VoIP News

Level 3 & Packet8 major outage - Jul 31, 2008

Vonage Lives to Fight Another Day... - Oct 20, 2008

Microsoft Response Point Adds T1 Support and SIP Trunking Service Providers - Sep 17, 2008

Packet8 MobileTalk on iPhone Adds VoIP Calling - Jul 11, 2008

8x8's Packet8 Posts Steady Growth - Jan 30, 2008

Cool Skype for SIP Upgrades, Enhanced Inbound Routing and more - Dec 09, 2009

8x8 Virtual Meeting - Sporting Flash VoIP- Takes on WebEx and GoToMeeting - Sep 03, 2009

Military Suspension Plan from VoIP Providers - Who's Going to Step Up? - Jun 24, 2009

sipgate enters U.S VoIP Broadband Market offering free calls - Jun 02, 2009

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Comments on this Entry:

(Simone on Jan 12, 2010 5:46 PM)

Unfortunately, voice service has not been restored to MY phone and customer support (or any other department at 8x8) does not even answer the phone. Their system just hangs up after saying that all lines are busy. Very nice customer treatment!

(Alan González on Jan 12, 2010 6:03 PM)

Well, my service has been down three hours already (30+ line account)! I received notice that phones should be working again at 5PM ET and it's now 6PM ET and still no service. Communication from the company on this issue has been terrible (as in non-existent). The only way I'm getting updates is through my account manager (Mike Huch, awesome job), but really... There should have been some official communication from 8x8 to it's customers by now! It's ridiculous. If 8x8 hopes to continue to make inroads into the business VoIP market, they really have to get their act together. Communication regarding the outage would at least assure people that it's being worked on. Not very good PR, 8x8. Get a clue.

(Bill Stewart on Jan 12, 2010 6:05 PM)

Our phone lines have been down for more than a couple of hours and are still not up, contrary to the posting by Joan Citelli Director, Corporate Communications Packet 8.

BTW - For many reasons, we will be terminating our relationship with 8x8.

(Thomas on Jan 12, 2010 6:05 PM)

Still down in MT.

(Robert on Jan 12, 2010 6:08 PM)

As of 3:10pm PST no VoIP calls are processing, inbound or outbound. Not only have we been down for hours, we can't even reach 8x8 to discuss with tech support! VERY frustrating, unacceptable from a company who expects to be taken seriously.

(Malcolm Smart on Jan 12, 2010 6:17 PM)

The statement by Joan Citelli Director, Corporate Communications, is incorrect. I do NOT have dial tone at my two locations. We lost service around 5 pm EST. (It is currently 6:20 pm)

(Roy on Jan 12, 2010 6:25 PM)

For what its worth we are near the Houston, TX area and our voice services are all still down. My home service is down as well.

Roy

(D on Jan 12, 2010 7:11 PM)

I believe that they aren't telling the truth about voice services being restored. The service has been down for a number of hours and still down at this time. 7:12 ET

They need to get it resolved. I have had packet8 for an umber of years, but I'm really considering finding a new service, the outages seem to happen to often lately and my second virtual phone number seems to never work when someone needs to contact me.

One more thing, do not believe them about phone number portability.

(usb flash 4gb on Jan 13, 2010 8:39 AM)

My lines were more than just going to voicemail. When calling my packet8 numbers from a landline I would get a message saying something about a level3 operator. Then it would transfer to a person who answered, before I could get a couple words out it would disconnect. Been happening for a couple hours that way.

(3H Dragon on Jan 14, 2010 4:43 AM)

Im a long time user of VOIP. I was an original with SunRocket VOIP, over 2 years, that suddenly went out of business in 2007. There was a small effect to my business. I had to find out they were out of business when I just lost service without notice. Initially I was panicked but I had already been analyzing other VOIPs and switched to 8x8 withtin a couple of days. I have since expanded my business uses with them over the last 2 years. Overall I had very little problems with them, and have been so pleased with them, until the other day! I figured out on my own within 30 minutes what was going on. My big disappointment is that after their rescue of many Sunrocket customers in 2007 you would think they would have had a plan in place in case of such a disaster. This is 1 strike 2 more to go. But no way an I guaranteeing them they will get 3 strikes depending the way the handle future situations.

