Source: www.voip-news.com

In Spain, a phone company called Telefonica is giving unemployed customers a break on their bill. Nice gesture. Read about it on VoIP Watch.

Smith on VoIP names six VoIP alternatives to AT&T’s CallVantage, which is being shuttered.

Free Skype to Skype calls in the UK? Yep, with 3UK and a 3 SIM card. Read about it on TMCnet’s VoIP & Gadgets Blog.

Source: www.voip-news.com

Want to surf and sip? Make a VoIP call? Soon you will be able to in some European Starbucks locations.

Starbucks Coffee Company across the UK and Ireland is getting new Wi-Fi service. The coffee giant has inked a deal with BT to provide Wi-Fi access to more than 650 coffeehouses, with installation starting this week and being completed around the end of summer.

“At Starbucks, we are continually looking for new ways to develop our in-store offerings for our customers, and this new relationship with BT, provides an enhanced customer experience.” Robert Teagle, EMEA IT director Starbucks. “As we continue to develop our technology strategies this relationship will strengthen the Starbucks Experience and amplify our stores as a must-go location for our customers.”

According to BT:

Today’s announcement will allow 4.6 million BT broadband customers including those with inclusive BT FON Wi-Fi minutes, plus BT Openzone users to email, surf the internet or make VoIP calls at Starbucks. O2 iPhone users will have access included within their contract, and millions of customers from iPass, Boingo and other BT Openzone roaming partners will also be able to use the service.

Starbucks will use the network to support both its public customer hotspots and store operations systems.

Source: www.voip-news.com

ICON will begin distributing TalkSwitch owner-friendly phone systems for small businesses in the United Kingdom soon.

“TalkSwitch is an established and proven product in the UK, delivering an exceptional value. We are especially pleased to have been chosen as the strategic partner for the UK market. TalkSwitch offers our channel partners a very cost-competitive and versatile solution for their SME customers,” said David Marshall, Technical Director at ICON.

TalkSwitch prides itself on having lots of features without a huge pricetag. The system includes built-in voicemail, auto-attendant greetings, call forwarding to mobiles and more.

“We are very pleased to partner with ICON to build on the increasing popularity of TalkSwitch in the UK market. ICON is an experienced value-added distributor specializing in VoIP products, with nationwide regional account managers, and a strong focus on channel and technical support,” said Jan Scheeren, president and CEO, TalkSwitch.

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

Fluke has added VoIP to Metroscope. Read about it on VoIP News of the UK.

Any Abramson has the deets on a very cool Google App for Macs that lets you bridge address books with your Grand Central VoIP service and call from another phone while presenting your Grand Central number … read it on VoIP Watch.

Smith on VoIP urges you to consider who is representing your VoIP company. Cause it does matter.

Source: www.voip-news.com

Fluke Networks has acquired Viola Networks. The network performance management company didn’t say how much it said for Viola, a VoIP management company.

According to Network World:

The deal brings to Fluke Networks the technologies and source code the now-defunct Viola Networks used to underpin its NetAlly product line. NetAlly offered such products as its Lifecycle manager, which was designed to determine problem areas in LAN and WAN infrastructure before a VoIP implementation goes live, as well as monitor production environments for VoIP quality and performance. Viola formerly competed with Fluke Networks, as well as with products from Apparent Networks, NetIQ and Brix Networks.

Source: gigaom.com

Source: andyabramson.blogs.com

If you are in the UK you may want to take a serious look at the new pricing for the mobile data dongles from Hutchison 3G (aka Three).

The price of the dongle has been halved and the plan prices are very tasty.

Now, what makes 3G data interesting to me is this 3G/4G data router that has Voice QoS built in. By combining a new HSUPA router, and unlimited data plan and a data card like the new Sierra Wireless HUSPA 880/881 wireless modems, you could just about have all the VoIP you need wherever you go.

Source: www.voip-news.com

UK police are jumping into the 21st Century. The South Yorkshire police department in England will soon be sporting a new VoIP communications system.

According to Computer Business Review:

It will begin the transition to Siemens HiPath 8000 SIP-based unified communications softswitch this summer, migrating 5,500 staff and phones across 90 sites to the combined system.

Kevin Battersby, network manager at South Yorkshire Police, said: “The main business reason is financial, we are running two separate networks for voice and data. The data network has been upgraded in the last couple of years, so we now have this nice big beefy data network, but a separate voice network. By getting rid of the separate voice network and moving it all over to one we realized we could save money.”

Source: andyabramson.blogs.com

It looks like BT’s OpenZone has added Starbucks rival Caffe Nero to their growing list of locations.

I’ve been in Caffe Nero and enjoyed their coffee more. Now I’ll have one more reason to linger around the storefront cafes when in London.

Source: www.voip-news.com

There’s been some huge raises in IP PBX in the UK market. IP PBX desktop extensions in the United Kingdom  rose 40 percent in the fourth quarter of 2007, according to a study by MZA. Nearly 750,000 PBX extensions were installed in that time frame.

Cost remains an impediment  for small businesses though.

Read about it here.

Source: www.theregister.co.uk

New UK service Voixio is to offer free national or international phone and video calls to internet users. The catch? For every call you first have to watch an ad or commercial.

Voixio was set up by London-based Requestec, which specialises in web 2.0 communication applications, including high definition video calling from within a Flash client. Its team has worked for Nokia, Demon Internet, JP Morgan, and Symbian.

The new service is simple to use. There is no need to install software, and the interface – called Zenon – is fully Flash-based and will detect the webcams and microphones available on your computer.

Users can make calls to domestic and international landline and mobile telephone numbers, to other Voixio users, or any SIP address. Conference calls between Voixio users are free. Video calling to 3G mobile networks is also possible, and phone calls can be made to standard email addresses.

The service was announced last November at World Telemidia in Prague, but will officially launch on 1 April.

The service has been available for internet users to try out, but Voixio has temporally disabled it. "Many people abused the service by getting as many accounts as possible," a spokesman told The Register. "We need to sort that out first."

Depending on advertising and destination, a free call lasts at least 15 minutes, though 3G videocalls will be limited to 60 seconds. Extra time can be bought through PayPal.

Users will have to submit their sex, age, and interests, while "built-in" geo-location enables advertising to be targeted even further, the company promises. "

Although most ad funded free call projects so far have failed, Voixio believes there is enough interest to attract advertisers. ®