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Tag: VoIP

  • How to Optimize a Network for VoIP

    How to Optimize a Network for VoIP

    Many businesses are moving from traditional telephone systems to Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). VoIP has various productive and cost benefits that business owners can take advantage of. Reliability is especially crucial for all small businesses, and this is something VoIP provides you with. Because VoIP uses the same internet connection you use in the rest of the building, fluctuations in quality and connectivity are common, and both lead to a degraded experience. To improve things, you should optimize your network to ensure you get the best experience possible. In this article, we will look at a few ways to do this.

    Pick a VoIP Provider

    Before you can optimize your network for VoIP, you should first choose a VoIP provider. The provider should have services that are catered to the business, industry, or field you are in. For example, hospitals should lean towards VoIP providers who can ensure reliable and cost-effective services while also allowing healthcare professionals to connect to their colleagues or patients on mobile wherever they may be.

    At top10.com, you can read reviews of the best VoIP providers for hospitals with the features everyone who uses the option will appreciate. On the provided link you will also find the important features you should consider when choosing a VoIP provider for your hospital or healthcare facility as well as detailed reviews of the top five providers.

    Evaluate Your Connection Needs

    You should have enough bandwidth for the best VoIP experience. The amount of bandwidth you need will depend on the number of VoIP systems you install as well as the number of other systems that use the same connection. It will also depend on the number of concurrent calls you wish to make. To know your bandwidth, you can use various online tools that help you check your internet bandwidth and other factors that affect connection quality and reliability.

    Change Your Connection Type

    Beyond the bandwidth, you also need to ensure you are using the right types of connections. DSL is outdated in this age of fast internet speeds, and what you are looking for are coax cable and fiber cable connections. Numerous network service providers deploy fiber connections and deal with business-level internet bandwidth.

    Once you have determined your bandwidth and the type of connection you need, get in touch with a network provider who can give you both, plus higher internet speeds at a reasonable cost. Remember to also ask if they can provide more than one connection because having many more lines with higher internet speeds will improve call quality and reliability.

    Replace Outdated Equipment

    Your hardware is the other puzzle of your VoIP system. You can get by on old equipment, but not only will you risk your network’s security, you will also have a degraded call experience and the reliability of these systems is often very poor. Your network’s backbone is critical, and this is why you need to upgrade your networking hardware and equipment.

    The first thing you need to check is your switch. How old is it, and can it handle gigabit connections? The switch’s age will determine its reliability and its ability to handle gigabit speeds will determine the number of VoIP systems and concurrent calls you can have and the quality and reliability of your calls. The quality and reliability will be determined by the latency within the switch which is often higher in older equipment but almost non-existent in newer models.

    If you do not have a budget to overhaul your whole infrastructure, concentrate on the switching and routing gear. When you upgrade, do not skimp on cost because cheap equipment will lead to headaches sooner than more expensive equipment will.

    Manage Traffic Using a VLAN

    Your office will have different services running on the same network as is expected. These services interfere with each other and affect the performance of priority services like VoIP which need lots of bandwidth. Dedicated bandwidth for your VoIP system can solve this issue. But how do you get such dedicated bandwidth? You use a dedicated Virtual Local Area Network (VLAN).

    A VLAN allows you to prioritize bandwidth to applications that need more such as VoIP systems. By doing so, you can reduce latency and delays, which improves performance and the quality of service you get.

    Network segmentation and prioritization using a VLAN is a feature typically found on business-class routers and this is yet another reason to upgrade and not skimp on your routers. When creating a VLAN, give dedicated bandwidth to the ports used by your VoIP system.

    For the best reliability and performance, your VoIP system requires a good connection as well as adequate bandwidth. You can achieve both by using the right networking equipment and setting up your network the right way. Do not forget to check whether your switching and routing equipment can handle the additional bandwidth as well as how many VoIP systems you want to be installed.

  • Microsoft Teams Offers CarPlay Integration, Improves Calling

    Microsoft Teams Offers CarPlay Integration, Improves Calling

    Microsoft has announced significant improvements to Teams, adding CarPlay integration and improved calling features.

    Microsoft Teams is one of the company’s premier applications, and has been steadily dominating the corporate messaging market. The company is staking so much on Teams, that it sees it as “a platform that transcends operating systems that will be even bigger than Windows.”

    The latest announcement includes a number of significant improvements, including the ability to integrate with Apple’s CarPlay platform.

    CarPlay support: Placing and receiving calls in the car will soon be easier than ever, thanks to CarPlay support for Teams Calling. With CarPlay, you can use your vehicle’s built-in controls to operate Teams, including using Siri to place and answer calls.

    Microsoft is also improving the application’s calling features, helping Teams be a viable replacement for traditional phone options.

    Transfer calls between mobile and desktop: Teams makes it easy to place and receive calls from several different endpoints, including desktop and mobile devices, but sometimes you need to move locations or devices to finish your call. Starting in early 2021, you will be able to shift your calls between your mobile and desktop endpoints with an easy-to-use interface on the Teams app.