PocketMac Rescues Smartphones from the Toilet

Tue, 12 Jan 2010 10:01 GMT

Admit it, you've come close to doing the unthinkable - you text on your phone and surf the web while in the bathroom and when you get up to flush, your beloved phone slips out of your hand, your shirt pocket, or pants pocket and heads toward the toilet. You see your phone falling through the air in slow motion, as though gravity has a sick sense of humor toying with you and making you think you have a fighting chance of saving your $300 smartphone.

Yes, gravity that great mysterious universal force is toying with you to see if you can react quickly enough to catch your phone in mid-flight. But alas, according to Gizmodo, 855,000 mobile phones are dropped in the toilet every year in just the UK. Now that the phone has reached the bottom of the toilet you have a decision to make. Do you quickly stick your hand and arm into the toilet to try and rescue your phone or do say "to hell with that, it's not worth putting my arm in there, I'll go get something to fish it out with."

Personally, I'd go for it. I'd dive my hand so fast thinking I could outrun the water molecules from entering the phone that I'd probably splash the toilet contents all over myself. A pretty picture no? Alas, even I, the great VoIP & Gadget blogger can not outrun water molecules to save my precious gadgety phone. Most likely my gadget phone would be dead.

Or would it?

Check this out:

PocketMac, the originators of several groundbreaking smartphone software tools, announces a new service that helps smartphone users save their digital life. Until now, when a smartphone was dropped in the toilet or was otherwise damaged, users' data was presumed to be lost forever.

However, PocketMac's new service, RecoverMySmartphone.com, recovers that data from damaged smartphones and clones it to new ones.
This saves countless hours reconstructing this information.
Specifically, the service will rescue the following types of data from smartphones:

- Contacts
- Photos
- Calendars
- Text Messages
- Email Messages
- Music
- Software
- Notes
- And More...

Damaged smartphones are a much larger problem that is generally assumed. According to Gizmodo, 855,000 mobile phones are dropped in the toilet every year in the UK alone. That's one and a half percent of their population that either accidentally flushes or otherwise damages their phone. Additionally, Gizmodo says, 58,500 UK phones are damaged by dogs every year. And that's not to mention the 116,000 phones damaged in the laundry.

The numbers grow even bigger when you consider that the United States has a population 5 times greater than the UK. This translates to over 4,275,000 US phones damaged in the toilet, 292,500 US phones damaged by dogs and 580,000 phones damaged in the laundry. This is what prompted PocketMac to create this new service.

"We've spent over 8 years and 32,000 man-hours dissecting smartphones to see how they work," said Tim Goggin, VP Of Sales & Marketing. "We're now applying that wealth of knowledge to salvage the data from users' smartphones. Before RecoverMySmartphone.com, every time a phone was dropped into water or smashed in some accident, the data was likely lost forever."

This service works very simply. Users with broken or malfunctioning phones ship their devices to RecoverMySmartphone's lab. As long as the device powers up, within 5-7 business days, the user's phone and recovered data will be shipped back to them. Optionally, RecoverMySmartphone's lab can clone the data to a new phone. Over 500 makes and models of phone are supported.

Goggin continued, "Most of us don't have even one phone number memorized anymore. RecoverMySmartphone.com rescues your life from your damaged phone."

The service supports salvaging the data from the following smartphones and PDAs:

- BlackBerrys
- Handspring PDAs
- iPhones
- iPods
- Motorola Phones
- Nokia
- Palm Phones & PDAs
- Panasonic Phones & PDAs
- Sendo Phones
- Siemens Phones
- Sony Ericsson Phones
- Windows Mobile Phones
- And More Phones Added Everyday...

