Vyke launches FreeTxt, a texting application for Symbian Series60 third edition mobile phones that enables Vyke customers to send and receive free text messages to fellow Vyke users and considerably cheaper SMS than other VoIP suppliers, to non Vyke users. Customers can download the FreeTxt application from Vyke’s website which conveniently integrates with the phone’s existing messaging system, and start texting directly from their handset as they normally would.

Vocalocity enhances its business Internet phone service by allowing customers to seamlessly route office calls to and from an iPhone. This feature untethers workers from the desk while providing them with the ability as well as benefits of making and receiving critical calls that ultimately utilize their office phone system.

This unified communication solution from Vocalocity delivers an elegant means of maintaining a professional image regardless of location. Calls made from the iPhone which are then routed through Vocalocity's service contain the caller ID associated with the office phone. As a result, customers and prospects view the call as coming from a place of business rather than a cell phone. Conversely, Vocalocity users can easily be reached by customers as calls made to the business phone number are effortlessly transferred to the iPhone.

Seven leading providers of VOIP services received 2008 PilotHouse Awards from Nemertes Research, based entirely on ratings from hundreds of IT executives.

"This research is a must-have for companies evaluating a new VOIP strategy, or reassessing an existing one because it relies on real experiences from real customers," says Robin Gareiss, executive vice president and senior founding partner, Nemertes Research.

As part of the Unified Communications and Collaboration research project, Nemertes received 555 ratings of VOIP providers and conducted analysis on VOIP best practices. Providers with the highest average scores in each award category won PilotHouse Awards.

Global IP Solutions launched the general availability of the VoiceEngine and VideoEngine SDKs. Targeted at application developers, IP PBX manufacturers and service providers offering real-time voice and video, the SDKs maximize flexibility and ensure high quality standards necessary for successful IP voice and video products.

The Unified Communications market continues to grow and companies are looking for more ways to capitalize on the benefits of call control, presence, voice and video solutions. GIPS VoiceEngine and VideoEngine SDKs simplify the development of full-featured Unified Communications services with real-time voice and video capabilities by providing all the components and multimedia processing technology needed by application developers. Traditionally, developers had to go to multiple vendors and integrate varying technologies to build a VoIP or video over IP application risking quality and interoperability issues. The SDKs combines all the important IP communications components in one package providing a one-stop solution.

Empirix announces that ZONE Telecom has installed its Hammer XMS monitoring solution. Hammer XMS provides ZONE Telecom with a consistent, proactive approach to managing and monitoring its VoIP network by gathering statistics and conducting trend analyses that allow for better, more accurate capacity planning for long-term growth.

ZONE Telecom offers a full array of telecommunications products and services by utilizing proven telephony technologies as well as taking advantage of the newest developments in the field to deliver value and high-quality service to its customers. The company chose Empirix's Hammer XMS monitoring solution because it offers the following features:

Find out the features after the jump.

JAJAH has expanded its SMB Solution Suite to incorporate a managed service IP telephony solution, including a fully functional 'soft' PBX. The suite of services gives every small and medium business the ability to IP-enable their existing telephony systems and make VoIP calls to over 200 countries without any additional investment.

The JAJAH SMB Solution Suite gives every employee access to:

• All devices: make or receive calls via mobile, landline and even softphone (PC-based telephone), with specific plug-ins for Blackberry and Windows Mobile phones available. Pre-paid and analog-only phones will also be supported.
• Productivity Tools: a suite of Productivity Tools gives the ability to embed telephony within Office Automation Tools, including support for Google Enterprise Apps and Microsoft Office. Features also include centralized address book, database and directory lookup services.
• More after the jump.

AT&T U-verse Voice rolls out in parts of the Indianapolis area, bringing consumers a next-generation digital voice service delivered over the AT&T U-verse IP network. U-verse Voice brings together your AT&T home phone, wireless, broadband and TV services -- all on one bill -- with unique features that provide a new level of integration, convenience and control.

AT&T U-verse Voice completes the company's IP triple play and is available to all new and existing U-verse TV customers in the Indianapolis, Bloomington, Muncie and Anderson areas. With U-verse Voice, customers receive new features that highlight the benefits of having advanced video, broadband, wireless and home phone services from a single provider.