    Call merge: Calling users can bring multiple different one to one calls together to combine conversations and simplify multiple conversations. Call merge is now available for both PSTN calls and VoIP calls.

    Teams has long surpassed Slack’s user base, even as Microsoft continues to expand the platform’s ecosystem and abilities. These latest features continue to demonstrate Microsoft’s commitment to the platform and should be welcome improvements for customers.

  • What Is Advanced IVR and How Can Businesses Harness It to Increase Productivity?

    What Is Advanced IVR and How Can Businesses Harness It to Increase Productivity?

    In 2020, business phone systems are taking on new importance. 

    For one thing, the COVID-19 pandemic starkly showed the significance of talking to team members, colleagues, and business partners via (video) calls during remote work. In addition, phones also remain the top choice of 48% of US customers when it comes to picking a channel of communication to contact a business. 

    Modern business telephony is powered largely by VoIP, Voice over Internet Protocol. The shift of business phone services to the cloud has provided unprecedented flexibility. It has also enabled a large variety of additional functionalities to save clients countless headaches. 

    Advanced IVR is one of these functionalities. 

    But how exactly does it work? And how can you use this VoIP feature to boost your business’ communication efficiency and productivity? 

    What is IVR?

    IVR is short for Interactive Voice Response. It’s an advanced VoIP feature that today is often powered by artificial intelligence (AI). 

    Everyone is familiar with the previous generation of IVR. Call a business and chances are you’ll be greeted by a computerized voice asking you to “Press one for -”, before eventually routing you to the right extension. Advanced IVR goes far beyond that.  

    Basically, advanced IVR allows callers to interact with your business phone system by talking to it in their own words. They can phrase a specific request, or succinctly explain why they are calling. Then, the AI behind IVR parses those statements, and takes action – either forwarding the caller, or responding directly. 

    Throughout this process, the interaction is solely between the virtual assistant and the caller – without company agents having to take any sort of action. 

    This is made possible by Natural Language Processing (NLP), a voice recognition technology driving conversational AI. Natural speech is highly complex and context-dependent – further complicated by background noises, accents, and idiosyncratic pronunciation. 

    AI has the computational power to parse it nonetheless, especially prominent systems such as IBM Watson and Google Dialogflow. 

    But what exactly can you use advanced IVR for? 

    Route calls, prepare agents – and cut frustration!

    A central advantage of advanced IVR is that it allows callers to connect to business representatives as efficiently as possible, minimizing frustration. 

    Callers are spared a five-round game of “Press 1 for”, and the minutes spent listening to a mostly irrelevant menu of choices that 61% of customers detest. Instead, they can state why they’re calling in their own words, and IVR will route them to a relevant agent right away. 

    But AI also makes agents’ lives easier. IVR will transcribe the caller’s request and forward it to agents together with other relevant information, giving them an invaluable heads-up. Straight off, agents will know if they’ll be dealing with someone with a routine problem or an emergency. 

    What’s more, the AI behind advanced IVR can do emotional analysis of the tone of someone’s voice and tell whether they are neutral, happy, scared, impatient, irritated, or furious. Again, this is an advantage for agents since they’ll be warned before facing a customer who might go ballistic. 

    But the system can also make routing decisions on the basis of emotion. It can, for instance, let an angry- or scared-sounding caller with an emergency jump the queue, rather than leaving them stuck for half an hour behind three people who only want to reschedule appointments. 

    Implement customer self-service

    A second major application of advanced IVR is customer self-service. 

    Modern VoIP business phone systems can be integrated with any number of other business platforms, letting the conversational AI access databases, and make adjustments and changes without the intervention of a human agent. 

    Consequently, the IVR can take care of routine customer requests such as scheduling or canceling appointments, or tracking shipments. This leaves company representatives free to efficiently deal with less monotonous and more complex requests. 

    Thanks to voice biometrics, IVR systems can even handle sensitive requests, such as checking account balances. 

    Statistics show that up to 83% of customers prefer this form of self-service over waiting to talk to a human agent. All things considered, this is unsurprising – especially since IVR-powered self-service is available 24/7. 

    Finally, thanks to integrations with Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems, IVR-client interactions can even be highly personalized. 

    The Bottom Line

    Overall, advanced IVR can streamline communication, especially in customer service – to boost efficiency and productivity. It takes the pressure off agents, allowing them enough time to deal with complex requests, and reduces business owners’ costs for staffing, training, and onboarding. 

    More crucially, though, it increases customer satisfaction by improving call routing, cutting hold time, and providing a frustration-free system for 24/7 self-service for routine requests.

    So that a happy customer stays around – until the next call.

  • WhatsApp’s Free Voice Calling Hits iOS

    A couple months after WhatsApp debuted its free voice calling feature on Android, the app is finally launching it on iOS.

    Don’t be surprised if you don’t yet have the option to make VoIP calls, however, as WhatsApp says it’s rolling out slowly over the next few weeks.

    “WhatsApp Calling: Call your friends and family using WhatsApp for free, even if they’re in another country. WhatsApp calls use your phone’s Internet connection rather than your cellular plan’s voice minutes. Data charges may apply. Note: WhatsApp Calling is rolling out slowly over the next several weeks,” says the app in its iOS changelog.

