Source: voipcentral.org

The House panel has approved the debatable Bill that allows VoIP providers direct access to nations existing E911 system. It means the VoIP companies will soon answer emergency calls from customers without depending upon the third parities. The move comes in the backdrop of sharp criticism from the telephone companies and mobile operators.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee has approved the 911 Modernization and Public Safety Act on October 10, 2007 ensuring VoIP customers to reach 911 operators during critical times. The Bill provides VoIP providers same liability protections as enjoyed by telephone service providers.

The Bill was introduced by Barton Jennings Gordon last month. He pointed out that,

When Americans dial 911, they expect the call will go through regardless of what technology they use to place the call. But thats not always the case. Roughly 98 million Americans live in areas where Internet phone providers do not have access to the 911 network.

The Bill will be tabled in the full Energy and Commerce Committee.

Via: eWeek

Source: voipcentral.org

VoIP startup Vonage has settled down a legal dispute with Klausner Technologies and reached out an agreement to use their patents relating to voicemail services. This is the second major settlement of Vonage this week.

Earlier this week, the VoIP pioneer agreed to pay some $80 million to Sprint Nextel as part of the settlement. In return, Sprint Nextel has granted more than 100 VoIP patents to Vonage.

It is nice to learn that Vonage is trying to come out of legal hassles and focus on its core business, which in the long turn will help the company to rebuild its brand image in the market.

Judah Klausner-founded Klausner Technologies sued Vonage last year claiming Vonages voicemail platform infringes its technology and sought $180 million damages.

Klausner Technologies controls nearly 25 patents relating to IP-based voicemail services. The company had earlier allowed AOL to use its voicemail patent.

Vonage is still fighting a legal battle with Verizon Communication. The residential VoIP company was ordered to pay $58 million in damages, plus 5.5 percent royalties on future revenues for the violation of three Verizon patents.

Recently, the U.S. Court of Appeals has vacated the $58 million judgment against the residential VoIP player under the ground that the lower court had wrongly interpreted one of the three patents.

Source: voipcentral.org

Vonage is in news whether good or bad. The VoIP giant has tried to motivate the policy makers regarding the VoIP and 911 matters.
According to a Forbes story, the company has made expenditure of about $752,000 in the first six months of 2007 to lobby the federal government.

Beleaguered Vonage which has suffered a massive loss following the patent debacle against Verizon Communication, has engaged the Smith-Free Group Inc for lobbying the Congress and Federal Communication Commission, adds a Zibb report.

Last week, SunRocket filed a lawsuit against Vonage alleging that the later has illegally obtained companys customer list from a third party and contacted some of the customers for its VoIP services.

The former residential VoIP service provider has sought injunctive and declaratory relief from Vonage by claiming its customer list one of its single most valuable remaining assets after shutting down VoIP business.

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Source: voipcentral.org

When two bigwigs club up together, the outcome is something encouraging. Skype has joined hands with Wal-Mart in a distribution deal to enable customers pick up Skype products from the retailers in USA.

As per the deal, Wal-Mart will sell a number of Skype-certified products such as webcams, headsets and handsets from the recognized manufacturers including Plantronics, Philips, and Logitech in more than 1800 Wal-Mart stores. These products allow customers to enjoy Skype services such as voice, video calls and instant messaging.

Don Albert, Vice President and General Manager of Skype North America briefed,

We applaud Wal-Mart for recognizing the popularity of Skype and making it more accessible to Wal-Mart shoppers. This relationship with Wal-Mart will increase exposure for Skype and our hardware partners in a single dedicated Internet communications section.

Wal-Mart will sell Skype certified headsets for $15, webcams for $25 and handsets for $30 from different hardware developers. In addition to Skype products, the customers can also get pre-paid Skype cards for $20.

Skype is not the first company to sell its products in Wal-Mart stores. Vonage has also associated with Wal-Mart to sell its products. It means that VoIP players are now joining with retailers to hit the mass market.

Nearly 9.9 percent of all landlines in USA were VoIP lines last year. It would touch 34.1 percent in the next three years. Therefore, it is highly beneficial for the VoIP players to get associated with retailers to cater the demand for VoIP products.

Source: voipcentral.org

Is dead SunRocket back? The former VoIP giant who closed down its business very recently, has once again hugged media attention by pulling Vonage into a new-found legal controversy.

In a lawsuit, SunRocket has alleged that Vonage illegally obtained companys customer list from a third party and contacted some of the customers for its VoIP services.

SunRocket is now seeking injunctive and declaratory relief from Vonage by claiming its customer list one of its single most valuable remaining assets after shutting down VoIP business.

The former VoIP player adds that such type of illegal practice by Vonage damages companys deals with Unified and 8X8, who are providing VoIP services to former SunRocketers.

However Vonage has strongly denied the charge stating that they obtained the list from a recognized marketing list broker. Hence, there is no violation of SunRockets proprietary rights.

SunRocket had left with 220,000 subscribers when it closed down its operation.

Source: voipcentral.org

Verizon Communication will soon introduce a new unified communication services for the business enterprises ensuring them to build up a cost effective communication network for their business operation.

The unified service will be available for the customers of Hosted IP Centrex customers. The Hosted IP Centrex service brings a dynamic hub in a corporate network where the workers can access to voice mail, control incoming and outgoing calls. They can also manage their online presence, send text messages and synchronize contacts and calendars.

Verizon said that the Hosted IP Centrex integrated with companys Integrated Communication Package will help organizations proficiently support teleworkers, fulfill mobility requirements and unify communications.