While certain consultants can charge as much as $1900 for this type of data recovery, RecoverMySmartphone.com's rates are structured to be more reasonable:

Simple data recovery is a flat, introductory rate of $199.97 while cloning data from a broken device to a new one is a flat rate of $249.97. Return shipment is included in the cost of the service.

Rush service can be added for $50.00 flat.

Recovered data can be used on either a Windows-based PC or Macintosh.

A YouTube video preview of how RecoverMySmartphone.com works can be seen here:

Tags: blackberry, data recovery, gadget, iphone, mobile phone, motorola, nokia, palm, RecoverMySmartphone Related tags: phones damaged, dropped toilet, mobile phones, phones dropped, outrun water, phone

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Fonality Serves up 1 Billion Cloud VoIP Calls?

Fri, 08 Jan 2010 10:07 GMT

Today, Fonality announced it has served up its 1 billionth cloud call on their hosted VoIP platform called UNBOUND. UNBOUND is Fonality's fully hosted cloud phone system and VoIP service solution and starts at $24.99/mo. Of course, Fonality also offers fully premise-based IP-PBX solutions as well.

I like Fonality and the Fonality team, including Chris Lyman, Samy Kamkar, etc. but I can't help but be a little skeptical over 1 billion calls. How long has UNBOUND been around? About 6 months from what I see. That means 5.48 million calls in one year. Assuming the average company is 10 employees making 5 calls each that's 109,589 total customers in 6 months. For context, Packet8 posted 10,000 hosted VoIP customers in 2008 and they've been doing hosted VoIP a lot longer.

I must be missing something.

Tags: chris lyman, cloud call, fonality, hosted voip, unbound, voip Related tags: hybrid cloud, press release, billion calls, fonality cloud, pbxtra trixbox, cloud

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TrackBacks | Comments | Tag with del.icio.us | VoIP & Gadgets Blog Home | Permalink: Fonality Serves up 1 Billion Cloud VoIP Calls?

Comments on this Entry:

(Chris Lyman on Jan 8, 2010 2:23 PM)

Tom,

For clarification, Fonality's "1.3 Billion calls" number is the sum of all calls between our fully cloud product, UNBOUND, and our hybrid-cloud products, PBXtra & trixbox Pro. Each of these products are very similar (100% same code base). They each store all their calls in the cloud and they each have all their management in the cloud.

The only difference is that, while UNBOUND is 100% VoIP and has no premise server, PBXtra/trixbox Pro are protocol agnostic (PSTN, PRI, T1/E1, BRI/ISDN, *or* VoIP) and, while using the cloud for control & some storage, *do* have a premise server to increase scale, privacy, and allow for fixed line calling. That's why we called UNBOUND "cloud" and PBXtra/trixbox Pro "hybrid-cloud" in our press release.

So, for all our products, we use the same Fonality technology, the same Fonality cloud management (MACs) and the same Fonality cloud for monitoring, deployment, and ongoing support assistance. Heck, even the calls for all products go into the same Fonality cloud database for routing and processing. As such, we lump these highly similar products together for a single press release.

As for customer count, we are now over 6,000 paid customers during our six year (err seven, it's 2010) history. And unlike Packet8, who is forced to serve mainly smaller customers, our 'wide-net' strategy of cloud + hybrid-cloud allows us to serve customers from 5 to 500 employees per location. In fact, we even have some customers well over 1,000 seats!

Thus, because of our mix of small + large customers we are racking up the call volume pretty quickly here: 1.3 billion! You used to call us the "McDonald's of telephony" back in the day because our "xx calls served" styled press releases. Well, now that we have a "b" before "served" is that moniker official at this point? :)

Sorry for the confusion and a happy 2010 to you and yours.

