Eschelon Telecom plans to add Voice Over Internet Protocol product capabilities to its network. The new IP applications will leverage the existing network infrastructure from Nortel and Cisco Systems, and will be available in addition to existing TDM products.

“We have always maintained that VoIP products can work very well for some customers,” stated Richard A. Smith, Eschelon’s President and CEO. “At the same time, there are customers with applications that do not work well over this technology. By offering both technologies, we will be able to offer the best solution to fit the customer’s needs, rather than forcing the customer into the only technology we offer.”

RedSky announces that its award-winning E911 Manager is now certified for use with Cisco IP communications solutions.

The certification means that organizations using Cisco solutions by themselves or in combination with communications solutions from other providers such as Avaya and Nortel now have the ability to use a single E911 Manager server to capture, manage and deliver the detailed location information required by public safety dispatchers for effective emergency response.

Dash911 announces improvements to their Dashboard management module. In the last five months, Dash911 has added to its E911 offering by making it easy to obtain other products including DIDs, 411, CNAM and PSTN call termination. So it became necessary to find a way to give customers a way to have a "bird's eye view" of all their services activity in one place with one login.

According to Michael Giagnocavo, Chief Software Architect for Dash911, "The new features include the ability for a VoIP provider to truly have one view and unified access to all the products and services we provide."

Dash91 expects that not only will current customers appreciate this new management interface, but that prospective customers will recognize the advantage of dealing with one company for all their wholesale VoIP needs, and the ability to manage all their services with one interface.

Dash911 is a privately held company based in Denver, CO. Dash911 offers wholesale VoIP services to VoIP providers around the world.

Research and Markets has announced the addition of the new Frost & Sullivan Report “North American Residential VoIP Services Markets” to their offering.

This Frost & Sullivan research service titled North American Residential VoIP Services Market provides insight into the drivers and challenges associated with shifting the consumer market for IP telephony into the mass-market adoption phase. Trends such as the use of softphones and new enhanced services are provided. In this study, Frost & Sullivan's expert analysts thoroughly examine the North American residential VoIP lines in service and associated revenues.

ClearOne announced that their market-leading audio technologies and state-of-the-art conferencing products are being showcased at the Internet Telephony Conference & Expo East in Ft. Lauderdale, from January 23-26. Some of the unique VoIP-capable products on display at the show include the Company’s personal conferencing products, the Chat 50 and Chat 150. ClearOne will also showcase their VoIP tabletop conferencing solutions, the MAXAttach IP and MAX IP.

ClearOne’s Chat 50 is the award-winning personal audio peripheral that connects to a wide variety of devices and provides crystal clear, hands-free audio communications. Its unmatched full-duplex capability enables users to simultaneously speak and listen with high-performance two-way audio. The crossover technology in the Chat 50, which allows it to connect to PCs, Macs, cell phones, telephones, and desktop video conferencing devices, enables hands-free communications in new ways that have not previously been possible. It also provides rich audio playback for music, gaming and other audio applications. It is slightly larger than a deck of cards, making it a truly one-of-a-kind go-anywhere personal conferencing device.

Funny Steven Colbert video on Cingular's name change to AT&T, I first saw over at http://saunderslog.com

VoIP Blog News:

The new skype embedded environment with video-egg. And it is not Joost but Hans (Skype Software & Hardware Gadgets)

Will VoIP for food (myvoipnews.org)


Other VoIP News:

Qwest Pulls out All the Stops in Upgrading Voice and Data Solutions for JUST BRAKES.

Network Upgrade To Deliver Multi-Meg and IP-Enabled Voice and Data Services.

Max Telecom Selects Navini For Nationwide WiMAX Network in Bulgaria.

VocalTec Receives Class-4 Certificates from the Ministry of Communications in Russia.

TVLocalSearch and TVCallME instantly connected to the local business by telephone with a click of the remote.

Global Crossing's Global Partner Program Surpasses 50-Partner Milestone


Happy hump day to my readers, we can make it just two more days!

TRENDnet has started shipping its first to market ClearSky Bluetooth VoIP Conference Phone Kit for Skype. The distinctively designed Skype conference kit is the first product to enable hands-free Voice over IP conferencing for small businesses anywhere in the office using a wireless Bluetooth connection.

The ClearSky kit includes a conference phone base unit and a USB Class 1 Bluetooth adapter. Together they create a long-range Bluetooth connection that provides high quality conferencing anywhere within a 100 meter (328 feet) range. Gone are the days of being tied down by wires, just grab the conference phone and take it where you need it.

The conference phone’s integrated LCD screen and touchpad offer easy control and viewing of Skype contacts, call history, status and SkypeOut credit balance. This allows users to place and receive calls and control Skype content directly from the conference phone.

Nimbuzz launches its voice enabled mobile and PC clients, designed to support more than 500 mobile phone models and Windows XP/2000 for the PC client. Additionally, Nimbuzz is now also made available for all Internet capable mobile phones where users cannot or will not download software to their phones. Instead they simply use their mobile browser.

Nimbuzz is free to download. No monthly charges. No credits needed. Nimbuzz users just pay the lowest local rate to their mobile operator. The mobile service is available in 35 countries.

Nimbuzz is now mobile connected to Google Talk and MSN / Windows Live Messenger for Chat and Voice. This means that mobile Nimbuzz users can call their buddies on these communities on their PC against their cheapest local rate. They Chat with them on their mobile for free.

