Digium announces details of its annual AstriDevCon conference, a day-long event scheduled for October 22, 2012 at the Sheraton Atlanta Hotel. Held alongside the annual AstriCon conference, AstriDevCon brings together the development community that continues to make Asterisk the most widely used open source software for creating business phone systems and other communications applications.

AstriDevCon provides an in-depth review of progress made in the past year and an open discussion about the future direction of the Asterisk project. The event offers an opportunity for attendees to meet the core development team in person, pitch ideas for new features and functions and coordinate efforts with others.

Truphone announces the establishment of a Technology Center. The New Jersey center complements Truphone's United States headquarters in North Carolina's Research Triangle Park.

The technology center is led by Ed Guy, Ph.D., Vice President of Engineering, and Chris Celiberti, Vice President of Business Engineering. They and their staff of computer and communications engineers are responsible for developing innovative mobile services for the global business market. Both report to Truphone founder and Chief Technology Officer James Tagg.

Located in the Enterprise Development Center at the New Jersey Institute of Technology in Newark, the Truphone technology center initially consists of a staff of 12, many of whom are NJIT graduates.

SolarWinds announces the release of SolarWinds VoIP Call Detail Record Tracker, a robust free tool to help IT pros manage VoIP with Call Detail Record tracking, and the only free tool of its kind in the VoIP management market that allows users to search and display CDRs.

SolarWinds determined the need among IT pros for a VoIP CDR Tracker free tool based on demand and discussion on thwack®, the SolarWinds community of over 100,000 IT pros that offers a space to request new products and features, as well as share insight and address IT management challenges.

VoX Communications has now added fixed priced calling plans to Vietnam and Pakistan via its Android mobile voice app available in Google Play. The fixed priced plans include calling to mobile phones in both Vietnam and Pakistan at a price of only seven cents a minute, which is significantly lower than prices charged by other wireless carriers.

A VoX user can subscribe entirely on the phone and choose a U.S. phone number without leaving the interface, which makes the sign up process more elegant than many competitors. The Mobile VoIP paid plans for Vietnam and Pakistan start at $6.95 for the 100 minute plan, which is a low cost of entry for a high quality and reliable VoIP service offering. VoX also offers 250 minutes for $15.95 and 500 minutes for $29.95. These plans include calls to mobile phones, which are typically a higher price than calls to land lines. New subscribers can download the app for a free 60-minute trial and make calls to any country on the unlimited calling list or sign up for the Vietnam or Pakistan specific plan.

Infonetics Research released excerpts from its 2nd quarter 2012 Service Provider VoIP and IMS Equipment and Subscribers market share and forecast report. (Detailed analysis published August 29.)

ANALYST NOTE

“The year kicked off with a big bang thanks to record LTE-related shipments in the first quarter, but there was no way the carrier VoIP and IMS equipment market could repeat that growth consecutively. There was nowhere to go but down, which is exactly where it went in the second quarter,” notes Diane Myers, principal analyst for VoIP and IMS at Infonetics Research.

Rebtel announces findings from its mobile device survey conducted online on its behalf by Harris Interactive, which measured American adult mobile phone and tablet users’ sentiments and observed trends concerning mobile devices, as well as spending on International calling.

According to the study, 88% of American adults own a smartphone, standard mobile phone and/or a tablet device, with 18% claiming they own a tablet, and 41% claiming they own a smartphone.

In the U.S., over 1 in 5 (21%) U.S. adult smartphone owners make international calls and are responsible for paying the bill. They spend an average of $156 every month doing so. Surprisingly, amongst the men and women polled, there are vast differences in what they spend on international calls, with women averaging $267.10 a month, and men averaging $85.50 (or 320% less).

Voip-Pal.com is pleased to announce that it has completed initial beta testing of its proprietary and leading edge intelligent "Soft Switch" VoIP network framework and five specific patents acquired from Digifonica International Limited.

Voip-Pal can now begin to target VoIP based equipment manufacturers, cellular telecommunications carriers, Network Service Providers, Telecommunications Service Providers and Cable Operators as potential Licensees of its patent portfolio.

Voip-Pal believes that the newly acquired proprietary framework and intellectual property can provide large scale VoIP equipment manufacturers and NSPs with a unique product offering that protects their corporate identity and provides unique, market leading products and solutions to their subscribers. For example, through Voip-Pal's licensed technology, today's Licensee can enable a WiFi/WiMax enabled cellular phone to "roam" between WiFi antenna's (even on the same network).

VoIP Innovations recently became certified as a RespOrg, or Responsible Organization. This means VoIP Innovations now has direct access to the Service Management System database, which controls the nations call routing on all toll-free calls. “As one of the nation’s largest VoIP providers, becoming certified as a RespOrg was the next logical step for us,” stated Jason Tapolci, President of VoIP Innovations.

The RespOrg was launched in 1993 as part of the FCC order to institute toll-free number portability. The demand for toll-free has greatly outpaced supply which has led to the creation of additional toll-free area codes that now include 800, 888, 877, 866, 855, 844, 833, and 822. In order for carriers to become a RespOrg, they must go through a certification process. Once certification is approved, there is internal training that must be completed as well as BackOffice integration.

SolarWinds announces the upcoming release of SolarWinds VoIP & Network Quality Manager, formerly known as SolarWinds IP SLA Manager, to help IT professionals maintain the highest level of VoIP network performance and voice quality.

SolarWinds VoIP & Network Quality Manager monitors the performance of individual VoIP calls by analyzing call quality metrics available within the call detail record and provides real-time alerts when critical thresholds are exceeded. Coupled with its proactive WAN performance analysis capability, VoIP & Network Quality Manager will allow IT pros to troubleshoot and solve VoIP problems faster and more effectively.

SolarWinds VoIP & Network Quality Manager can be deployed as a standalone product or fully integrated with SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor, offering IT pros the flexibility to target VoIP and WAN monitoring and troubleshooting or gain a unified view of network performance.

Nimbuzz has become one of the largest mobile and Web communications platforms, with more than 100 million users worldwide. Nimbuzz addresses a growing global demand for communication services within emerging markets around the world. Nimbuzz provides a single tool to make voice and video VoIP calls, send instant messages and share data between all major communications platforms -- on any mobile device or desktop -- for free.

As one of the only multi-language solutions on the market, Nimbuzz has seen massive growth within the emerging mobile App market across Asia and the Middle East, and continues its tremendous growth within the U.S., amassing more than 6.5 million users that communicate daily with friends and family overseas. The company has also built strong developer channels with local carriers and global OEM device manufactures.