Today I got an email pointing me over to VoIP-News for the second annual "Top 25 VoIP Blogs" award and we were happy to see that our blog has won for the second straight year.  Even being mentioned along side some of the Titans in the industry like Andy, Om Malik, Rich, Jeff Pulver and O'Reilly sent tingles down my back.  This blog was first started with me not knowing enough about VoIP and Asterisk so I felt if I started blogging about it, that in turn would increase in knowledge but also create a resource for others trying to find out whats new in the Asterisk and VoIP World. 

It has been a crazy trip also being able to hear about scandals first hand and even break a couple news stories myself.  Thanks again to VoIP-News for the award and I am going to even work harder in 2008 to bring even more news and information.

Source:  VoIP-News 

Posted by Dal at 12:33 PM | Direct Link | TrackBacks (0) Posted to AVN Site Updates

Dear A2Billing-Users,

We are pleased to announce new Asterisk2Billing version V1.3.1 Stable (Yellowjacket)

PROJECT URL : http://trac.asterisk2billing.org


We have focused on correcting all the reported bugs from our previous version 1.3.0, for this reason we advise you to upgrade your A2Billing to our latest release.

As usual, the forum & the online demo are still available :

FORUM -> http://forum.asterisk2billing.org/

DEMO -> http://demo.asterisk2billing.org/

SVN & Development information :

http://trac.asterisk2billing.org/cgi-bin/trac.cgi/wiki/Development

CALL-LABS : http://www.call-labs.com

Register and try Call-Labs, our A-Z provider!

All profits from Call-Labs are ploughed back into A2Billing to help support the project.

Please don't forget to make a donation if you find our software useful and want to support the development of Asterisk2Billing :


http://trac.asterisk2billing.org/cgi-bin/trac.cgi/wiki/Donate%20to%20A2Billing

From now on, we will be focusing on our future A2Billing Version 1.4!

On branch 1.3, we focused on stability & reliability, this branch will still be updated and supported, we will only introduce patches in order to fix potential issues.

On 1.4 Trunk, we are making changes to improve and make our future
release more feature rich :

UIs enhancement, Caching, New Rating options, More CRM features, configuration from UI, and we are working on some more improvements on the AGI, in order to make it more scalable!

Kind regards & Merry Christmas ;-)

/Areski

Posted by Dal at 05:31 PM | Direct Link | TrackBacks (0) Posted to Asterisk Software

So when a new company came up with a product that those New England banks wanted to buy, the salespeople would go work for the new company so they could keep their commissions flowing. Cisco's acquisition strategy was designed to keep that from happening to Cisco. So if a Cisco customer wanted to buy a piece of networking equipment from a company other than Cisco, Cisco would buy the company. This proved to be a brilliant strategy for Cisco and its shareholders.

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Posted by Dal at 11:48 AM | Direct Link | TrackBacks (0) Posted to Cisco

Posted by Dal at 12:41 PM | Direct Link | TrackBacks (0) Posted to Asterisk Releases

Note: Love it, what a great idea and project that uses Asterisk and helps cut through some of the "redtape".  I think I am going to take it for a test drive with this FCC vote happening today.  Media consolidation is not good for democracy and I think both sides can agree they want more not less options for getting information.

An NYU student has launched CommitteeCaller.com, a Web site that makes it easier for taxpayers to get in touch with their elected representatives. What a great use of technology in the furtherance of Democracy.

This site works like this:

Posted by Dal at 11:07 AM | Direct Link | TrackBacks (0) Posted to VoIP Politics

Glenn Fleishman ran a lengthy critique of the report on Wi-Fi Networking News, summarizing the it as "a case study of what went wrong in municipal wireless, starting as the premise that public ownership with private operators working as contractors is what was called for by Phila. stakeholders and common sense, and that the non-profit that should have run the network has accomplished little." He followed with a number of point-by-point challenges to statements in the report.

To be honest, I'm still sorting through its 64 pages and weighing the arguments inside. To be sure, the report is a critique--and often a scathing one--of the evolution of Philadelphia's network or, more specifically, of Wireless Philadelphia's partnership with EarthLink. It focuses heavily on the outcome's departures from the original guiding dream and is most critical of the fact that the Wireless Philadelphia of today is not operating in accordance with the input garnered from the public debate and community input that went into the plan early on.

It is also sure to galvanize debate over the merits of public v. private ownership of municipal networks. But I'm not sure that's the point. Like Glenn, I have a number of reservations about the why in which the evolution of Philadelphia's network is characterized in the Ethos Group's report. As he correctly points out, much of what happened in Philadelphia occurred out of necessity. The city just did not have the financial resources to take on the commitment of owning and operating the network. Thus, EarthLink's offer to do so emerged as an attractive alternative.

OK. Having gotten that out of the way, the Ethos Group's insistence on maximizing public input into the design, implementation and ownership of public projectsis....well, the word "noteworthy" seems like a crass understatement. As the debate over the report and the relative merits of public and private ownership continue (and they always will as they always have in the past), the public part of the equation should never lose sight of the public it's there to support.
 

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Posted by Dal at 10:17 AM | Direct Link | TrackBacks (0) Posted to WiFi / Wireless

 

In combination with Polycom HD Voice technology, the SoundPoint IP 560 is the ideal solution for enterprises that demand the best call experience and are either deploying or considering deploying advanced applications requiring a high-bandwidth network infrastructure.

"The ability to move large amounts of data quickly is critical to enhancing our workforce productivity and providing services faster to our customers," said Mat Greener, senior director of IT, Manatron, Inc. "We chose Polycom SoundPoint IP 560 because it is the best SIP phone with universal interoperability, GigE support, and the amazing Polycom HD Voice."