    The iOS update also brings a handful of new features, like a quick camera button and the ability to send multiple videos at once.

    But the free VoIP calling is the big deal, of course. WhatsApp just surpassed 800 million monthly active users, making it the biggest messaging app in the world. WhatsApp has already cut into carriers’ SMS totals, as people are more and more turning to the messaging app as an alternative to traditional texting.

    And letting users make internet-based voice calls all over the world will only cut deeper.

    WhatsApp hit 600 million MAUs back in August of 2014, and then crossed the 700 million threshold in January of this year. Now it’s 800 million. Keeping this pace, WhatsApp should have over a billion MAUs by year’s end.

  • Is Your Technology Saving Your Business Time and Money?

    Everyone is familiar with the saying, “Time is money.” That phrase isn’t lost when it comes to running your business. I’m sure you’re all too aware that as time ticks away, money can be slipping out the door. Guess what? The technology services you select for your business can actually help you out in ways you might not have considered: by saving you time and money. Today, I want to talk to you about a new service from CenturyLink Business: Managed Office.

    In a nutshell, Managed Office is an all-in-one data, voice and business applications solution, and provides the entire IT communication infrastructure most businesses need. In laymen’s terms, what that actually means is that one vendor manages your Internet, network, phone system, and business software programs. What you’re probably saying now is, “Yes, okay, Chris, I don’t really care about that—all I care about is why this is such a huge deal.” Let me tell you why.

    Let’s talk about cost first. This pricing structure that CenturyLink offers is unique: your cost for Managed Office, if purchased with an Internet plan, will remain at one flat rate per month, per seat. With a product like this, you know what you’re getting and how much it’s going to cost every month. This can help bring a sense of stability to your business and help you budget accordingly. What this also means is you already know the cost implications of adding, or, if necessary, removing employees.

    Your next thought is probably, “OK, sure, I can now budget for these employees, but I don’t have the time to set this all up.” And you’re right; this sounds like a lot of work, but it’s not—CenturyLink has you covered there. They come in and provide all the required equipment and install everything for you. They train your employees on all the advanced features so you get the most out of the service. And since they manage every aspect of the service, including the equipment and software, you don’t have to worry about maintenance or upgrading your technology ever again.

    This one-vendor approach is what’s going to be your biggest advantage in terms of saving money and time. First and foremost, you’re not spending your time going through invoices from different vendors and paying for your servers, phones, software and Internet separately. It’s all in one place at one time. The added convenience is that you don’t actually own any of this, so you don’t have to worry about managing equipment. Managed Office takes all the minutia of technology and handles it for you. In terms of cost, you don’t need to purchase any expensive equipment—it’s all included, even new IP phone sets.

    This also helps when you’re having a problem. You do not have to go and call five different vendors. You only have one number to call. You get to spend less time on the phone, less time worrying about the problem, and more time focusing on running your business. The dedicated 24/7 support makes CenturyLink Managed Office a true “White Glove service.”

    Another big time drain is having to manually install software updates and security patches for your entire staff. If you have an IT consultant, manager or director, they can tell you a big part of their day is spent making sure everyone in your company is up to date so they can all work off of the same applications. Imagine if you could take away that burden. Managed Office proactively takes care of all updates as soon as they happen and pushes them out to all your computers proactively. Not only do you get the benefit of someone managing this activity for you, but you can now rest assured that your programs are up to date with the latest features—all without paying for new software licenses.

    Speaking of software applications, CenturyLink offers a variety of business applications that you can take advantage of. Want Microsoft programs for all your employees? Managed Office comes with Office 365. Instead of individually buying a program license for each of your employees, Office 365 is included as a cloud-based service, so your staff can access information from virtually anywhere—from their laptops, phones or tablets.

    If you’re looking for business tools like SharePoint collaboration and Hosted Exchange Email, or for enhanced PC and email security features and online data backup, look no further—it’s all included in your Managed Office service as well. It even includes 1TB of secure data storage on the Microsoft OneDrive cloud. That’s more data than most computer hard drives hold, allowing you to access everything, from any Internet connected device, including your tablet and phone. You’re essentially customizing your technology service to address your specific business needs.

    You might be concerned that your business doesn’t have an IT staff, and while Managed Office doesn’t take the place of one, it does offer your small business a solution that is fully managed by CenturyLink. This is the same technology that is used by large companies—CenturyLink has adapted it for the needs of small and medium businesses like yours.

    I mean, just think about it. The service includes design, all equipment, installation, updates and training, and manages everything necessary for your business’s IT communication infrastructure.

    I hope you’ve seen the benefit of Managed Office and that I’ve at least piqued your curiosity. CenturyLink has a more in-depth explanation of their solution at www.centurylink.com/managedoffice.

    Commissioned News Story (Source: CenturyLink)

  • Xbox One Gets Its Official Headset

    For those who have not abandoned Microsoft’s Xbox One train–or, if you rejoined it after they eliminated the troublesome features–there is a new item for you to whet your appetite with: the official headset for the new console. Screaming at piss-poor CoD players has never been easier!!! Facetiousness aside, the device resembles the same official headset used by the Xbox 360.

