Source: www.voip-news.com

There is a new handset coming from TCM Mobile that will work on both the TCM Mobile Cellular VoIP Network and on traditional GSM cellular networks. The dual band phone is scheduled for release in two to three months.

“While our new handset is scheduled for release in two to three months, we can currently take any existing dual band handset available on the market and, together with its manufacturer, embed TCM’s revolutionary, patented software into it. This represents a significant opportunity for these manufacturers to grow sales of their own branded handsets in conjunction with the deployment of TCM’s Cellular VoIP network,” said a TCM Mobile senior executive.

According to TCM Mobile:

With existing dual band handsets currently on the market, the GSM cellular service is the default mode while WiFi is a value added feature allowing for lower cost service in home/office enterprise environments. TCM’s dual band device, however, is the first of its kind whereby the Cellular VoIP service is the default mode while a GSM network can be used when outside TCM’s coverage area.

Source: www.voip-news.com

There is a new tool available for commercial maritime operators that can add an additional dedicated VoIP telephone line specifically for crew calling on KVH’s maritime VoIP services. The mini-VSAT Broadband Crew Calling System from KVH Industries

“In the highly competitive commercial maritime industry, offering affordable communications is an easy and effective step to help attract new crew members, improve crew efficiency and satisfaction, and reduce the costs incurred by crew turnover,” explained Brent C. Bruun, KVH’s vice president of sales and business development. “In a recent survey by ShipTalk, Ltd., professional mariners ranked access to a telephone as the second most important facility to have on board a vessel. By adding our crew calling option to a new or existing TracPhone V7 system, vessel owners and operators will take full advantage of their mini-VSAT Broadband service connection while enjoying the benefits to crew morale and retention rates that come when crew members are able to stay in touch with friends and family anywhere on the globe.”

According to KVH:

Adding the crew calling option is a simple process. A dedicated Crew Calling Gateway is connected to the TracPhone V7, thereby establishing a link for a dedicated crew calling phone. Crew members will be able to purchase a calling card from the ship’s captain or buy minutes directly from KVH via credit card. They will then be able to place calls anywhere in the world via this dedicated phone while the ship’s business is handled via the two enhanced VoIP lines that come standard with mini-VSAT Broadband service.

Together with the KVH TracPhone V7, the mini-VSAT Broadband service comprises the first end-to-end 24-inch VSAT hardware, service, and support package available for maritime communications. The mini-VSAT Broadband service currently offers Voice over IP telephone and Internet access as fast as 512 Kbps (upload) and 2 Mbps (download) at fixed monthly rates to mariners throughout North America, the Caribbean, the North Atlantic, Europe, the Northern Pacific, and the Persian Gulf. KVH also recently announced an agreement with SP-JSAT to expand mini-VSAT Broadband coverage into Asia Pacific waters and the Indian Ocean.

Source: alanweinkrantz.typepad.com

Over the last two years, I have been meeting periodically with San Antonio’s Ed Cross, whose vision of making the city’s urban core a great and fun place to live.  Now with his Vistana ready for move in, Ed decided to go with U-verse that is pre-wired in the building.  Here’s my interview and tour….
The Vistana – Urban Residential High Rise Apartments in San Antonio with AT&T U-verse from Alan Weinkrantz on Vimeo.

Source: alanweinkrantz.typepad.com

AT&T is getting cooler and hipper by the minute.  Here’s March Tweetness —  a tool that allows the March Madness audience to engage with each other and feed off the excitement and energy surrounding the games.   March Tweetness alllows fans to find, follow and engage with the most exciting March Madness conversations happening in real-time. You can follow specific games, teams, players, fan groups.

Oh…. follow me on Twitter @alanweinkrantz

Source: www.voip-news.com

Does the US need a national policy on broadband for businesses? Larissa Herda, chairwoman, CEO and president of tw telecom thinks so. And she thinks that Congress and the FCC should establish it as a way to pave the road of innovation and create jobs.