"A growing number of our customers want to increase productivity and expand services by using high-bandwidth applications such as video at their desktop," said Joseph A. Staples, senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing for Interactive Intelligence Inc. "As a GigE-capable SIP phone, the SoundPoint IP 560 satisfies this need. We applaud Polycom for helping us continue to deliver to our customers the most innovative enterprise IP telephony solutions on the market."

In addition to its GigE support, the SoundPoint IP 560 delivers a clear and unrivaled lifelike audio experience with Polycom's high definition voice technology -- Polycom HD Voice. A key component of HD Voice is the use of a standard wideband voice codec (ITU standard G.722), which enables high definition voice transmission. As adoption of wideband voice accelerates, enterprises benefit most by investing in IP endpoint that support G.722 wideband calls. Polycom HD Voice also includes its patented Acoustic Clarity Technology which provides market leading noise reduction, echo cancellation and full duplex speakerphone capability.

"GigE and HD Voice are emerging technologies that will dramatically improve the way our customers communicate," said Sunil Bhalla, senior vice president and general manager of Polycom's Voice Communications Solutions division. "With the SoundPoint IP 560, Polycom provides solid investment protection by delivering an IP telephony solution that is fully equipped to leverage these two new technologies."

In a typical office installation, a network cable runs from the wall jack to the IP phone and a second network cable runs from the IP phone to the PC. The speed of the network connection to the PC is limited by the fastest speed that the IP phone supports. In a GigE environment, the phone must support GigE switching at full line rate in order for the PC to have the benefit of full GigE connectivity. The SoundPoint IP 560 features a dual-port GigE switch that eliminates any network bottleneck between the edge switch and the PC.

Additional Product Features

The SoundPoint IP 560 has four-lines and includes advanced SIP features and capabilities, such as shared call/bridge line appearance, busy lamp field (BLF), presence, text messaging, and buddy lists. It includes an integrated XHTML micro-browser that enables users to take advantage of productivity-enhancing Web-based applications.

The new phone has been tested and certified to deliver comprehensive interoperability and extensive feature support with Polycom's growing list of over 25 SIP-based call control platform partners including 3Com, BroadSoft, Digium, Interactive Intelligence, Sylantro, and other Polycom VoIP Interoperability Partners (VIP). For more information on the Polycom VIP Program, visit www.polycom.com/vip.

Pricing and Availability

The Polycom SoundPoint IP 560 is planned to be available in North America, Europe and most of Asia-Pac this month through Polycom certified channel partners for a MSRP $469.00 USD. For more information about the SoundPoint IP 560, please visit the Polycom web site at www.polycom.com/voip.

Polycom reserves the right to modify future product plans at any time. Products and/or related specifications referenced in this press release are not guaranteed, and will be delivered on a when and if available basis.

Source: Polycom Inc. 

Posted by Dal at 10:06 AM | Direct Link | TrackBacks (0) Posted to Polycom

Note:  I really enjoy these headlines, by my count video has been the killer app since 2005 *cough YouTube *cough.  I thought Cisco would of gotten the memo first being that there enterprise level customer must be asking for more features in there switches to help with the bandwidth intensive video traffic.   Anyways glad to see they are onboard :)

Cisco Systems believes video is the killer app for the next generation of Internet. But that will likely not impact the enterprise for another five to seven years.  Cisco at its C-Scape conference in San Jose beat the collaboration drum in laying out its strategy and vision for the future of networking, with video playing a key part of collaboration.

But while Facebook, MySpace and other Web 2.0 technologies are pushing network service providers like AT&T to deploy major upgrades today, those same technologies are not a network growth driver in the enterprise today.

U.S enterprises such as Chevron today are cautious in their approach to Web 2.0 and collaboration technologies, said Louis V Ehrlich, CIO of Chevron's Global Downstream Operations in a panel discussion at C-Scape.

"We're playing with some things [such as Microsoft's SharePoint]…we have a few pilots. We are consciously incompetent [with using Web 2.0 technologies]," he said.

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Posted by Dal at 09:52 AM | Direct Link | TrackBacks (0) Posted to Cisco

Note:  Now this sounds like a useful device, with more people having multiple people on one broadband connection and running more services like VoIP and PC / Console gaming machines (PS3, XBox 360 & Wii).  I need to get my hands on one to test it myself.  Price point isn't too bad either for the average some-what broke gamer. 

"We use Vonage for the main Geek.com line and recently we were experiencing choppy audio during some conference calls. In some cases we couldn’t be heard while other times we couldn’t hear the caller. Figuring the drop out was due to my not prioritizing the VoIP traffic on the router, I was about to do some customizing when I decided to give the OGV200 Network Optimizer a go."

If you’re not familiar with the OGV200 Network Optimizer, it’s a little device that performs automatic prioritization of packets by using a variety of Quality of Service techniques.

Basically, it determines what’s higher priority and sends it through. In theory that means that being on a voice call should be higher priority than checking for e-mail. Setup was pretty straight forward since it’s just the Optimizer and then a power adapter and an ethernet cable.

The instructions walk you through putting it in place but you’re basically just placing it in between your home router and your cable modem. I did as instructed and then waited until I was on my next conference call to see if I noticed a difference.

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Posted by Dal at 12:07 PM | Direct Link | TrackBacks (0) Posted to VoIP Hardware

Posted by Dal at 12:03 PM | Direct Link | TrackBacks (0) Posted to WiMax