    That only makes sense, if you consider Microsoft wanting the transition from one environment to the next to be as seamless as possible. An example of the new peripheral:

    Xbox One Headset

    According to the product page, the headset promises the following:

    • A better multiplayer experience*
    • Chat privately with your friends while gaming
    • Chat in crystal-clear digital wideband audio
    • Lightweight and comfortable for long gaming sessions
    • Responsive microphone
    • Connects to Xbox One Wireless Controller — no batteries needed

    The asterisk text reads, “*Voice chat features require Xbox Live Gold membership (sold separately).”

    Considering the expansion port is on the bottom of the controller, past the D-pad, players who use the headset will be able to control the volume without putting their controller down. The headset’s plug-in port features the necessary volume control buttons. As you might expect, the headset does not come included with the Xbox One, and the product page does not feature a price point.

    For comparison’s sake, Amazon lists the 360 headset at 19.99 (there’s no listing for the XB1 model). The fact that here is more plastic used with the Xbox One version, as well as the USB-based controller plug-in technology, it’s safe to say the Xbox One headset will cost more than its 360 counterpart.

  • Skype Updated To Version 6.3 On Windows

    Windows Live Messenger users have a little over a month before they’re assimilated into the Skype collective. Before then, the team has been busy preparing Skype for the influx of new users that will be flooding in throughout April.

    Skype announced that version 6.3 is now live for its Windows client. It’s a “maintenance release” which means that you won’t be seeing any major new features added, but the fixes contained therein are sure to make Skype a more stable and friendlier experience:

    Skype Updated To Version 6.3 On Windows

    Despite all of the above fixes, Skype 6.3 does have one little problem. The software can no longer display birthday notifications on Windows. There is no current workaround, but it shouldn’t be too much of a concern. You probably spend a lot of time on Facebook, and it will make sure that you see every birthday notification.

    If you don’t have a Skype account yet, you can grab the latest version here. If you do, it should download the update the next time you open the software.

  • Facebook Messenger Rolls Out Free VoIP Calling to U.S. Users

    U.S. Facebook Messenger users now have a brand new way to make free voice calls. Well, kind of free.

    Facebook has begun the U.S. rollout of VoIP calling in their Messenger app, after testing the feature for nearly two weeks in Canada. The VoIP calling in Canada came along with an update to the app that saw all users gain support for voice messaging (which works a lot like Facebook voicemail). Facebook said that the VoIP calling would come to U.S. users if everything went over well, and apparently that’s happened.

    Sorry, Android users. It’s currently only a Messenger for iOS thing.

    To receive the VoIP calling functionality, simply open up your app. If the feature has been rolled out to you, you should see a “Free Call” button once you tap the “i” icon on the top right of open message threads. You don’t have to download an update.

    It is a “free” call, if you are using Wi-Fi. But the Facebook Messenger voice calling with also use cellular data when no Wi-Fi is present, so it will eat up your current data plan a bit.

    Free VoIP calling isn’t anything new, but it is pretty big news when it lands on a Facebook app. Of course, the benefits of using Facebook Messenger to make voice calls are that it’s free with Wi-Fi and can be used anytime an internet connection is present – even if you’re experiencing a vortex or terrible cell reception.

    This is all part of a push that Facebook is making to better assert itself into the world of mobile communications. Last month, Facebook began allowing users to use Facebook Messanger for Android by simply signing up with a phone number with no Facebook account required. They also unveiled a new app called “Poke,” which allows users to send convert video, photo, or text messages that self-destruct after a given period of time. Now, their Messenger app is a bigger player in the game with voice messaging and voice calling.

    [via The Verge]

  • Facebook Messenger Now Supports Voice Messaging, VoIP Calling in Canada

    Facebook Messenger Now Supports Voice Messaging, VoIP Calling in Canada

    Today, Facebook takes another step in fashioning itself as the premier way to message your friends. An update to their standalone iOS and Android Messenger app will allow users to send voice messages for the first time, and they’re testing VoIP calling.

    First up, the new voice messaging. It’s exactly what it sounds like. The new Messenger app now features a big red record button inside the conversation stream. All users have to do is hold down the botton, record their voice message, and let go when they’re done. As of now, voice messages are limited to one minute.

    The voice messages will appear directly in the conversation stream, alongside text messages.

    Next, Facebook is also testing VoIP calling from the Messenger app – but only in Canada and only for iOS users. Canadian iOS users cannot make voice calls to Android users or U.S. users. Like all of Facebook’s location-specific tests, if it goes over well, you can expect it to roll out to more locations eventually.

    The new VoIP calling is free, kind of. It will use up the data on your mobile plan. Canadian iOS users can access the feature by pushing the “i” icon within a conversation.

    Count this as another attempt by Facebook to grab some more messaging market share. Last month, Facebook began allowing users to use Facebook Messanger for Android by simply signing up with a phone number – no Facebook account required.