“We must enable the enterprise with technological solutions that will propel and accelerate growth,” said Herda. “We can continue the path of the last decade, permitting consolidation and deregulation to limit competition and forestall innovation. Or, we can develop a meaningful broadband policy for businesses, and truly unleash the power of competition for the benefit of the entire U.S. economy.

While spurring job growth and strengthening business is important, is this the role government should really be playing? And furthermore, aren’t there pressing national issues for Congress to address before setting policy on business broadband? How do you even do that?

“Demand for bandwidth is growing – exponentially,” Herda said. “Yet, access to the end user customers and the buildings is generally constrained – limited to the facilities available only from the incumbent. This limited access often means higher prices and less innovation, which inflicts harm not just on our business, but more importantly on the hospitals, schools, banks, and government agencies on which our nation depends for economic progress.”

According to tw telecom:

Herda urged the assembly to fight for a national business broadband policy that includes three critical points — effective regulation of Special Access, including Ethernet services, and UNE last-mile facilities; interconnection for IP voice and data services; and a reform or elimination of the forbearance process.

Source: www.voip-news.com

Mini-VSAT Broadband network is now available in the Pacific Ocean region. The service is intended to bring broadband telephone and internet services to vessels and jets crossing the ocean. The coverage area includes Alaska, the west coasts of the US and Canada, Hawaii and some of Asia.

“We have now successfully rolled out a single, unified broadband service across roughly two-thirds of the world’s major shipping and aeronautical lanes, enabling us to offer commercial, leisure, and government customers a unique mobile communications hardware and service solution,” said Martin Kits van Heyningen, KVH’s chief executive officer. “Our goal, as we enter 2009, is to complete our global mini-VSAT Broadband network and support the growing demand for faster, more affordable data and voice connections for people on the move.”

According to the company:

The mini-VSAT Broadband service, along with the KVH TracPhone(R) V7 antenna, comprise the first end-to-end 24-inch VSAT hardware, service, and support package available for maritime communications and offers Voice over IP phone service and Internet access as fast as 512 Kbps (upload) and 2 Mbps (download) at fixed monthly rates. The compact TracPhone V7 −- 75% lighter and 85% smaller by volume than traditional 1-meter VSAT antennas -− brings a blend of the economy and speed of VSAT communications with lower costs and easier installation to smaller vessels, making the system exceptionally well suited for commercial fishing boats, leisure yachts, government vessels, and commercial operations.

“The success and growth of this Ku-band satellite broadband service, built on the foundation of our ArcLight(R) technology, has created pent up demand for services over the Pacific and into Asia,” said Don Buchman, ViaSat’s director for mobile broadband. “In addition to opening up service to current customers, we expect the expansion of the mobile network to attract new customers as well.”

Source: www.voip-news.com

Ukrainian bank PrivatBank has partnered with Skype. Skype users in the Ukraine will have easier access to Skype’s range of Skype communication services. The two have created a co-branded version of Skype.

According to the companies:

The Skype-PrivatBank partnership will allow Ukrainian Skype users to communicate more easily over the internet, as a range of new ways to pay for Skype Credit become available. Users can now pay via PrivatBank’s extensive terminal network, online via their web properties, and via SMS dedicated to mobile banking users of PrivatBank. Prior to this partnership there were few options to buy Skype Credit in Ukraine. Now it has become simpler to access Skype’s paid-for features, using Skype Credit to purchase everything from online numbers on which to receive phone calls to making low cost calls to mobiles and landlines worldwide, from as little as € 0.017 per minute to Portugal for example.

“Facing new economic realities, we consider it very important to offer our clients ways to significantly reduce expenses on voice, video, and instant messaging communications, for the most part making them free,” said PrivatBank chairman Aleksandr Dubilet. “I’ve been using Skype for a long time myself and I am certain that the development of this product in our country will let people communicate freely without unnecessary expense and let business, particularly small to medium sized, optimize their communication expenditures.”

Source: www.voip-news.com

Optenet has a new content security solution that includes a new bandwidth optimization function. The Optenet Bandwidth Management enables highly granular, real-time network traffic control.

