quality VoIP services for customers and sustain growth in the German communications market.

Telefonica Deutschland operates a high-performance network in Germany and is one of the largest VoIP carriers in the country. Its customers businesses depend on the performance and availability of the Telefonica network to survive. For Telefonica Deutschland to continue its successful growth in the German communications market, it needs to provide superior service levels and meet Service Level Agreement commitments to its wholesale customers while controlling operational costs.

Fonality announces that it signed partnerships with solution providers in France, Poland, Italy and the UK to resell and support its newly launched trixbox Pro phone system. CNSI (France), Halo2 (Poland), V4VoIP (UK), VCOMM (UK), VoIPon (UK), and Wildix (Italy) are among the first to sign-up for Fonality’s value-added partner program, and are establishing themselves as important resources for advanced IP communications in Europe. Now small and medium-sized businesses in Europe have access to affordable, easy–to-use IP communications that helps them compete with larger, more established enterprises.

NexTone announces that HIPCOM has deployed NexTone’s IntelliConnect System. HIPCOM is using NexTone’s Session Border Controller, Multi-protocol Session Exchange, and Real-time Session Manager platforms to interconnect with leading UK carrier networks such as BT Wholesale, Band-X, Gamma Telecom, and Primus Telecom. This interconnect capability provides HIPCOM customers with the most comprehensive and reliable service available in the UK.

Blueface has chosen Wowza Media Server Pro to support its expansion to audio and video streaming services in Ireland, the UK, and Europe. Blueface already uses Wowza Media Server Pro to stream the top national talk radio program, NewsTalk.ie, and will be expanding to support more radio broadcasters, launching an Internet TV channel with both live and on-demand programs, and a user-generated video portal. In addition, Blueface is taking advantage of the extensibility of the Wowza Pro architecture to create new services for its VoIP subscribers.

"In Wowza Media Server Pro we found a Flash server with the scalability, functionality, and, equally important, the economics to support a business we confidently expect to reach millions of people," says Feargal Brady, CEO of Blueface. "What's especially interesting for us is Wowza's ability to re-stream MP3 to Flash players from the SHOUTcast feeds commonly used by radio broadcasters. This is a perfect fit with our plan to enable broadcasters to use Flash, the most accessible format on the Internet, to stream their content to much larger audiences."

VoSKY announces the availability of its VoSKY Ultimate BizPak, which combines the new Skype Small Business Pack with its Skype co-branded PBX-to-Skype Gateways to make it even easier for SMBs to use Skype in the business environment.

Skype VoSKY Exchange gateways allow SMBs to improve communication and collaboration while reducing communications costs. With Skype Pro, businesses are able to make zero per minute rated landline calls within UK from standard office phones attached to the company PBX. Connection fees apply. They will also open up SMBs to new opportunities, and enhance interaction with customers and partners that are part of a potential market of 196 million Skype users.

The market for consumer VoIP services boomed in 2006, with Europe leading the way, reports In-Stat. Total VoIP subscribers worldwide increased by 34 million subscribers in 2006, the high-tech market research firm says.

“Europe showed the largest gain in consumer VoIP subscribers,” says Keith Nissen, In-Stat analyst. “The European consumer VoIP market increased by over 14 million subscribers last year. The European VoIP market is being aided by local loop unbundling, the introduction of cable telephony and triple-play service bundles, as well as operator consolidation. In contrast, US wireline operators added only 4 million VoIP subscribers in 2006. No one seems interested in selling anything other than plain-old-telephone-service”.