    And just a couple of weeks ago, Facebook unveiled their new standalone “Poke” app that takes on Snapchat. It allows users to send self-destructing text, photo, or video messages.

    The Messenger updates for iOS and Android are currently rolling out.

    [via TechCrunch]

  • Ethiopian Regime Criminalizes Skype And Other VoIP Services

    In what some people are calling a response to the “Arab Spring” that recently swept across Northern Africa, the extremist regime currently running the impoverished nation of Ethiopia has outlawed Skype and other VoIP services. The new law prohibits all VoIP traffic along with audio and video data traffic via social media.

    The new law, which came into effect on May 24th, makes the use of VoIP services punishable by hefty fines and up to 15 years in prison. When asked about the new law, the government said that it “is intended to protect national security and protect the national, state-owned telecoms carrier from losing revenue to Skype and similar services.”

    The problem with this is that only about 850,000 of the countries 85 million people have access to the internet. The 1% line penetration rate that Ethiopia has is the second worse in Africa behind Sierra Leone.

    The other part of the law is that it also authorizes the government to inspect any imports of voice communication equipment and accessories, while also banning inbound shipments without prior permission.

    This law is part of a recent crackdown in the last couple of years. The measures the government has gone through include shutting down some internet cafes that offered VoIP, and starting in 2006 they made it mandatory for internet cafes to keep records of the names and addresses of their customers in an effort to clamp down on bloggers and other users critical of the regime.

    I feel bad for these people because they now have even less communication with the outside world. Like their country isn’t bad enough as it is.

  • Skype Begins Using Linux Boxes For Its VoIP Services

    With Skype now being owned by Microsoft, the company has the advantage of being able to completely overhaul their infrastructure for the betterment of their own and its users’ security. The change, replacing its P2P “supernodes” with Microsoft-hosted Linux boxes, would have cost Skype a pretty penny to implement on their own.

    Ars Technica got the scoop from Immunity Security’s Kostya Kortchinsky who said Microsoft replaced the nodes about two months ago. The old system would use self-described supernodes that consisted of users with enough bandwidth and processing power to transfer data and keep Skype’s VoIP service running.

    The new system, however, does away with this system according to Kortchinsky. The new system contains only about 10,000 supernodes hosted by Microsoft on Linux boxes. That’s a big drop compared to the old system which had about 48,000 supernodes.

    The drop doesn’t mean that the new Linux boxes are worse off than the old system. It’s actually better with the new boxes running grsecurity which makes them more impervious to attack. The new boxes also are able to host more with less resources. Kortchinsky told Ars Technica that the old system could only handle about 800 end users per supernode. The new Linux boxes can handle up to 4,100 users as of now, but that could be theoretically upgraded to 100,000 users.

    Microsoft provided a statement to Ars Technica that confirms the use of the Linux boxes, but says that the P2P nature of Skype’s VoIP service is still intact:

    As part of our ongoing commitment to continually improve the Skype user experience, we developed supernodes which can be located on dedicated servers within secure datacentres. This has not changed the underlying nature of Skype’s peer-to-peer (P2P) architecture, in which supernodes simply allow users to find one another (calls do not pass through supernodes). We believe this approach has immediate performance, scalability and availability benefits for the hundreds of millions of users that make up the Skype community.

    All of this is just another argument that Linux really is into everything these days. Linux is really the most secure OS in the world so using it to run servers for Skype is a fantastic decision and one that Microsoft should be lauded for. It does seem kind of weird, however, for Microsoft to be embracing open source technology like this when they themselves are only starting to join the open source bandwagon. I guess anything can happen in a world where Microsoft is in the list of top 20 Linux contributors.

    Do you think Microsoft made the right move in moving the Skype VoIP infrastructure to Linux? Or do you think it should have stuck with a more traditional P2P model? Let us know in the comments.

  • Microsoft and Twilio Join Forces To Offer Communication APIs

    Skype changed the way we communicate online by offering an easy and affordable way to call anybody on a land line or other Skype users. Microsoft bought Skype last year to pump money into the development of more Skype products. Enter Twilio, an API that allows anybody to build an app for cloud-based calling over land lines. Microsoft has entered into an agreement with Twilio to offer Windows Azure developers the Twilio APIs.

    If you’re confused as to why Microsoft would go with somebody else over Skype, don’t be. Skype is proprietary software that isn’t suited for cloud-based apps. Twilio is a cloud-based API that’s going to facilitate the creation of apps over Windows Azure, a cloud-based app building and hosting platform like Google’s App Engine. It would take Microsoft and Skype some time to create a cloud-based API. Why build when you can just partner with a company already in the industry?

    The deal has Windows Azure developers being able to take advantage of Twilio’s voice, SMS, VoIP and Phone Number APIs for cloud-based apps. Twilio’s main advantage is that it offers these services with small amounts of code. In fact, Twilio’s claim to fame is that it only takes three lines of code to implement voice calling in an app.

    Twilio also has pretty fantastic rates. You don’t pay to use the API, but rather pay for the amount of minutes that people use on your app. It’s as low as one cent inbound and two cents for outbound calls. You can also create your own phone numbers which only cost a measly $1 a month. The service is already pretty popular among a large group of companies according to its customer list.