Fonality and BroadSoft have certified their products to work together, enabling service providers to market and deploy Fonality to their small and medium-sized business customers with confidence. BroadSoft has completed certification of Fonality trixbox Pro and PBXtra with BroadWorks. BroadSoft has also joined the Fonality Authorized Certified Ecosystem.

BroadWorks offers a range of carrier-grade applications that includes hosted PBX, unified communications, mobile PBX, business trunking, and residential broadband. Fonality products include a family of open-source-based, hybrid-hosted IP PBX offerings tailored for SMBs. By certifying the products together, the companies offer service providers a complete line of hosted and premise-based unified communications offerings for customers of all sizes.

8x8's Packet8 business launches of a new line of broadband agnostic, plug-and-play IP phones designed to enhance the features and functionality of Packet8 business phone services.

Developed in conjunction with Aastra Telecom the Packet8 675xi series of IP phones incorporates 8x8's advanced NAT traversal technologies to facilitate the same network-independent operational advantages Packet8 business customers currently enjoy with the existing Virtual Office business class phones and terminal adaptors. These include the ability to simply plug the phone into any public or private Internet connection and immediately make or receive calls without performing any network configuration or firewall manipulation. The Packet8 675xi IP phones also deliver enhanced equipment and service features including corporate directory display and lookup, intercom paging, shared line appearance and Power over Ethernet capability.

LiveVox announces the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has awarded a patent for the company’s carrier-grade, hosted-VoIP-dialer solution. The patent solidifies the company’s position as the first to deliver a VoIP dialer without using the public Internet and validates the technological advancement of the LiveVox solution. Because the solution directly accesses the carrier backbone using a SIP interface, LiveVox can offer hosted dialing services with unlimited capacity, higher quality and lower cost than premised-based or other hosted-dialing solutions. Other hosted solutions use either the public Internet or a hybrid of VoIP and analog protocols.

JAJAH with EMOBILE have launched an IP-only mobile device the EM·ONE that is set to be the standard around the world. With the EM·ONE device, users in Japan can now make and receive voice-over-mobile-broadband calls via its JAJAH Mobile software client without a traditional mobile phone connection.

Japan is recognized as the world's leading mobile telephony market, with other countries tending to adopt Japanese mobile practices over time. As many carriers around the globe announce intentions to move towards purely IP-based mobile telephony, JAJAH and EMOBILE have made this a reality.

BroadSoft announces that Samsung Networks will expand its deployment of hosted voice services on BroadSoft's BroadWorks VoIP application platform. Samsung Networks delivers the services to large enterprises in South Korea.

Samsung Networks has already successfully deployed 200,000 Hosted PBX seats on the BroadWorks platform, making Samsung Networks one of the world's leading IP telephony service providers to large enterprises. Now, the company will introduce more VoIP services offerings, including BroadWorks Business Trunking, a SIPconnect-compliant solution that extends advanced calling features to enterprises using the customers' existing telephone facilities and equipment.

Nortel is helping subscribers of the Bermuda Telephone Company stay connected regardless of their location with more efficient voice, data and multimedia services. Through the implementation of Nortel carrier VoIP technology, BTC subscribers can use their Bermuda number outside the island to stay connected wherever they are, accessing a suite of advanced IP services like personal call routing and inexpensive long distance calls.

snom announces the next generation of voice: snom klarVOICE. This wideband handset, which can be adapted to all snom VoIP telephones, captures more than twice the spectrum of voice frequencies than standard phones enabling phone conversations with greater clarity and richness.

The new snom klarVOICE handset works with the codec G.722. This codec is able to shrink the bit rate of the voice channel down to 12.65 kbps, offering excellent quality. In standard narrowband VoIP calls, the voice signal is sampled at 8,000 times per second, resulting in an effective voice pass-band of about 200 to 3,300 Hz. The new wideband handset offers a doubled sample rate, providing an effective pass-band of 50 to 7,000 Hz.

AT&T launched the company's integrated suite of AT&T U-verse services in Miami Valley, including AT&T U-verse TV, AT&T U-verse High Speed Internet and AT&T U-verse Voice. AT&T U-verse brings together your TV, broadband, home phone and AT&T wireless services — all on one bill — with unique features that provide a new level of integration, convenience and control. AT&T U-verse TV, High Speed Internet and Voice services are all delivered over AT&T's advanced Internet Protocol network.