According to the company:

With Optenet’s bandwidth management capability, the ISP or customer administrator can monitor and control the bandwidth resources consumed by a URL connection, an IP address, or a traffic group, in efforts to reduce network congestion caused by increasingly popular practices such as streaming video, frequenting social network sites, and the downloading of large multi-media files.

“It’s critical for companies to optimize bandwidth capacity for the most significant traffic, whether that’s mission-critical data or the CEO’s email,” said Joel Silberman, vice president, North America, Optenet. “Prioritizing traffic is particularly important as businesses expand or add new, bandwidth-intensive applications, like VoIP and Web conferencing which require high-quality connectivity.”

Source: www.voip-news.com

The first phase implementation of Bandwidth.com’s new all-IP network has been completed by Sonus Networks. The Next-gen network deployment is intended to provide secure, advanced business communications services to small and medium businesses in the US.

“Our ability to serve small businesses has driven Bandwidth.com’s dramatic growth,” said David Morken, co-founder, CEO and president at Bandwidth.com. “We partner with Sonus because they share our vision for innovation and have a track record of delivering reliable, scalable and cost effective networks. We invest in industry leading technology, anticipating demand for our mission critical services like SIP trunking. Using Sonus infrastructure ensures that Bandwidth.com’s network is optimized intelligently to provide for and ultimately capture that demand.”

Bandwidth intends to use the complete Sonus solution.

“Meeting the demands of enterprise customers requires secure, scalable and highly available networks,” said Mohammed Shanableh, vice president of global sales at Sonus Networks. “The Sonus portfolio of integrated solutions delivers a robust IP-based network for advanced services. The intelligent session control technology enables Bandwidth.com to make its network more resource efficient. Bandwidth.com will be able to offer its business customers a range of innovative applications such as IP Business trunks, IP Centrex and collaboration applications.”

Source: www.voip-news.com

Response Point customers can now take advantage of a strategic alliance between Response Point-manufacturer Microsoft and Bandwidth.com. Bandwidth offers SIP-based phone lines.

“Bandwidth.com’s advanced network capabilities and ubiquitous U.S. coverage will greatly expand the IP service options available to Response Point customers,” said Xuedong Huang, general manager of Microsoft Response Point. “Bandwidth.com’s exceptional quality standards, focus on small businesses and ability to deliver a complete IP-based solution will benefit our Response Point customers from coast to coast.”

The companies plan to layout more details at the SMB Nation 2008 conference in Seattle that begins on Oct. 3.

“Bandwidth.com plans a nationwide roll out to train Microsoft’s small-business specialists, On-Line retailers and other value added Microsoft resellers on the simplicity of connecting Response Point to Bandwidth’s bundled voice service portfolio this fall,” said Jeff Uphues, VP of Sales, Partner Services of Bandwidth.com.

Source: www.voip-news.com

Here’s a freaky one.

THe Taliban is using Skype to avoid detection. ComputerWeekly says that the easy to obtain communication method is hard for authorities to track or detect.

Here’s an excerpt:

Security sources have told the Evening Standard that unlike traditional mobile calls, which can be monitored by RAF Nimrod spy planes, Skype calls are heavily encrypted.

Taliban leaders had previously been known to use satellite phones, which could be tracked and located by western forces.

Source: www.voip-news.com

Uh, crazy.

A German court has banned the use of VoIP on iPhones, agreeing with carrier T-Mobile, according to CBC. Using VoIP over the iPhone’s Wi-Fi connection doesn’t cost users valuable airtime. In fact, since plans include unlimited internet, that makes the calls free. However the judge who granted the injuction said that it opens the doors to other abuses of the phone.

Meanwhile though, a small victory was won.

According to CBC:

Sipgate did win a victory however, as the same court upheld an injunction against T-Mobile issued in July that prevents the carrier from advertising the iPhone in Germany. Sipgate said T-Mobile’s advertising, which claims “unlimited” internet usage but with a host of restrictions — including a ban on VoIP — was misleading, a position the court agreed with.

“I guess that at least eases the pain,” Salmon said.