Voip strategic mareket positiong through corporate matrimony

As the Voice over IP market heats up and players jostle for identy and market positions, there seem to be a trend toward cooperation and partnership between the major players rather than unwholesome competition. Some of the more noticeable ones are the marriage between Skype and Boingo, and the alliance between Vonage and Motorola. Also of note worthy is the partnership between Vonage Marketing and TowerStream.

In a strategic move to consolidate her dominance in the free voip sector and to make and inroad into the paying wifi premium service, Skype entered into an allinace that gave her subscribers instant access in the Skype zones to Boingo's 18, 000 WiFi hotspots around the world.

In the same vein, Vonage sought to enhance her market position by going into a collaboration with Motorola, that gave her distribution rights to Motorola's VT2442 voip gateway, a device that features four Ethernet ports for connecting other devices, a full fledged network router, and a state-of-the-art firewall that fortifies Internet security using TI’s TNETV1060 advanced voip gateway chipset. This will position Vonage's service as one of the safests in an industry where security is a major concern.

In another strategic move targeting businesses, Vonage and TowerStream have partnered, to provide wireless services that cut out the traditional carriers for both voice and data to businesses.

As rightly observed by Mark Blowers, senior analyst at Butler Group, there is a good chance that we will see many more of these partnerships as the voip market stabilizes and matures. In his words, “We are going to see more of this. Skype is very innovative and it is logical that they would extend services beyond the desktop like this.“I think we will see others do this soon too. It is clearly a growing threat to mobile and fixed line carriers.”
Austin Akalanze

Interconnected VoIP: what does it mean?

According to a Federal Communiacations commission's
definition, interconnected Voip has four main attributes.

1. They "enable real-time, two-way voice communications"

2. They "require a broadband connection from the user's
location"

3. They "require Internet protocol-compatible customer
premises equipment"

4. They "permit users generally to receive call that
originate on the public switched telephone network (PSTN)
and to terminate calls to the public switched telephone
network."

Federal Communications
Commission

The New Communication Paradygm (Part 5)

What is not so good about VoIP?

There are some some not so pleasant things about Voice over IP phones.

VoIP services as at present do not always connect directly to 911
emergencey services. This can creat unpleasant emergency situations. The FCC is however laying the ground rules to make 911 emergency connections a standard feature of VoIP
services.
On July 29, 2005, the FCC issued an order, requiring all interconnected voip service providers to issue a warning to their subscribers, receive and document acknowledgement from subscribers of their awareness of the risks of not having E911 as part of their voip services.

Another bigh issue with voip is security. Because the present security applications such as firewalls were not created with VoIP in mind, they do not provide adequate protection, thereby making voip vulnerable to attacks by unscrupulous elements.

Power outage is another challenge as not all voip services remain functional during power outages.
And finally, directory assistance and white page listings are not usually standard
features of VoIP services.

Austin Akalanze

The new communication paradigm (Part 4)

What is good about VoIP?

Have you noticed how you can never know or understand all the charges that come with your regular telephone service? VoIP is not anywhere near as bad. Because the internet is a global thing, VoIP is not regulated by the FCC. As a result, it is not taxed the way the standard telephones are taxed. Instead, providers assess fees for access time for network use, and routing through landlines, usually for last miles. But this is not anywhere near the outrageous taxes assessed on standard landlines and usually, no one understands.
Depending on your VoIP plan, it is possible to talk for as long as you wish, without encuring any additional charges, other than your regular service fee.
In addition, you can have several people on the same call from different parts of the world and still encure no additional charges.
Also, because you can use your broadband connection for telephony, there it may not be necessary to maintain a phone line just to make calls. This will save you money that otherwise would go to pay for the telephone line. This is because you will be making your calls through your broadband internet connection.
In most cases, the quality of the call is comparable or better than regular phone.
Furthermore, with the advent of Broadband over Power Lines, BPL, there may not even be a need for cable and DSL, as your power line becomes your high speed connection to the internet.
And unlike landlines, VoIP has the potential for portability.

The New Communication Paradygm (Part 3)

Voip-ing with IP phones

IP phones have the feel and look of a normal telephone. IP phones are different in that all the bells and whistles are programed into the phone. Also instead of pluging to a wall like a regular phone, IP phones plug into a router using an Ethernet connector. This feature saves you the trouble of software installation and also provides portability, since you can use your IP phone from other locations providing the same service.
Voip-ing between computers
VoIP calls can be between two computers. This is called a computer-to-computer call.
To do a computer-to-computer call, it is not necessary to have a service provider or a calling plan. What is needed is a good Voip software such as Skype, a broadband or DSL internet connection, a speaker and a sound card.

The VoIP software is what makes the connections and transmission possible. In most cases, these sofwares can be picked up for free on the internet.

Except for the cost of purchasing your hardware and accessories and the cost of your internet access, there are no other costs associated with making these calls, regardless of how many you make or how long they are. This makes these computer-to-computer calls virtually free.

The new communication paradigm (Part 2)

How does it work?

Doing a voip call can be as familiar as picking up the phone and dialing the numbers. It can also be as novel as pluging your earphone and typing your numbers. Which way you go will
depend largely on your service.
VoIP-ing with ATA adaptors
ATA adaptors provide one common way to use VoIP. But what is an ATA. It is an adaptor that converts the analog signal that is generated by your standard phone into a digital signal. It is this digital signal that is then sent over the internet. Signals are sent out in packets. These packets are reassembled at the other end and converted back into analog for the receiving phone.

