Source: gigaom.com

Source: snapvoip.blogspot.com

India’s State-run telecommunication company, MTNL slashed international call rates to Rupees one per minute (US 2.6 cents) for its Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP) customers. This rate covers call rates to about 100 countries such as Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Japan, Malaysia and Kuwait. Call rates to US, UK, Canada, Australia, Singapore and Hong Kong are already stand at Rs one minute.
MTNL provides international calling facility through VOIP to its broadband customers in association with Aksh Optifibre. This link will provide you with all the information on VoIP Calls from India.

Source: snapvoip.blogspot.com

The Asterisk development team has released Asterisk version 1.4.17 which fixes SIP security issue, as well as a number of other bug fixes.

The SIP security issue is documented in the published security advisory, AST-2008-001. This issue only affects Asterisk 1.4. Asterisk 1.2 is not affected. Systems that do not use chan_sip are also not affected.

The security advisory is here in PDF format.

The release 1.4.17 is available for immediate download.

Source: snapvoip.blogspot.com

Cox Business has released VoiceManager, a telephony platform that integrates a desktop phone, PC and wireless devices.

The IP telephony platform scales to deliver mobility, business continuity and unified messaging solutions to small businesses and large enterprises, according to Cox. Its features include find-me/follow-me, auto attendant and a personal status manager to route calls to the most convenient location and designate priority callers. For mobility, the platform’s remote office, sequential ring and call notification functions allow users to direct calls to desk, home and mobile phones, as well as set up simultaneous ring and voice mail alerts.

VoiceManager

Source: voipcentral.org

Comcast has surpassed Vonage in the digital VoIP rating by registering a record number of 823,000 subscribers during the second quarter of 2007. It is an 813 percent increase from the previous quarter. With this addition, the total subscriber base of Comcast is now 2.4 million.

Vonage has some 2.3 million subscribers. It registered nearly 1.2 million new customers last year and 166,000 customers for the first quarter of 2007.

Comcast has also recorded a net profit of $588mn for the Q2 of 2007, compared to $837mn in the same period in 2006. It reported revenue of $7.7bn during the first quarter of 2007, an up from $7.4bn from the same quarter last year.

It is more or less apparent that cable companies are now emerging key players in the current VoIP market posing persistent pressure on the pure-play VoIP providers.

They now hold nearly 60% of VoIP subscriptions, while pure-play providers dominate just 40% of U.S. customers. As the VoIP market grows rapidly, the cable companies will lead a big battle for revenue.

Image:

Source: voipcentral.org

Is SunRocket going the Vonage way? Yes. Like Vonage, Vienna-based SunRocket has also got up to evade the pressure of Cable VoIP. For which, the pure-play VoIP service provider has reduced its workforce by 25 percent or cut off 30 of its workforce.

SunRocket says it is a move to minimize companys expenditure so that they can develop aggressive marketing strategy to challenge the cable players.

The three-year old SunRocket has now some 206,000 customers for its residential VoIP services and enjoys second position behind Vonage. However, SunRockets growth has declined steadily in light of strong competition from cable players (such as Time Warner and Comcast) who are offering hosted VoIP services.

As per the latest report, the cable operators have added more than 2.2 million VoIP subscribers in 2005 and another 900,000 in the first quarter of last year. They now hold nearly 60% of VoIP subscriptions, while pure-play providers dominate just 40% of U.S. customers. As the VoIP market grows rapidly, the cable companies will be heading towards a big battle for revenue.

Image:

Source: snapvoip.blogspot.com

VoIP IP Telephony @ http://snapvoip.blogspot.com
According to a post on multichannel news,

The Federal Communications Commission legally ordered cable companies that provide voice-over-Internet-protocol service to contribute a portion of their revenue to subsidize rural telecommunications services, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled Friday.

The court also upheld the FCC decision that cable VoIP providers are to assume that 64.9% of their revenue is subject to the universal-service-fund tax, which runs about 10% but can vary depending on USF revenue projections.

Source: voipcentral.org

VoIP is fueling the growth of cable companies in telephony arenas. In-Stat has proved it with facts and figures in its latest research report.