    As TechCrunch points out, however, who uses Windows Azure? Sure, it’s a great service on par with Google’s App Engine, but I never see anybody talking about it except for Microsoft. Where’s all the praise, all the government and corporate endorsements? Will the offer of Twilio be enough to sway developers to start using Azure? Well, the companies are offering 1,000 texts or inbound minutes if you upgrade from a free account.

    Will you switch to Windows Azure for Twilio? Or do you prefer another cloud-based Web application platform? Let us know in the comments.

  • VOIP Company Now Lets You Port Landline Number

    VOIP Company Now Lets You Port Landline Number

    netTALK.COM, Inc. announced today that it now supports local number portability (LNP), enabling customers in the U.S. to keep their existing landline phone number.

    Anastasios ‘Takis’ Kyriakides, President and CEO of netTALK, says:

    “Keeping your own number is a pivotal development for netTALK. We consistently find that the number porting feature is a non-negotiable feature that businesses and consumers want, as they are ready to fire their phone company and save money, but didn’t want to lose long-established phone numbers that they’ve invested in advertising among their friends, customers and colleagues. We trademarked ‘Fire Your Phone Company’ for a reason, and we remain committed to making it easier, more affordable and rewarding for consumers to make the switch.”

    Copper phone lines are increasingly being replaced by new technology offerings like those from netTALK and other VOIP providers, creating increased competition for the heavily monopolized wireline telecommunications industry. netTALK has undercut Vonage pricing by nearly 50%.

    The Pew Research Center reports that online phone calling has taken off as a quarter of American adult Internet users (24%) have placed phone calls online. That amounts to 19% of all American adults. On any given day 5% of Internet users are going online to place VOIP calls.

    The netTALK DUO enables free nationwide calls to any phone in Canada and the U.S. from anywhere in the world, as well as low-cost, flat-rate international call plans and a variety of other features, detailed at www.netTALK.com. No computer is necessary to make calls using the netTALK DUO, as it simply plugs directly into a router or modem (or computer).

  • Infographic: Daily Skype Life

    Infographic: Daily Skype Life

    What’s it like being a person that uses Skype? Are you apart of the crowd or on the loner side of the fence? Is there a much larger Skype community at play than many would suspect? If their “direct from the horse’s mouth” infographic is any indication, then yes, the Skype network is indeed teaming with users.

    Thanks to a post by Skype’s head of social media, Jennifer Caukin, over at the Skype blog, these numbers concerning daily users and their habits have been presented in a visual format, and the scope of Skype’s user base is quite impressive. First, the infographic in question:

    Skype Infographic

    As is the case with most infographics worth their salt, Skype’s is big on numbers. Like, for instance, the amount of daily Skype users and the amount of minutes these folks use on a daily basis. The findings, as you can see, are impressive.

    According to Skype’s data, 65 million users log on daily, and of these millions, they use 700,000,000 minutes–daily–on Skype-to-Skype phone calls. Over at the Skype blog, Caukin offers some perspective on just how big 700 million is:

    The figure that is most impressive is 700 million minutes of free Skype-to-Skype calls each day. To put it in perspective, 700 million is the equivalent of going around the earth 28,000 times in one day, if each minute represents a mile. Or 17,400 times if each minute is a kilometer.

    In order to figure the final total–300 million minutes of Skype video calls–the team took the percentage of Skype-to-Skype calls that are done via video, in this case, 42 percent, and after some quick math, they rounded 284,000,000 to the nearest one hundred millionth, giving us the 300 million total.

    Needless to say, with all this data flying around Skype’s network, the company’s infrastructure had better be of the load-bearing kind. With the distinct lack of Skype backlash concerning outages and network issues, there’s not much cause for concern. The next question is, is the Skype infrastructure prepared for the possibility of even more growth?

  • Skype Tackles the Home Phone Market

    Surely, this news will please E.T., right? Oh, wait. That’s “phone home,” not “home phone.” What we have here is a device that allows would-be Skype users to access the service from their home phone.

    That’s right. No longer are potential Skype users forced to have a computer device to enjoy the VOIP service. To do so, you must first acquire the FREETALK Connect·Me Home Phone Adapter for Skype, a new add-on component that allows users to convert their handset to a Skype device. The description, which was offered over at the Skype blog by Helen Blackburn, Head of the Partner Product Management team at Skype, says:

    The FREETALK Connect·Me Home Phone Adapter is a hassle-free, plug-and-play solution that lets you use your existing handset to make free Skype-to-Skype calls, as well as low-cost calls to landlines and mobile phones worldwide at our extremely low Skype rates.

    While you don’t need a computing device to use the new Skype adapter, you do need a broadband Internet connection. Not only are the Skype home phone adapters now available, the post also discusses the launch of the GE Digital Cordless Expandable Telephone with Skype.

    Essentially, GE’s phone has the Skype Home Phone adapter built into it, allowing users the same kind of freedom the adapter itself offers. That is, to make Skype-to-Skype calls for free. Other details include:

    …connect with Skype contacts for free, make low-cost calls to mobiles and landlines and manage your Skype contacts, all without the need of a PC.

