FON marked a milestone in the US market several months ago. Its agreement with Time Warner Cable permitting TWC subscribers to share bandwidth created a minor splash in the press and industry. A new insight published by Strategy Analytics, "Google-backed FON Aims to Sign Up One Million Member Hotspots in 2007," examines the deal and its possible implications.

"Since its early days, pay-as-you-go WiFi has been a tenuous business model at best," says Ben Piper, Director of the Strategy Analytics Broadband Network Strategies. "Few have made a compelling case for paying upwards of $8 simply to check email, download a presentation or surf." According to Piper, "While FON is poised to become a global player, the company will need to seriously ratchet up its marketing effort to succeed at this, and the financial backing of Google could prove invaluable in this respect."

Edgewater announces the availability of EdgeView Reports, an advanced yet easy-to-use reporting tool that provides valuable VoIP performance information to network planners, operators, product managers, executive management teams and end-users. The EdgeView Reports server works in conjunction with the EdgeView VoIP support System and EdgeMarc Converged Networking Routers to provide unprecedented visibility into the performance of today’s converged networks.

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.

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.

Digium introduces a new subscription-based service offering designed to give Digium Asterisk customers and partners faster, easier and unlimited access to Digium service and support. Offered in Silver, Gold and Platinum levels, Digium’s subscription-based services will be available for all business-class products beginning with the Digium Asterisk Appliance, now available.

The voice communications market continues to experience rapid growth with more companies evaluating and choosing open source as a cost-effective and flexible alternative to proprietary telephony solutions. The increased demand for open source brings a greater business need for service and support during business hours and around the clock. Digium is the first open source telephony provider to offer businesses a service offering rivaling that of proprietary vendors in terms of price, scope and scale.

EnGenius announces the launch of the SI-680H a SIP-based Wi-Fi phone. The EnGenius SI-680H phone will enable customers the ability to call anywhere in the world over the Internet via a wireless network connection.

This compact IP wireless device is designed for the roaming office worker and boasts an intuitive interface allowing users to quickly and easily configure the handset to access available wireless-b networks. It is designed to be easily installed on any WLAN network, allowing companies to quickly and cost-effectively deploy mobility to workers.

Features of the SI-680H include:

• Support for SIP v2 standards
• Compliance with IEEE 802.11b standards and WPA certified
• Security WEP key (64/128 bits), WPA, 802.1x
• Call forwarding, call transfer, call history
• Enhanced power savings
• Fast Hotspot Authentication
• Weighing only 98g including battery
• Clear colour LCD display

Sipera VIPER Lab will demonstrate a VoIP exploit that allows hackers to take control and delete or steal data from a laptop running an enterprise VoIP softphone, at the Black Hat USA 2007 conference. The demonstration will also show that fully deployed, traditional data security is not adequate to protect data from a real-time, VoIP communications attack.

Sipera VIPER Lab will also review various WiFi/dual-mode phone threats as part of its "Vulnerabilities in Wi-Fi/Dual-Mode VoIP Phones" presentation, which will take place within the Voice Services Security track on August 1st at 4:45 p.m. Black Hat briefings bring together the best minds from government agencies and global corporations with the most respected independent researchers and hackers. The Black Hat invitation to present reflects both peer recognition of Sipera's leadership in VoIP and Unified Communications security, and increasing awareness of VoIP/UC vulnerabilities and exploits.

Yankee Group announces that consumer VoIP adoption continued at an aggressive pace in 2006, growing more than 125% and reaching more than 9 million subscribers. The consumer VoIP market maintains substantial growth, led by cable MSOs and broadband VoIP providers.

According to the Yankee Group Report, Growing Pains Persist in a Adolescent Market: Yankee Group's 2007 US Consumer VoIP Subscriber Forecast, published today, consumer VoIP services made headway by penetrating 9% of all US households, up from 4% in the previous year. VoIP is evolving beyond being a residential phone equivalent and is embedding itself into web-based advertisements, web site assistance and other click-to-call solutions. In addition, as consumers begin to demand inexpensive anywhere connectivity, there is more demand for mobile VoIP. The opportunity for VoIP on dual-mode mobile phones will increase as the number of units in use rises from 913,000 in 2006 to 22 million in 2011.