With Nimbuzz you can also make international calls from your mobile to other mobile phones at the cheapest local rate. The only condition is that both phones have the Nimbuzz software installed. Nimbuzz eliminates the high roaming tariffs operators are charging

Jinan Yinquan Technology – a wholly owned subsidiary of China VoIP and Digital Telecom introduced to cellular subscribers the added ability to make calls using Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), connecting via any available wireless fidelity (WiFi) network.

The new service will mean subscribers can save money on long distance calls using VoIP. In addition, callers using the WiFI/VoIP service will not pay roaming charges outside their home area.

“Our WiFi/VoIP cell phone supports dual SIM cards,” said Li Kunwu, President and CEO of China VoIP & Digital Telecom Inc. “One is for the VoIP number, the other is for the common GSM/CDMA cell phone network.”

In addition to savings on roaming fees, Mr. Li added, “Calls between WiFi/VoIP cell phones are free of charge. So users may save up to 80 percent on their long distance call fees while enjoying the same mobility and portability convenience of regular cell phones.”

SunRocket announces an unprecedented new calling plan that drops rates to Asia Pacific locations including China, Japan, Hong Kong and Vietnam to as little as one cent per minute.

The annual, all-inclusive $199 Asia Pacific Edition offers a compelling and unique alternative for U.S. consumers who frequently call friends and family located throughout the Asia Pacific. With per-minute calling rates well below traditional phone service offerings and as much as 90 percent less than other major VoIP providers, the SunRocket Asia Pacific Edition value proposition is unmatched in the industry.

"Prior to the SunRocket Asia Pacific Edition, consumers were forced to jump through hoops to seek savings on international calls to these destinations, often resorting to inconvenient and deceptively expensive prepaid calling cards," said Joyce Dorris, SunRocket co-founder and Chief Marketing Officer. "Now SunRocket makes it easy for consumers to enjoy the lowest per-minute rates to Asia, building upon our mission to change what is possible for consumers and challenge historical pricing practices by our competitors."

The Asia Pacific Edition reduces international rates to $.01 per minute on all calls (landline and cell) to China, Singapore and Hong Kong; and on landline calls to Taiwan, Malaysia and South Korea. Landline rates fall to $.02 per minute for Japan; while SunRocket's rate on all calls to Vietnam is cut nearly in half to $.10 per minute.

So after writing a nice long post and nearly finished. It was explaining this new category on VoIPMonitor.net when my IE 7.0 crashed. Go figured I hadn't saved, copied or pasted it anywhere either. So, I'll just keep this attempt short and sweet.

With so much daily VoIP news to report, I figured it'd be a great to extend my readers reach to fellow VoIP bloggers by sharing some sites that I read regularly. You might already visit these sites and perhaps you haven't heard of some. I guess too much news can't be a bad thing so without further ado behold the VoIP Bloggers category.


More On The Future of Minutes Dropping To Zero (VoIP Watch by Andy Abramson)

Apple Iphone works on the Windows Mobile 5.0 (Skype Software & Hardware Gadgets)

Wish I was going, ITEXPO just 7 days away (VoIP and Gadgets Blog by Tom Keating)

Jack Bauer's Perfect Mobile Phone for 24 (VoIP and Gadgets Blog by Tom Keating)

Talk for free (for a little while, anyway) on VoIP.com (myvoipnews.org)

Functionality vs. Good Design in Apple iPhone (thevoipgirl.com)

iCall emerges as an alternative to Skype (voip-weblog.com)

GlobeTel announces that through its joint development and marketing venture its new ANYWHERE CALLER flat rate calling product, www.AnyWhereCaller.com, will be sold through MetroTel’s retail stores in Texas and Michigan. MetroTel is an authorized independent dealer of Metro PCS Communications.

ANYWHERE CALLER is designed to allow cell phone users to call internationally without paying high rates and tariffs. The plan is priced at $19.99 per month, and extends to more than 40 international destinations. Destinations outside the plan are billed at a reasonable per minute rate.

The VoIP IC market is not only growing, but also shifting as consumer offerings expand, reports In-Stat. Wireless and video will play stronger roles in the next several years and present new challenges for chip level players, the high-tech market research firm says.

“Tomorrow’s IP phones and the semiconductors used to produce them will clearly be very different from today’s business-oriented sets,” says Norm Bogen, In-Stat analyst. “New forms of interconnection at both the edge and the core ultimately mean VoIP chips will disappear at the network level, as VoIP fulfills the prophecy that someday it will be ‘simply another application on an IP network.’”

Recent research by In-Stat found the following:

• While today, less than 16% of total VoIP chip revenues are attributed to IP phones, this segment will represent close to 60% of total sales by 2010.
• Revenues associated with VoIP ICs will grow from $613.7 million in 2006 to $2.63 billion by 2010.
• Infrastructure revenues associated with VoIP chips will make up only 13.6% of total revenues in 2010.

Germany's VoIP service provider Betamax provides corporate customers with overseas phone connections into over 449 national landline and mobile networks from EUR 0.005 per minute via www.voicetrading.com. A technological pioneer in this field, the company also provides simple and rapid installation for all SIP communications devices along with the low per-minute charges.

"While only private users were able to profit from the low costs of Voice-over-IP up to now, we have developed a suitable solution for businesses," says Gary Sherman, marketing manager at Betamax GmbH. The target group mainly consists of call centres and call shops that conduct a large number of international calls. Regardless of the number of SIP devices and extension numbers, one single account at www.voicetrading.com is enough to secure the cost advantages of this service. After registration, the access data only need to be entered once into each SIP device or router to reduce telephone expenses by up to 90%.