The Integrated Communications Package will be available in USA from next month. Its monthly charge is $5.50 per user. The non-American customers can access to this service later this year.

Verizon Business will also add audio, net and video conferencing services and contact center services to its Integrated Communications Package.

Source: voipcentral.org

Spokane, Washington-based Robert Moore who made millions of dollars from illegal VoIP business has been sentenced two years imprisonment and fined $150,000.

The 23-year old hacker was successful in hacking VoIP networks of some of the leading service providers. He developed generic software to run brute-force attacks against Cisco XM routers and Quintum Tenor voice gateways.

The brute force attacks were carried out against service provider networks to create applicable prefixes to develop VoIP services on their networks.

Robert Moore was a close associate of Edwin Pena, a 23-year-old man from Miami and the architect behind the hacking scams. He was held last year. Moore has disclosed that Pena paid him $$23,000 to hack into the carrier networks.

The criminal due has used a combination of simple dictionary and brute-force attacks in combination with Google hacking to traverse VoIP networks and pinched nearly $1 million voice minutes.

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Source: voipcentral.org

Last month, Packet8 has reached out an agreement with SunRocket to provide VoIP service to latters customers. Marking first achievement in this regard, the pure-play VoIP start up has registered nearly 19,000 SunRocket customers. I hope more numbers of SunRocketers would be transferring their numbers to Packet8 in the coming days.

SunRocket has some 200,000 subscribers by the time it closed down. It is in constant touch with its subscribers through email or voicemail campaign insisting them to transform their numbers to Packet8 immediately.

Packet8 says they are charging normal fee and taxes to SunRocket customers to provide VoIP services including E911 emergency service. The customers who registered Packet8 recently are opting out one-year $199 plan from the company.

Packet8 CEO, Bryan Martin said,

We do charge our normal monthly fees and taxes–e911, Universal Service, regulatory recovery, state and local taxes where applicable–on top of the $199 a year fee. Over the course of a year, these fees add up to a substantial amount of money. SunRocket didnt do this.

Packet8 is the third residential VoIP player in USA behind Vonage and SunRocket with nearly 181,000 customers.

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Source: voipcentral.org

It is a major victory of VoIP industry. The Federal Communication Commission (FCC) has decided to open up the 700 MHz spectrum for the non-carriers. It means that the companies like Google and Skype can now extend their applications (downloadable) over the operators network.

After much debates for the last several months, the Commission has finally voted to adopt auction and service rules for the 700 MHz spectrum. With this decision, the consumers will now look forward to enjoy the right to attach devices and download applications of their choice to a portion of this spectrum.

Andy has rightly pointed out,

Given how 2.0 type communications could proliferate in the newly awarded spectrum this opens up all kinds of doors for everyone from applications developer, handset designers and manufacturers, switching folks, carriers and more.

Until now, Skype has pitched for Carterfone rules of 1968 to control the activities of mobile operators who restrict subscribers freedom. In light of this, the recent FCC decision has provided Skype a reason to feel good.

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Source: voipcentral.org

TeleBlend, the part of Unified communications Corp, has reached out an agreement with SunRocket to acquire certain limited strategic assets of SunRocket. With this deal, TeleBlend has joined with Packet8 to provide VoIP services to the beleaguered SunRocket customers.

The acquisition may bring a sigh of relief to the stranded the customers. At least they can retain their same number even though transition to TeleBlend.

TeleBlend says,

With this agreement in place, former SunRocket customers who have not transitioned to another provider have a seamless way to transition their service while continuing to use their existing equipment and phone number.

TeleBlend has announced that it would provide SunRocket customers VoIP services at a heavily discounted monthly subscription of $12.95. The company has also created a special site for SunRocket customers to sing up for its service and continue their existing phone numbers.

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Source: voipcentral.org

We have just reported the premature death of SunRocket. Before it could antagonize the customers, Vonage has extended its free VoIP services for the SunRocket customers. Will it work out for Vonage?

The news is such that the SunRocket customers can smoothly transform their phone numbers to Vonage and enjoy two months of free VoIP services under the US Residential Premium Unlimited Plan. The customers will not charged for the change in phone number. They can enjoy basic Vonage services like call forwarding, call waiting and call transfer and so on. It is good.

Vonage may be trying to rebuild its VoIP line up with this announcement. After all, SunRocket has claimed a substantial number of customers for its pure-play VoIP. If Vonage succeeds at registering half of them, no one can ill-predict on companys future.

However, things are not as clear as they appear. The customers can not entrust Vonage because its fate also hangs in balance in the wake of patent debacle and sheer pressure from the cable players.

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Source: voipcentral.org

It is really a shocking news for the pure- play VoIP players, like Vonage. The innovative VoIP start up, SunRocket has untimely fallen down despite claiming a sizable number of subscribers (200000 customers) in the short span of less than three years.

An email sent to Om by Sonya Jefferson, Director of Routing and Carrier Services reads that,

Unfortunately this email contains very bad news. We have just been informed that any and all last ditch efforts to keep operations running as well as a potential sale of the company have not gone through and that SunRocket will cease operations at COB today. As such, today is my last day and everyone else you may have worked with at SunRocket. Regarding outstanding and future invoices: Sherwood Partners out of Palo Alto will be handling the close down of all invoices, current and outstanding.

Smith has explained the sequence of events that may have forced SunRocket bite the dust at a time when VoIP is emerging.

As of now, it is clear that VoIP players cannot fully depend upon single service. They have to provide triple-and quadruple-play Internet broadband in order to lead the race in the crowded market.

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