VOIP or Voice over Internet Protocol is plausibly one of the most radical advances in the telecom industry. It permits you to speak to another person on the other side of the world by employing a digital network connection precisely the same way that you get e-mail or surf internet sites. Due to the fact that your voice is changed into a digital signal, it can be transmitted around the block, on the other side of the country, or around the world for exactly the same price. For VOIP telephone calls, the idea of long distance does not exist. A single basic benefit is its low-price. If you have a fast Internet connection (DSL or cable), you can make computer-to-computer telephone calls anyplace on the globe FREE. Computer-to-phone telephone calls normally have a fee, but are usually still less expensive than typical telephone service. Perks like call forwarding, call waiting, voicemail, caller ID and 3way-calling, are packaged with VOIP telephone service at no additional fee. At the same time you are speaking on the telephone, you can transmit graphics and documents.

Thomson announces an agreement with Comcast to begin purchasing Thomson’s VoIP cable modems to support Comcast’s continued rollout of its Comcast Digital Voice service. As a long-term supplier of data-only cable modems to Comcast, the agreement strengthens Thomson’s relationship with the leading operator beyond the current provision of pure cable modems.

Comcast will use Thomson’s DHG535 eMTA to connect its customers to both Comcast Digital Voice and Comcast High-Speed Internet through one integrated device. It allows Thomson to further address the worldwide market for eMTAs, which will be worth about 650 M euros this year alone according to market research firm Dell’Oro.

It appears that Skype was convicted for selling a VoIP phone, the SMCWSKP 100, made by SMC Networks, which uses the Linux kernel, without also supplying the source code, which is a prerequisite of GPLv2.

Skype apparently tried to rectify its mistake by providing a pamphlet with the packaging that provided a URL to where the source code could be obtained. However, that was not enough to satisfy the open source purists that brought the matter to the attention of the German court nor the court itself.

Summaries of the proceedings can be found here and here - translations from German to English over the net are a bit dicey but the gist of the matter is reasonably clear if you use Alta Vista's Babelfish.

In short, anyone who sells a Linux-based product must provide the source code with the product or face the consequences in the country in which it is sold. At least that's the case in Germany.

Exactly what punishment Skype can expect to suffer for its transgression, however, is not exactly clear.

Intelliverse has added nomadic support to its standard E911 offering for all VoIP subscribers. Using Intelliverse, service providers can now offer customers an expanded geographical footprint when using the E911 service. Nomadic E911 will answer every 911 call and route it to the appropriate public safety answering point – regardless of the location they are calling from.

Intelliverse partnered with HBF Group to provide this service. Each address Intelliverse receives will be registered with the HBF Group. Using a real-time API integration, the solution determines where users are located by mapping the phone number to the emergency address on file while verifying and routing it to the appropriate emergency call center.

Bluesocket has acquired SIP-based enterprise communications solutions leader Pingtel Corporation. This strategic move establishes a solid foundation for the delivery of converged mobility and unified communications offerings, and places Bluesocket in a leadership position to provide complete enterprise mobility solutions that combine secure wireless LAN and Voice over IP (VoIP) - including unified communications server technology which will be a key foundation for Bluesocket’s enterprise fixed mobile convergence architecture.

deltathree announces that it has launched an upgraded network telephony backend infrastructure to its Open Network Platform offering customers greater flexibility and more innovative features. Developed in-house by deltathree in the span of over two years, the Open Network Platform allows customers of deltathree's newly formed consumer brand joip, as wells as deltathree's Reseller and Hosted Consumer VoIP Solution channels, to experience a broader range of benefits while enhancing customer convenience and growth potential.

fg microtec announces that its VCC (Voice Call Continuity) client, fgVoIP, has been successfully signed for Nokia E-Series mobile phones following the Symbian Signed testing criteria.

This major achievement will enable enterprises, service providers and carriers to commercially deploy advanced VCC services on mobile devices while ensuring the level of quality expected by end users thanks to the Symbian Signed process.

The fgVoIP VCC client solution has been developed based on fg microtec's extensive know-how in VoIP technologies and embedded systems and in close cooperation with Nokia through the Nokia PRO Forum partner program.