Source: snapvoip.blogspot.com

Nokia Siemens Networks announced that it has won a contract from Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL), India’s largest telecommunications service provider, to deploy broadband access across 7000 Indian villages. The contract is a part of the greenfield rural tender from BSNL. The new access network’s high bandwidth will allow BSNL to deliver high data and triple play intensive services such as Video on Demand, Video Multi cast, IPTV, Video Conferencing and VPN among others to its customers. The network will also enable BSNL to provide connectivity to CSCs (Community Service Centres) and other e-governance locations.

The two year agreement includes Supply, Installation and Commissioning , Training and Annual Maintenance Contract for 5 years. As part of the contract, Nokia Siemens Networks is deploying its Gigabit Ethernet-capable IP DSLAMs Surpass hiX5625 (Digital Subscriber Line Access Multiplexers) and chassis based access switch (Surpass hiD6615). Nokia Siemens Networks will also supply end-user devices that will enable BSNL to provide speeds of up to 24Mbps for ADSL2+ subscribers over its existing copper infrastructure. The first phase of new lines deployment will be completed by Q1 of 2008.

News Release By Nokia

Source: snapvoip.blogspot.com

BUSINESS WIRE News article reports that Sprint has today announced the launch of Sprint Wireless Integration, a product that extends customers’ premises-based PBX features and functionality to their mobile phones. The solution offers business customers additional value and new capabilities by integrating Avaya “Extension to Cellular” capabilities and new Sprint network advancements.

Sprint Wireless Integration features include providing users with one phone number that simultaneously rings both the desk phone and mobile phone, along with one converged enterprise voicemail inbox. It also extends PBX features like conferencing and call forwarding to the mobile phone so users can get all the functionality of their desk phone even while away from the office. For example, mobile users can make intra-company calls by simply dialing the four-digit extension of the person they want to reach, just as they would from the office desk phone – with no access numbers to dial or codes to enter first.

Built within Sprint’s IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) architecture, Sprint Wireless Integration is the industry’s first "hosted mobility" solution. “By converging wireline and wireless functionality, Sprint Wireless Integration provides a better overall service – one that is more functional and also makes communication more simple and effective,” said Tony Krueck, vice president of product management and development, Sprint. “This solution is a great example of the promise of Fixed/Mobile Convergence.”

Sprint Wireless Integration provides:

Features

* One phone number with simultaneous ring to both the desk phone and mobile phone (using the existing desk phone number)
* One voicemail inbox using the enterprise voicemail platform
* Abbreviated (e.g., four-digit) intra-company dialing from the mobile phone
* Class-of-service extended to mobile calls for better control
* Mobile call tracking/logging by the telecom manager using the PBX

Savings

* Outbound mobile calls routed through the enterprise PBX are “on-net” and included in the monthly service fee. (Inbound calls to the mobile phone do incur minutes.)
* Mobile-to-international calls are billed as if from the enterprise PBX or VPN
* Desk phones can be eliminated if desired
* Billed as an add-on feature ($20/month) to an existing Sprint CDMA Wireless Plan

Requirements

* Premise-based Avaya Communications Manager (IP or TDM)
* Sprint CDMA mobile phone with data capability
* Sprint Dedicated IP or Global MPLS VPN connection

More details on Sprint Wireless Integration are available at Sprint.com/voip.

Links;
Businesswire your daily news source
Sprint wireless integration

Source: snapvoip.blogspot.com

Cisco yesterday announced several updates to its branch office-ready Integrated Services Router (ISR), adding into the mix modules for WAN optimization and application acceleration, a tunnel-less VPN based on Group Encrypted Transport (GET) technology, and a new services engine.
The addition of a tunnel-less VPN, also called the GET VPN, eliminates the trade-off between data encryption security and routing intelligence, according to Inbar Lasser-Raab, director of product marketing.
Further more Cisco added a new set of voice, video and collaboration services into the ISR to give customers lower cost and more secure communications, along with increased availability and enhanced applications. New services include Session Initiation Protocol trunking; consolidated voice, video and data on a single primary rate interface; secure Survivable Remote Site Telephone on Call Manager Express; integrated voice XML; and session border control.

Links;
Networking news at searchnetworking.

Source: voipcentral.org

Some countries are moving to block Skype on corporate networks as some see it as a security vunerability. A systems administrator from the United Arab Emirates has come up with a simple method to block the popular net telephony program. So if it is blocked on your network this might be how it was done.

How it is done

The choice of OS to run the proxy on is subjective (I chose OpenBSD as my network OS of choice for its proven security
record and excellent reliability) and has no effect over the actual blocking mechanism. The same can be accomplished on any other BSD or Linux flavour…

As mentioned above, blocking SSL or the ‘Connect’ method, means blocking access to all legitimate websites that use SSL (Hotmail, Yahoo, E-banking, E-commerce websites, e.g any website that is secured by SSL). Should you go down that road, you would have to explicitly allow all permitted destinations (an ongoing technical nightmare).

The catch in successfully blocking Skype given all of the above, would be to block access to requests made by clients, to destination specified by their numeric IP address, AND using the ‘Connect’ method to tunnel the Skype
data.

Read More

Source: snapvoip.blogspot.com

According to News.com the Finns say that the flaw in the Internet Security Association and Key Management Protocol, or ISAKMP could lead to denial-of-service attacks.
ISAKMP is used in IPsec virtual private network and firewall products from Cisco Systems and Juniper Networks.

The security hole was so serious that the Finnish results were jointly issued by the British National Infrastructure Security Co-ordination Centre and the Finnish CERT to give it some weight.

Cisco and Juniper have acknowledged that some of their products are at risk. Cisco said the security flaw could cause devices to reset which could cause a temporary denial-of-service attack.

It is providing free software upgrades to fix the problem and has published a security advisory. The list of affected products includes Cisco IOS, Cisco PIX Firewall, Cisco Firewall Services Module, Cisco VPN 3000 Series Concentrators and the Cisco MDS Series SanOS.
Juniper products affected include all of its M-series, T-series, J-series and E-series routers, as well as most versions of its Junos and JunoSe Security software. A spokesJniper said that software issued on or after July 28 provided fixes for the flaw. The Openswan Project, which is IPsec software used on many Linux products, is also affected and the project has already released Openswan 2.4.2 in response to the advisory.

Source: voipcentral.org

Wireless security provider Columbitech has claimed to have just launched the first secure WiMAX-Ready VPN, enabling secure connection and seamless roaming to wireless broadband technology across any network supporting TCP/IP. According to Columbitech, acceptance testing of the new version of WiMAX-ready Columbitech Wireless VPN will be done in cooperation with leading WiMAX equipment suppliers.

The WiMAX-ready Columbitech Wireless VPN (WVPN), a session based security solution, provides users with a seamless and secure connection without having to constantly manually log-in. For example, a user can log on to a corporate network from home using Wi-Fi or any broadband connection available such as ADSL. The user can then travel to the airport, where the secure WVPN session to the corporate network can be resumed over the airport Wi-Fi network as soon as the laptop session has been resumed from hibernation. There is no need for the user to log in again, as the mutual authentication of the secure session is performed in the background and requires no user intervention.

Columbitech Wireless VPN also provides secure connections and seamless roaming across networks like GSM, 3G, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. Amongst all these networks, Columbitech Wireless VPN both encrypts the transmitted data and offers various methods of user authentication to eliminate unauthorized access.

Company Link: Columbitech