How does this happen? The adaptor makes it possible for the user to connect a regular phone to the computer and then to the internet. In some instances, it may be necessary to install some software to be able to make calls. Having done that, you are ready to make calls as with your regular phone.

The new communication paradigm (Part One)

In a world where things happen pretty quickly, there is a quiet storm brewing around the world. Ten or more years in the making, Voice over IP or VoIP, is the new paradigm shift in communication. Having its debut in Israel, a decade ago, and much of its recent activities in the US, Europe and Asia, voip is poised to take the communication world by storm.

But what is VoIP you may ask?

VoIP stands for Voice Over Internet Protocol. Even though the name sounds exotic, voip is really simple. It is a way of transmitting voice data over the internet from point A to point B or more plainly, a way of making calls using the internet.
What do I need to do that?
The answer to that is that it depends. But regardless of what method or system you employ, some basic hardware are needed. These are a broadband internet access and a computer, and depending on your service, an ATA adaptor, an IP phone, a speaker, a modem, or a regular phone.

ESI Hits the IP market with ESI-600

A new system for Converged Communications- ESI-600 was recently launched. The ESI-600 is a traditional digital phone system, capable of holding over 400 stations and 168 outside lines. It is a full standards-based IP telephony system, and high bred of the two above. The user is allowed to configure the high bred to his or her satisfaction.

ESI-600 is a high end system. Some of the feature are

1. message on-board
2. Enhanced caller id
3. intelligent call forwarding and
4. 1,200 hours of voice mail

Additional feature include

5. automated attendant
6. automatic call distribution and
7. presence management

ESI use a combination of software and hard to enable presences

7.

Prophecy hits the Voip/IP telecomm market place

Voxeo's (www.voxeo.com)voice application platform hits the voip market place streamlined and much easier to install. A full-featured telephony platform, Prophecy is world class speech recognition and synthesis and weighs in at a hefty 80mb.

Prophecy is three applications rolled up into one affordable download. Included in the package are:

1. Prophecy premium platform
2. a voip platform and
3. an interactive voice response (IVR) platform

At present, Prophecy is set up to run on windows 2000, 2003, and xp. The linux and Mac Operating Systems version are billed to launch latter this year.

Prophecy has a free downloadable two port version and could be upgraded to a four port version and even higher for $249.00 and $549.00 respectively.

Austin Akalanze

Voice over IP major players- The Skype appeal

Skype, a London based VoIP provider, is clearly a major player by any standard of measure, in the emerging voice over ip sector. With more than 40% of the North American market in her subscriber base, and over 40 million subscribers worldwide, Skype is indeed a major player in the global voip market.

Initially billed as a peer to peer communication platform, Skype is bridging the gap between its 40 million subscribers worldwide, and their non skype contacts, using her recently launced SkypeOut and SkypeIn paid plans.

SkypeOut is an innovative way for the skpe voip users to talk to family, friends and business associates anywhere in the world, who have not yet joined the skype bandwagon, at a substancially reduced rate. With about 1.6 million subscribers, SkypeOut offers long distance calling at local rates.

With SkypeIn, you can get your own, regular phone number. So if your friends who aren’t using Skype want to call you by dialing a regular number, you can still receive the call in Skype. And this is so, matter where you are in the world.

In a move to position herself in the much desired WiFi internet telephony, Skype has partnered with Boingo, a leader in the wireless sector to give her 45 million subscribers worldwide access to more than 18,000 Boingo WiFi hotspot around the world. Skype zones as this new hotspots are called, provide wireless access to Skype's on-the-move subscribers at hotels, airports, and other high traffic business locations.

Also contributing to Skype's tremendous growth is the ease of use of the software, cutting across different operating system platforms and integrating seamlessly with various systems security applications such as firewalls and virus protection program.

Austin Akalanze

Securing voice over IP- The SHOUT solution

One of the impediments to the growth of VoIP is the security implications. Voice over IP data is believed to be more suceptible to the activities of hackers than other kinds of data. Because internet protocols were not originally built for voice, it is the general belief that current security applications such as firewalls, do not provide adequate security for voice data. That is untill the arrival of SHOUT VoIP Migration Appliance (VMA).

A global supplier of communication equipments, net.com on July 6, 2005, introduced its SHOUT VoIP Migration Appliance that promises to deliver fortified security features that will make voip more secured and reliable.

SHOUT VoIP Migration Appliance addresses some of the most common security issues of voip such as direct denial of services, phishing/spoofing, and tracing and trapping of voice streams.
SHOUT VMA implements its Rogue Packe Ejector, a rock-solid firewall that prevents direct denial of services (DDOS) attacks that can bring down an IP network.
Its MD5 Authentication protocol challenges devices that attempt to call the network and verify responses against an internal table or an external database to prevent spoofing and phishing. Spoofing or phishing is a favorite tool of traded for identity theft perpetrators in cyberspace.
Further security is provided by the Transport Layer Security which prevents tracing and trapping of a voice stream to guard identity and information by encrypting the open SIP signaling .

Finally, further encryption is provided in real time by Secure Real Time Protocol

Austin Akalanze