--
Chris Lyman
Fonality CEO/Janitor

(Tom Keating on Jan 8, 2010 4:53 PM)

Thanks for the clarification Chris. The full cloud vs. hybrid cloud distinction is where the press release wasn't clear. The headline says 'Fonality Serves Its One Billionth Cloud Call' which to me means a VoIP call being routed into the cloud. Your comment explains you are also including calls from hybrid-hosted (PSTN:PRI, T1/E1, BRI/ISDN; or VoIP) customers, which merely "store" the CDR call data into the cloud, except for the VoIP customers. Fonality isn't truly "serving" a cloud call in my opinion just to host the CDR data for the PSTN customers. True, you do leverage the cloud in both scenarios, but I'm sure I'm not the only one who thought somehow Fonality served up 1 billion calls via SIP trunking.

Nevertheless, congrats on your success and I look forward to the day you tell me Fonality carried the 1 billionth "true" VoIP cloud call.

One billion calls! ;)

(Chris Lyman on Jan 8, 2010 5:23 PM)

Tom,

Fair counterpoint.

To clarify: at Fonality, our cloud strategy (and thus the intended thrust of our release) is more about cloud architecture, cloud management, and cloud storage than specific cloud trunking. We actually feel the "minutes" portion of cloud-based telephony is the easy part and is commoditizing at a rapid rate. To us, the cloud telephony movement is quickly moving beyond it's early "toll bypass" days of Skype/Vonage and the winners of this next phase are those that have focused on building true business telephony apps in the sky -- apps that do more than make cheap calls to China.

As you know, when you purchase a Fonality phone system, whether or not you choose to trunk with SIP or PSTN, a good chunk of what we deliver you lives in the sky where the future is quickly becoming the present. We spent years preaching this and it sure is exciting to see it finally gaining some traction.

That being said, we already have quite a few SIP trunking calls and I guess someday we will have to go through our cloud database and figure out exactly which ones were fully originated in the cloud vs which ones simply registered (IP Phone) and were stored in the happy blue sky.

Maybe we should start a dual press release policy. Would that get us twice the pickup? :)

../chris

(Voip Service Providers on Jan 11, 2010 9:51 AM)

Hi Guys,
Yes Of course Fonality providing round the clock support as well as having the best technology solutions.

Cell Phones Do a Body (& Mind) Good

Thu, 07 Jan 2010 13:34 GMT

Well, well well - it appears that cell phone radiation isn't all that bad; brain cancer be damned! You see, a recent study showed that electromagnetic radiation exposed to mice actually reversed Alzheimer's disease and improved cognitive capabilities. So you see, you are smarter the more you use your smartphone.

According to the ABC News article, "A similar (electromagnetic radiation) exposure in normal mice -- for two hours a day over seven to nine months -- improved their cognitive abilities compared with controls, Arendash and colleagues said in the January issue of the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, which is the research journal of the Alzheimer's Association."

Hey, if radiation can give Spiderman super-strength and "spider sense" that lets him sense danger, then it makes sense that low-levels of radiation can make us smarter. So ditch that Bluetooth headset and keep that cell phone real close to your head - we'll all be smart mutant superhero X-Men in a generation or two if all goes well.

Tags: abc news, alzheimer&os;s, cancer, cell phones, mutant, radiation, smartphone, x-men Related tags: electromagnetic radiation, improved cognitive, journal alzheimer, radiation, sense, alzheimer

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Asterisk's Growth Shines at ITEXPO

Thu, 07 Jan 2010 10:30 GMT

Asterisk just may be the #1 transforming VoIP company for the now past '00s "aughts" decade, which is quite appropriate when you consider Asterisk in many respects costs $0 dollars due to being open source. Of course, nothing is truly free in this world. If you download and install Asterisk yourself for your company you still have to pay for the hardware. Further, if something goes wrong and your Asterisk "game" is only rudimentary, you might have to pay for technical support. Companies have to also weigh the TCO of installing it themselves. What if their Asterisk guru leaves the company?