    There are also pay plans for those of you who’d like to use the Skype home phone services for extended connections with landlines and mobile devices, just in case you Skype list isn’t all inclusive:

    • FREETALK Connect·Me + more than 60 minutes** of complimentary calls to landlines and mobiles via Skype ($39.99)
    • FREETALK Connect·Me + 12 months of calls to landlines and mobile phones in the U.S. and Canada and 200 minutes**of calls to international landlines and mobiles ($59.99)
    • FREETALK Connect·Me + a 3-month Unlimited*World subscription to the US and Canada plus landlines in 40 other countries ($59.99)

    These exist for GE’s cordless phone as well. For more information on this, check out the blog post, which features a video highlighting the benefits of Skype on your home phone.


    Come for the advertisement, stay for the guy’s look of satisfaction at the 19-second mark of the video.

    Is this a “begone, Vonage” move on Skype’s part? Has Skype thrown down the “there can be only one” gauntlet in regards to successful VOIP service? Let us know what you think.

  • VoIP Market to Grow to $40 Billion by 2015

    Internet calling and communication is getting increasingly popular, according to a new report from research firm Point Topic. The report found that voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) now has more than 120 million subscribers globally.

    Do you utilize Internet calling services, or VoIP, often? We’d love to know.

    The report, specifically, looked at fixed line VoIP services and predicted that it would turn into a $40 billion a year market by 2015. Oliver Johnson, the CEO of Point Topic, told us that this was a “very cautious projection” and that “it could be much higher.”

    During 2010, the global growth of VoIP was 12.6 percent. Although this number seems slightly low, Johnson told us that it was promising. He believes the real growth is coming in the next few years, but that the trends that this data illustrates are still important to understand. For example, also in 2010, over 50 percent of telephone traffic in France was over some form of VoIP service.

    He credits the growth to technological advances but said that it is causing concern for traditional phone services.

    “It’s scaring the bejesus out of the traditional telephone processing… they’re seeing their revenues being cannibalized,” he said.

    “It’s not going to be an empty marketplace,” he also pointed out. “Telephones have existed for over 100 years and to actually start to capture some of that market is quite difficult.”

    In spite of the positive signs for growth, Johnson said that the VoIP market still faced multiple challenges. While there are technical and mobile challenges, he thinks the biggest challenge will be in regards to regulation.

    “The more that the incumbents feel a threat or start to see their revenues challenged, the more interest they will have in persuading lawmakers in putting their case, as forcefully as they have in other instances, I’m sure, from blocking this sort of service,” he explained.

    Even though this report focused on fixed line telephone services, Johnson told us that the most growth and revenue would come in Internet telephony services such as Skype.

  • Google Looks to the Crowd to Take On Microsoft and Skype

    Google was already starting to compete with Skype a little, by releasing things like video chat within Gmail, but Gmail is only a small segment of people in the broader landscape of web users. Now Google is thinking bigger, and it has to, if it wants to compete directly in this space, as the company’s arch rival Microsoft now owns Skype.

    By bigger, that is, from the browser itself.

    A little over a year ago, Google purchased Global IP Solutions (or GIPS) for $68 million. Now, they’re using the technology from that in the WebRTC initiative, an open source project for third party developers to create communication apps.

    “With WebRTC, we’d like to make the browser the home for innovation in real time communications,” Google says. Of course, Google’s browser is also its operating system.

    “As a first significant step toward integrating the WebRTC project into Chrome the WebRTC code is now about to land in Chromium as third party software at src/third_party/webrtc. This means that the crucial media processing capabilities necessary to implement real-time communication are available as a part of Chromium,” the company announced. “We are working hard to complete the remaining steps for a full integration in Chromium and Chrome including JavaScript APIs in WebKit and handling of the native audio and video capture and rendering. When we are done, any web developer shall be able to create RTC applications, like the Google Talk client in Gmail, without using any plugins but only WebRTC components that runs in the sandbox.”

    @webrtc
    WebRTC project    Blog Post: WebRTC taking it’s first baby step towards Chrome! http://t.co/XcFYA71 1 day ago via web · powered by @socialditto

    The company says there is currently now free, hiqh quality, complete solution that enables communication in the browser, but that WebRTC enables this. The package includes audio, video, and network components.

    Google is not charging for use of the technology. The code can be accessed here.

    Developers don’t have to release the code for their products that take advantage of the open source code.

  • Vonage Co-Founder on the Social Revolution

    I think we can all agree that the world is in the midst of a social media revolution. Social media not only plays an integral role in our personal lives, but it is also a critical component in our professional environments.

    How has the social media revolution changed your life? Share your story with us.

    According to Jeff Pulver, who is known for his work with VoIP and as the co-founder of Vonage, everything he ever needed to know about social media, he discovered at age 15. At that point, he understood that social media was all about listening, connecting, sharing, and engaging.

    Pulver told us that all his work with VoIP was motivated by his goal of connecting people both on the telephone and on the computer. He believes that social media is not about single platform. Instead, he believes it creates more places to have conversations.