According to In-Stat report, VoIP has significantly contributed the growth of cable telephony taking worldwide subscribers base to 22 million last year, an up from 15.8 million a year before. The cable companies will earn revenues to the tune of $10.4 billion this year for their VoIP service. The cable telephony revenue was $7.9 billion in 2006.

North America has emerged as most favorable market for the cable VoIP service. Of all the 9.4 million cable telephone subscribers, 6.6 million are VoIP users. Nearly 42 percent of these subscribers were registered last year, the report adds.

It seems that cable service providers now consider VoIP as the core service of their telecommunications service bundle.

At the same time, the growth of cable VoIP has put an adverse affect on the traditional VoIP players, like Vonage, Verizon and SunRocket. It has also put an imminent threat on popular VoIP applications such as Skype.

Source: snapvoip.blogspot.com

Dutch VoIP market reaches 1.4 million subscribers at the end of Q3, 2006.
The Dutch VoIP market is continuing its strong growth of the past quarters, reaching 1.4 million VoIP subscribers at 30 September 2006, according to the latest research by Telecompaper. The on going competition on the residential fixed telephony market has caused the market penetration of incumbent KPN to drop below 70 percent to 68.8 percent. Despite the company’s successful sales of its VoIP product InternetPlusBellen (Internet plus calling) with 115,000 net additions in the three month period, the incumbent lost more traditional lines to its own VoIP service and to competitors VoIP services. Especially the cable sector made good progress selling nearly 124,000 VoIP subscriptions in the third quarter.
Read and get more info at telecompaper.

Update - link added
Links;
Telecompaper article

Source: snapvoip.blogspot.com

Dutch VoIP market reaches 1.4 million subscribers at the end of Q3, 2006.
The Dutch VoIP market is continuing its strong growth of the past quarters, reaching 1.4 million VoIP subscribers at 30 September 2006, according to the latest research by Telecompaper. The on going competition on the residential fixed telephony market has caused the market penetration of incumbent KPN to drop below 70 percent to 68.8 percent. Despite the company’s successful sales of its VoIP product InternetPlusBellen (Internet plus calling) with 115,000 net additions in the three month period, the incumbent lost more traditional lines to its own VoIP service and to competitors VoIP services. Especially the cable sector made good progress selling nearly 124,000 VoIP subscriptions in the third quarter.
Read and get more info at telecompaper.

Update - link added
Links;
Telecompaper article

Source: voipcentral.org

In its latest survey report, J.D. Power and Associates predicted that customers would save more than $60 billion in five years by opting VoIP services offered by cable operators.

The survey claimed that cable VoIP users were paying $11.19 less per month than the customers who use traditional phones services for long distance calls. If 100 million homes sing up for Cable VoIP now, then the five-year saving would be more than $60 billion.

In the report, the research company says that Cable VoIP customers were paying $42.40 per month for local and long distance call services. The rate was $53.59 for traditional phone users.

The market trend shows that cable VoIP service would continue to decrease because of sheer competition and cable VoIPs market share would touch 85%.

Reacting on the J.D. Power survey, Kyle McSlarrow, the president of Americas National Cable & Telecommunications Association said,

The cable industrys success in competing with the telephone industry is one of the unheralded good-news stories for American consumers.

Read

Source: voipcentral.org

A new report submitted by Cable Industry Insider reveals that the Cable VoIP market will grow tremendously in the coming days.

In the report entitling Cable VOIP: Prospects for Sustainable Growth, the cable industry analysis firm claims the cable operators of US and Canada have signed up more than 4 million VoIP subscribers and estimated to add 7 million more by end of 2007.

The Cable operators have added more than 2.2 million VoIP subscriber last year and another 900,000 in the Q1 of 2006.

Cablevisions Systems and Timer Warner Cable dominate 62 percent of the Cable VoIP market. They occupy about 40 percent of the entire market. Cablevision that collaborated with Siemens has gained 11 million VoIP subscribers and Time Warner Cable has nearly 1.4 million subscribers base. Vonage occupies the second position with 1.9 million customers.

As the VoIP market grows steadily, the cable companies will be heading towards big battle for revenue.

Read