Free or Paid - Asterisk has changed the VoIP landscape forever, spawning off a huge ecosystem of third-party Asterisk solutions and vendors. How does one get to evaluate and see this Asterisk ecosystemall in one place? Well, ITEXPO has become the strongest communications show to see all these vendors..

For example, check out Rich Tehrani's post on all the Asterisk players exhibiting and participating at ITEXPO. The ITEXPO show is coming up very soon, so if you plan on attending, definitely book a room soon as I'm told the room block is nearly sold out. Of course, I'll be reporting all the Asterisk news and other communications news happening at the show down in sunny Florida.

Tags: asterisk, aughts, communications, decade, itexpo, voip Related tags: asterisk, itexpo, company

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Truphone Comes to Android - But no VoIP over 3G

Thu, 07 Jan 2010 09:49 GMT

Truphone fans will be happy to hear that the popular VoIP application now works on Android mobile handsets, though support for the new Google Nexus One is coming soon. Truphone's new Android application enables free calls to other Truphone, Skype and Google Talk users - though only over Wi-Fi and not 3G.

I don't get why Truphone only works over WiFi. AT&T for example recently announced they were allowing VoIP over 3G applications on the iPhone , including Skype. While running VoIP over AT&T's 3G data connection can have sketchy quality sometimes, it's still nice to have the option. Is Google not allowing VoIP over 3G on their Android devices or has Truphone just not enabled that feature? Or is some carrier restricting Google from offering VoIP over 3G. I'm going to have to investigate this further.

However I should point out, when out of Wi-Fi, the application does still work. Instead of VoIP over 3G data it instead makes a local GSM call to the Truphone gateway. Assuming the user has a bundled package of minutes this call is often free, otherwise it is charged as a 'local call', and then the call is then routed over the Truphone network.

In any event, the new Truphone for Android release 3.0 integrates a full VoIP engine allowing users to make free calls to Truphone, Google Talk and Skype users, as well as low cost calls to landlines and mobiles. Truphone's Android application also includes IM support for Skype, GoogleTalk, AIM, Yahoo! and MSN customers.

The new Truphone Android application is compatible with the HTC G1, HTC Magic and HTC Hero. Compatibility with other Android models with firmware 1.5 or above, including the Motorola Droid and the Nexus One is coming.

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Avaya Reveals Roadmap for Nortel Enterprise Assets at ITEXPO

Wed, 06 Jan 2010 16:28 GMT

Rich Tehrani and I are both excited to hear the future roadmap Avaya has in store for Nortel's enterprise assets that Avaya recently acquired. Will Avaya slowly phase out these Nortel enterprise products, continue the product line with the Avaya brand, integrate best-of-breed technologies from Avaya and Nortel and offer new SMB products? The questions are endless. IT managers, CTOs, MIS managers, etc. have been a bit in the dark as to what Avaya planned to do with the assets they acquired from Nortel, which affects present and future purchasing decisions. Well the questions (hopefully) will be answered at TMC's ITEXPO, which is just a few weeks away. I'll be there reporting on all the news and will certainly be attending the Avaya luncheon where they lay out Avaya's future plans.

Check out what Rich Tehrani had to say...

One of the most important enterprise communications acquisitions in recent memory will be highlighted at a keynote luncheon roundtable at ITEXPO, Thursday, January 21^st at 12:00 pm EST.

I am very excited to announce a brand new session at the World's Communications Conference:

Avaya Purchases Nortel Enterprise Assets:

Product Roadmap Implications for Users

A can't miss enterprise/SMB/channel panel discussing the important questions regarding how this major acquisition will affect the current communications landscape and implications for users' assets and plans.

Steve Hardy, Director of Products and Solutions Marketing will be at the show representing Avaya. Expect other Avaya execs to be there as well.

