Digium and Polycom announce a high-quality VoIP solution for small and medium-size businesses that simplifies the technical aspects of purchasing, configuring and deploying a complete VoIP phone system. The integrated solution, featuring the Digium AsteriskNOW software appliance and Polycom SoundPoint IP desktop phones can significantly lower the time and technical expertise needed to deploy a high quality VoIP solution; enabling more small and medium businesses to enjoy the cost savings, enhanced quality and productivity benefits of advanced IP telephony.

The simplified purchasing, configuration and deployment process is enabled by new capabilities in the Digium AsteriskNOW software appliance, including a one-click function called BuyNOW that enables customers to purchase Polycom SoundPoint IP phones, and an intuitive configuration process that automatically provisions the phones for immediate customer use. In addition, Digium's Asterisk software now supports Polycom HD Voice technology that enables calls with twice the clarity and sound quality of traditional analog calls.

Natural Convergence announced a partnership with BorderWare Technologies. The partners are working together to provide simple, scalable security solutions tailored for service providers to target the Small Business Market.

According to Eastern Management Group, in the United States there are 32 million key systems, with the average age of key systems being 12 years. This means that key systems are ripe for replacement and a replacement wave is quickly gaining momentum in the SBM.

As there are different types of service providers who are beginning to address the huge and largely underserved SBM, a one-size-fits-all approach neither works for small businesses nor for service providers. Regardless of the size of service provider, solutions must be reliable and secure and, more importantly, must fit each of their deployment models.

The U.S. market for VoIP advanced dramatically in 2006, adding 3.8 million VoIP households in 2006, reports In-Stat. As a result, wholesale VoIP revenues are growing quickly, as MSOs, Skype, and a myriad of new entrants—most lacking network facilities—enter the market and drive demand for telephony features and applications, the high-tech market research firm says.

“As retail VoIP expands, wholesale VoIP will accelerate quickly,” says Bryan Van Dussen, In-Stat analyst. “The largest segment remains international VoIP, but we expect the market for local services to surge from 12% of all revenues to 27% by 2010.”

The IMS Forum, the industry association recognized as the voice of IP convergence, completed on January 19th its first IMS Plugfest at the University of New Hampshire InterOperability Lab (UNH-IOL) in Durham, N.H.

The event was attended by Ditech, Empirix, Ixia, Reef Point Systems, NE Technologies, Starent Networks, Tektronix, Tekelec, Sonus, Valid8, and sponsored by Empirix, Ditech, Sonus, GlobalTouch Telecom, Trendium and VOX.

January’s Plugfest is the first in a series of open IMS Forum Plugfests, to be hosted by the IMS Forum at the UNH IOL, which will run through 2008. The events will establish industry-recognized certification for IMS products and services that have achieved the highest level of interoperability.

A second IMS Plugfest is being planned for the second quarter of 2007. This event will build upon the established methodologies and reference environment and continue to grow IMS applications-specific tests for the triple and quadruple play over mobile, cable and fix networks.

Eyeball releases AnyFirewall Engine, a firewall and NAT traversal SDK that incorporates the most comprehensive implementation of STUN, TURN and ICE. Together with AnyFirewall Server, AnyFirewall Engine ensures 100% seamless call completion for VoIP phones, services and applications.

The growth of the Internet has created a global shortage of IP addresses. ISPs, enterprises and home routers bypass this problem by using Network Address Translation (NAT) to hide many private addresses behind one single public address, which interferes with VoIP calls.

TRENDnet has started shipping its ClearLink VoIP USB Phone Adapter (Model TVP-SP5G). This pocket sized product links your telephone to your computer via USB connection and allows you to make Voice-over-Internet Protocol (VoIP) calls, using Skype, from your standard phone. Now you have the choice to make and receive either a standard call or a Skype call when you pick up your phone. Users can take advantage of free Skype to Skype calling, Skype subscription plans, or keep in contact with regular phone users with their existing telephone.

Perfectly suited for home and office use, the ClearLink VoIP USB Phone Adapter installs in a flash. No need to find room on your crowded power strip, the unit is powered from the USB connection to your computer. A simple hot key allows you to switch between SkypeTM and regular phone calls. The ClearLink VoIP USB Phone Adapter is an affordable Skype solution and a great addition to TRENDnet’s growing stable of VoIP products.

Who doesn't love product awards? Well "INTERNET TELEPHONY editors selected the companies which in their view demonstrate the vision, leadership and attention to detail that are the hallmarks of the prestigious Product of the Year award winners."

You can view the entire list here INTERNET TELEPHONY Magazine Announces 2006 Product of the Year Award Winners

CosmoCom has forged a strategic partnership with BandTel, yielding tremendous potential savings for enterprise contact centers. The combination of CosmoCom’s all-IP unified customer communications platform and BandTel’s session initiation protocol (SIP) trunks will optimize the overall cost structure of IP contact centers.