    Three of his favorite words are “fear, greed, and disruption.” He said these words have “affected the way we all communicate in business.” While these words appear to be negative, Pulver pointed out that there such a thing as “positive disruption,” which triggers change. Social media is one example of this “positive disruption” and the changes it has brought about are extensive.

    He associates social sites such as Facebook and Twitter with the “Purple Minutes” classification that he popularized back in the early 2000’s. The term was used to describe the value-added IP traffic to separate it from the black and white phone minutes.

    “It’s all these years later we’re starting to start to see how people are using IP-based networks to do things they never could do before,” he said.

    It is for these reasons that Pulver believes we are experiencing a social media revolution in which everyone has access to information.

    “It’s not a revolution about ‘we the people,’ but about ‘me the people.’ It’s these individual ‘me’s’ that are able to leverage these technologies directly and indirectly to effect positive and forceful change in the world,” he said.

    Recent events such as the chaos in the Middle East and the band of natural disasters show how social media is sparking a revolution that is bringing people together throughout the world. As the revolution continues to evolve, those that do not jump on board with it are likely to face challenges.

    “The companies that don’t get it may be disrupted out of business… those companies that understand this can actually change the way they do their business,” said Pulver.

  • TMobile Brings VoIP To Facebook

    TMobile Brings VoIP To Facebook

    While the future of TMobile may still be undecided, at least in relation to the AT&T merger, that hasn’t prevented the company from moving forward on various projects. The latest involves bringing free Voice over IP services to Facebook, which should facilitate Facebook’s ongoing transition from social media platform to a “one-site-does-it-all” type of web portal.

    The service, called Bobsled, requires the launch of TMobile’s Bobsled installer, meaning, yes, there is more software to be installed for this service to work. However, once the install is complete, users will have the capability to call people on their friends list. The service makes use of the Facebook Chat utility, and Bobsled users can leave voicemail messages for friends who aren’t available. Over at the TMobile blog, it is implicated that Bobsled application was developed to meet the growing demand for a voice chat service on Facebook.

    TMobile's Bobsled

    The use of the Facebook Chat environment supports this. Another benefit of the chat technology allows users to place “one-click calls” instead of having to dial a specific number. The blog entry also indicates calls from PC environment to Mac machines will also be free. Apparently, there was some question about this? Did Jobs and Gates Balmer disapprove of this capability?

    While the threat of being swallowed up by AT&T is still alive, that doesn’t mean TMobile doesn’t have further plans for the Bobsled application:

    In the near future, T-Mobile plans to evolve Bobsled by T-Mobile to include video chat, the ability to place VoIP calls to mobile and landline U.S. numbers, and will offer applications on smartphones and tablets across various mobile platforms, regardless of the carrier that powers such devices.

    It’s hard not to wonder, however, if AT&T will allow such creativity to flourish, provided their purchase of TMobile — Why develop a working 4G network when you can buy someone else’s? — goes through.

  • Skype Breaks Record with 29 Million Users Online

    Skype has broken a new record, hitting 29 million people online. On Skype’s "Big Blog", Peter Parkes writes:

    We’ve passed another milestone – at approximately 1800 GMT yesterday, there were more than 29 million people online on Skype. Another record broken, and an opportunity for us to remind you that you can get Skype in all sorts of places – on your computer, on your mobile and even on your TV.

    According to ComputerWeekly, Skype actually had 29,527,474 people logged in at the same time yesterday. 

    Last month, the company made a similar announcement when it reached 28 million users online, just a week after hitting 27 million. 

    Skype has been making a lot of moves since breaking away from eBay that should continue to help fuel its growth. For example, the company recently acquired Qik, a popular mobile video service. Skype also launched a business version of its service with group video calling. 

    According to a report from PCMag, Skype is pursuing a deal with AT&T to provide video calling service, and plans to merge Skype and Qik together over time.

    Skype Video Calling

     

  • Hacker Gets 10 Years For $1.4 Million VoIP Theft

    The first person ever charged with hacking into Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) networks and reselling  VoIP services was sentenced today to 120 months in prison, United States Attorney Paul J. Fishman announced.

    Edwin Andres Pena, 27 transmitted over 10 million minutes of unauthorized phone calls over the victim’s networks.
    DOJ
    Pena, a Venezuelan citizen, fled the U.S. after his arrest in 2006 and was later apprehended in Mexico in February 2009. Pena pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit computer hacking and wire fraud and one count of wire fraud in February 2010.

    “Theft is theft whether you rob a bank or hack into somebody else’s network and steal their services,” said Fishman.

    “Hackers attacking new and emerging technologies should not assume that law enforcement cannot keep up with them, even when they operate from the shadows or from other countries.”

    Through this scheme, Pena sold more than 10 million minutes of Internet phone service to unknowing telecom businesses at deeply discounted rates, causing a loss of more than $1.4 million in less than a year. The victimized Newark-based company, which transmits VoIP services for other telecom businesses, was billed for more than 500,000 unauthorized telephone calls routed through its calling network that were “sold” to the defendant’s unwitting customers.