Talkbox Offers $10/month Unlimited U.S. and $20/month Unlimited World

Wed, 06 Jan 2010 10:25 GMT

Well, we have yet another played in the broadband VoIP space named Talkbox. They're based in the Los Angeles area and acquire new customers primarily via mall outlets in the L.A. area. One of their representatives told me, "Our growth has been viral, mostly word of mouth and Vonage refugees. It's because we have no hidden fees, no credit checks, no long-term contract and it's all billed month-to month. We have five stores in Los Angeles to help our customers feel connected with their phone company. Our TV ad was banned because Ma Bell complained."

I'm skeptical the ad was pulled because of Ma Bell. Perhaps the one-finger salute in the ad had something to do with it? Here's the video:

Interestingly, they offer an unlimited worldwide plan $5 for 5 days. Talk about getting truly granular with billing and payment options. I suppose this could be useful if you or a loved one takes a trip overseas and you only need to stay in touch for 5 days or so. I guess this would be equivalent to a prepaid calling card in some ways.

They also offer TalkBox Enterprise which costs $19 per month per line with unlimited calling. The typical 4 Lines used by SMBs would cost $65 per month. I reached out to Talkbox yesterday with some questions but haven't heard back.

Definitely seems like a small player, but the price is right, so if you wanna give it a go, let me know how well they work out for you in the comments.

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Comments on this Entry:

(Matt on Jan 6, 2010 1:22 PM)

Interesting that their enterprise product has this in the fine print:
"Offer applies to residential or cellular phone service only. Restrictions apply. Prepaid account. Fair use policy applies. Account is based on one simultaneous call, and for residential purposes only."

Guess we have different ideas about what enterprise means.

-Matt

(John Nichols on Jan 7, 2010 3:08 PM)

That set of terms applies to the consumer service, and that it was taken out of context to discredit unnecessarily... There is a different set of terms for Enterprise customers available on the website.

Have you looked at the fine print of the other major companies?

John

(John Nichols on Jan 7, 2010 3:16 PM)

Have you looked at the fine print of the other major companies?

Skype Brings 720p to HDTVs and PCs

Tue, 05 Jan 2010 09:28 GMT

Skype today introduced a high-definition (HD) video calling service that will work on computers and televisions. The newest version Skype 4.2 Beta for Windows, supports 720p video calling in a 1280x720 pixel resolution at 30 frames per second. The latest version of Skype will come pre-installed on some LG Electronics Inc. and Panasonic Corp. television sets by June, according to Skype. Panasonic will support the technology via its VIERA Cast televisions and LG will support it with its NetCast Entertainment Access and both will offer HD webcams as accessories.

The new HDTVs will deliver familiar Skype features including:

Free Skype-to-Skype voice and video calls
Calls to landline or mobile phones at Skype's low rates
The option to receive inbound calls via a user's online Skype number
Skype voicemail, if it is set up
Being invited to participate in voice conference calls with up to 24 other parties
Support for up to 720p HD video calls, depending on the availability of high-speed broadband and a HD webcam

I have a relatively new (late 2009) Panasonic 54" TV with VIERA Cast, so it'll be interesting to see if my TV will be on the list to support it. Personally, I find VIERA Cast to be a bit slow in processing horsepower. Or at least it seems that way to me. For example, the Youtube streaming is fast enough, with the video quality you'd expect, but navigation of the VIERA Cast menus seems a bit slow. I'm a bit skeptical my TV can run full-fledged Skype very well, since I don't think the processor they put in TVs is very fast and Skype is notoriously processor-heavy. Maybe audio VoIP might be OK, but videoconferencing on these Skype-embedded TVs? I'm sure Panasonic and LG have done some lab testing already and have it working, but perhaps they are putting beefier processors into their next model series? The press release does say it will work on Panasonic's 2010 series.

Great, so now I'll have to upgrade my 2009 flat-screen TV again just so it says "Skype Ready"?

More here and here

Tags: HDTV, lg, panasonic, skype, TV, video conferencing, viera cast, voip Related tags: video calling, version skype, calling service, video calls, skype, video

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