Many enterprises have recognized business benefits by adopting CosmoCom technology on their premises using VoIP gateways with legacy telephone lines. The significant gateway-related costs were justified by the overall benefits. But with CosmoCom and BandTel joining forces, companies who deploy CosmoCom technology on their premises with BandTel’s SIP trunks can completely eliminate the hardware, maintenance and IT personnel costs associated with VoIP gateways, making the cost benefits of the IP call center even more dramatic.

Dash911, the most popular provider of E911 services for VoIP providers announces that due to increased demand, and more customers, it has added additional carriers for its DID and termination offerings.

"Many VoIP providers have told us that what they really like is to get all their services from one provider", says Gregory Giagnocavo, "and we are pulling together the best providers in each category".

Dash911 now offers DIDs, origination and termination, CNAM for CallerID, Directory assistance and other wholesale services for VoIP providers worldwide.

"Although we aren't always the lowest, cheapest cost provider, VoIP providers have come to realize that quality is more important thant a savings of one-tenth of a cent per minute - subscribers want the same voice quality they've enjoyed for years using traditional wire line telephone service.

Dash911 is once again a Gold Sponsor at the IT Expo in Ft Lauderdale, FL Jan 23 -25, 2007. www.ITexpo.com

Just another day of interesting VoIP news from a few of my favorite sites.

Secure your VoIP network with 25 steps that Jan points out "normal people can read and understand" right on!

Writer Paul Kapustka for GigaOM points out Vonage’s Tough Road Ahead with Vonage announcing their new V-Access service to counter AT&T's Unity.

Back to the future with this blog on An iPhone ad from 1996 ahh memories.

Welcome to the Aussie 500 Aussies, start your Engins!

Mark Collier, a leading voice over IP (VoIP) security scientist, author, and blogger, announced the release of his “VoIP Security Trends and Predictions for 2007.” Mr. Collier’s prognostications have been posted to his popular VoIP security blog at: www.voipsecurityblog.com. Mr. Collier is CTO of SecureLogix Corporation, an enterprise telephony management and security company.

“Enterprise VoIP deployments will continue to ramp in 2007, and the frequency and severity of VoIP-specific attacks will increase as well,” stated Collier. “Here are my top VoIP security trends to watch for in 2007":

Telrex releases CallRex Professional 3.5 featuring an advanced distributed-services software architecture. CallRex 3.5 delivers greater scalability, high reliability and additional security, plus new features for multi-site deployments, including enhanced multi-site call recording and monitoring, advanced file transfers, flexible storage and streamlined archiving. CallRex was the first VoIP call-recording solution verified to record encrypted VoIP calls for Cisco CallManager 5.0, and CallRex version 3.5 now provides additional security to ensure that call recording files cannot be secretly altered.

AltiGen Communications announces the availability of the MAX1000 Voice over IP (VoIP) phone system.

The MAX1000 is a premium full-featured VoIP phone system designed for branch offices and locations with up to 48 users with support for such features as SIP trunking, Meet-me conference bridge capability with scheduling application, On-demand Voice Recording, 4,500 hours of voice mail storage, ExtensionAnywhere mobility and many other features in a single-box appliance.

"The MAX1000 is completely different from competing phone systems in that every branch office is fully autonomous," said Ray Lutteroty, president of AltiGen reseller SRMS Network Technologies. "We will be installing nine MAX1000 systems in the next month for a multi-location credit union because of this advantage."

Internet Telephony Conference & Expo East 2007

AccessLine Communications

WHO: Jerry Knight, AccessLine Communications’ CTO, will participate in a panel discussion with industry executives from companies such as Deloitte Financial Advisory Services LLP and GrandCentral Communications at the 2007 Internet Telephony Conference and Expo East.

Jerry Knight is a leader in the development of innovative communications technologies. While with Plessy, Sprint International and Infonet, he helped pioneer packet-switching in general and one of the earliest packet-voice initiatives based on a proprietary variant of X.25 and ADPCM, as well implemented some of the earliest and largest private cell-based voice and data networks in Western Europe. His protocols laid the foundation for today's telecommunications infrastructure and services. Today, he is the catalyst for AccessLine’s development of hosted VoIP services, leading to its current ranking in the top tier of next-generation service providers for the business market.

ClearSight Networks announces the availability of ClearSight Analyzer 6.0, the newest software solution in ClearSight’s award-winning Analyzer product line. CSA 6.0 provides comprehensive analysis of VoIP performance issues and unrivaled ease of use for monitoring and visualization of live network environments.

“VoIP business success depends upon honoring the levels of quality and service that business and consumer customers have come to expect with competitive public switched telephone networks (PSTN) offerings,” said Dr. John Kenney, vice president, marketing for ClearSight. “ClearSight Analyzer 6.0 helps service providers and carriers, and business enterprises offering VoIP services, reduce the loss of customers at every stage in the customer lifecycle, from acquisition to retention to up-sell to loyalty, by monitoring and analyzing, investigating and resolving VoIP delivery issues to meet pre-existing expectations of standards before customers are adversely affected.”