Source: andyabramson.blogs.com

Alec Saunders hits a high note today with a very neat idea for the now abandoned VON community with his post today. For starters the idea leverages the daily iotum Squawk Box Conference Call that has been up and running for a few months that is the best thing since the watercooler for a bunch of folks to gather around.

But he’s gone one step further and it’s all positive as a means to keep the companies in the game who were so much a part of VON alive and interacting.

Source: alanweinkrantz.typepad.com

While the focus of this blog is about the consumer experience, the fact of the matter is that I also run a small business and use AT&T’s services at the office.

With an estimated 10 million businesses with fewer than 100 employees, we are the lifeblood of the American economy. To better serve the needs of this important segment, AT&T Inc.  today announced a new wireless offer that brings the benefits of AT&T FamilyTalk plans to small businesses, enabling us to share monthly Anytime Minutes for up to 40 employees.

3Screens News Summary:

• The new BusinessTalk plans start at $60.00 per month for five users and 700 Anytime Minutes and go up to 40 users and 20,000 Anytime Minutes. They are designed to help small businesses better manage their monthly costs by reducing overage charges and simplifying billing.

• Companies may choose BusinessTalk with unlimited Mobile to Mobile or Push To Talk features. While the exact amount of savings depends on each customer’s individual circumstances, some companies could save nearly 20 percent of their monthly service charges with BusinessTalk compared to AT&T’s standard voice pool plans.

• AT&T also launched a new advertising campaign that kicked off with television commercials during the Masters this past weekend. Using the tagline "Seize the moment," the campaign focuses on how businesses use wireless technology to get more done in the day, react faster to business opportunities and be more responsive to their customers. The campaign will also feature online and print components.

• In addition, the AT&T Exclusively Business small business program, launched last year, waives activation fees for new lines of service for its members and offers an eight percent discount on monthly service charges for qualified voice and data service plans — including the primary line on BusinessTalk. Small businesses can also extend this service discount as a benefit to their employees.

AT&T is also the worldwide leader in BlackBerry sales.  They are separately announcing the launch of BlackBerry Professional Software, an attractive wireless email solution targeted specifically for small business.

Source: andyabramson.blogs.com

iotum’s Alec Saunders loves to blog.

Abbeynet’s Luca Filigheddu loves to blog.

Truphone’s Dean Elwood runs a social community forum called VoIP User.

Together, as a result of the blogosphere, friendship and some wine, as well as a gentle push by moi, along with new opportunity to blend VoIP, alternative access, the hot Facebook platform with some very cool new ways to collaborate has been birthed.

Today, clients iotum, along with Truphone, plus Abbeynet and a French telco have joined up to make iotum’s Free Conference Call solution truly global.

This direct strike is an crystal clear example of what Jeff Pulver calls "Purple Minutes." Those are where applications make the jump between PSTN, Mobile and VOIP, plus what else comes along. In this case, with Truphone we now have a Mobile VoIP/WiFi play which means when a user is in a hotspot, a SIP call goes to iotum, not a PSTN, further reducing the costs of conferencing, but also increasing the quality and the utility.

So where does wine come into all this? At my insistence, Truphone’s Elwood had to skip the 2007 Fall VON Wine Dinner which I hosted to run his VoIP User gathering. Alec, who also loves wine, had to go hang at VoIP User, while Howard Thaw also of iotum, got wined and dined with the likes of GrandCentral’s Craig Walker, Vincent Pacquet, PulverMedia’s Scott Kargman and many others. But Alec and Dean were on a mission. The mission was to find a way to work together. Since both knew each other from their online communications, the prospects were good and the introductions made in advance. Over the next few months all parties worked together and the result is the iotum FaceBook Free Conference Calling service now has more ways to be reached in more places.

Source: snapvoip.blogspot.com

Google might be planning to be a part of a multi-terabit undersea communications cable across the Pacific Ocean for launch in 2009. The Unity cable has been under development for several months, with a group of carriers and Google meeting for high-level talks on the plan in Sydney last week., Communications Day reports.
Google would not strictly confirm or deny the existence of the Unity plan today, with spokesman Barry Schnitt telling Communications Day correspondent Patrick Neighly that "Additional infrastructure for the Internet is good for users and there are a number of proposals to add a Pacific submarine cable. We’re not commenting on any of these plans."However, Communications Day understands that Unity would see Google join with other carriers to build a new multi-terabit cable. Google would get access to a fibre pair at build cost handing it a tremendous cost advantage over rivals such as MSN and Yahoo, and also potentially enabling it to peer with Asia ISPs behind their international gateways - considerably improving the affordability of Internet services across Asia Pacific.
Faster Google sync?
Communications Day report