Posted by Dal at 10:54 AM | Direct Link | TrackBacks (0) Posted to Asterisk Releases

As reported first by 9 to 5 Mac, Apple is recruiting a senior RF Systems Engineer to help develop and implement next-generation wireless technologies, including WiMax, UWB and GPS solutions in its products. Bluetooth, Mobile TV and other wireless technologies are all part of the remit of the task, the ad explains. “The Senior Wireless system Engineer will be responsible for designing/integrating Apple wireless products, and exploring new wireless technologies.

He/she will work in a technology group on next generation wireless communications products as well as the integration of wireless technology within Apple products,” the ad states. The second vacancy is for a Product Designer for the iPhone.

This demanding role involves working with many other design teams at the company to help “create the next generation of the world’s finest handheld devices”, and relevant experience includes that of integrating wireless antenna into devices, with GSM, GPS and WiFi specifically named as part of the remit.

 Source: MacWorld

Posted by Dal at 03:24 PM | Direct Link | TrackBacks (0) Posted to Wireless Hardware

The SIP Forum has announced it has experienced a "dramatic surge" in memberships since the beginning of the year, with both corporate dues-paying and individual memberships experiencing 100 percent growth compared to the last quarter of 2007.

Currently, the SIP Forum has 45 "Full Member" companies and more than 5,000 individual members around the world. Recent dues-paying companies joining SIP Forum include Audiocodes, CableLabs, Covergence, Dialogic, HP, Microsoft, NEC Unified Solutions, Sonus Networks, and Tekelec.

SIP Forum Managing Director and President of the U.S.-based subsidiary of SIP Forum Marc Robins attributes the surge in growth to the work of the organization, and most especially the support and moment behind the SIPconnect SIP trunking initiative. SIPconnect has established an industry-approved set of rules and guidelines for setting up trouble-free (or at least less painful) direct IP peering between SIP-enabled IP PBXes and SIP-enabled VoIP providers. A SIPconnect approved product should be easily setup up with a SIP-enabled VoIP provider, making life much easier for the poor customer who has to set everything up in the first place.

For more: SIP Forum membership growth 

Posted by Dal at 03:22 PM | Direct Link | TrackBacks (0) Posted to SIP

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Posted by Dal at 10:33 AM | Direct Link | TrackBacks (0) Posted to VoIP Hardware

"Thirdlane PBX is unique because it enhances Asterisk management without limiting its capabilities" says Third Lane's Founder and CEO Alex Epshteyn. "A proven field-tested GUI and new features like multi-site management, CRM integration and enhanced device auto-provisioning make Thirdlane PBX the most mature, feature-rich and flexible system on the market."

A Proven Solution for Managing Asterisk PBX

Thirdlane simplifies management of the popular open source Asterisk PBX, while giving system integrators access to the full Asterisk feature set for building and deploying telephony applications. VoIP service providers also benefit from PBX Manager's full multi-tenant capabilities for managing multiple virtual hosted Asterisk PBXs for small businesses.

"With the multi-tenant edition, customers can start with a hosted system," says James Sturtevant, CEO of Sigma Networks, a Sunnyvale, CA supplier of hosted and on-premises IP-PBX and networking systems. "When they grow, all they have to do is install an on-premises PBX.

They can use the same phones. So it allows me to gain customers at an earlier stage and keep them through the entire lifecycle without additional training." Since its debut in 2003 PBX Manager for Asterisk has proven itself as a robust and flexible platform for delivering business-class voice services, both on-premises and as hosted IP-PBX systems. "PBX Manager has been a core part of our business since the beginning," says Jon Warren, CEO of Business First Solutions a supplier of hosted IP-PBX services.

"Almost 90 percent of our clients are call centers, many with multiple offices and remote employees. PBX Manager's Web interface lets clients manage all those locations centrally, and re-route calls on the fly and have the changes take effect immediately."

A Competitive Solution for Service Providers

Thirdlane PBX MTE 6.0 (multi-tenant edition) builds on this foundation to further enhance service providers' product portfolios, making it easier than ever to deploy and maintain the Asterisk PBX and hosted IP-PBX installations. ÒWith enhanced conference room management, CRM displays, management of multiple servers using a single Web interface, multi-level IVR, advanced 'hunt' groups and more, PBX Manager 6.0 is just what we've been looking for," says George Stoutenburgh, CEO of Colorado-based AxisInternet, a national ISP and VoIP provider. ÒWe now have the system to replace the conventional PBXs and compete with larger national providers. The new release also enhances Thirdlane PBX's value as a unified platform for deploying communications services and building seamless business processes that integrate voice.

Thirdlane delivers open source where it matters, explains Robert Messer, President of ABP Technology, a national value-added reseller network specializing in VoIP and IP communications. "It provides a powerful, clean interface for users and administrators, while giving our Reseller Partners full access to the underlying Asterisk platform for configuring or creating customized IP Telephony solutions. They can plug-in their own modules without complicating support or upgrades."

Thirdlane PBX 6.0 Highlights:

- Cluster management, enabling service providers and system administrators to manage multiple servers from a single management console with a single sign-on

- Enhanced auto-provisioning that supports more phones out-of-the-box and extends VAR's ability to customize the provisioning process.

- Enhanced conference configuration and management, delivering full-featured conferencing with real-time conference control through a rich Web interface

- CRM Integration with pre-configured connections to popular CRM solutions and search engines, plus the ability to custom-configure screen pops with any Web-based CRM

Availability: Thirdlane PBX 6.0 is available now.

Source: ClickPress 

Posted by Dal at 01:02 PM | Direct Link | TrackBacks (0) Posted to Asterisk Software

Posted by Dal at 12:00 PM | Direct Link | TrackBacks (0) Posted to Asterisk Releases

Digium is the creator and driving force behind Asterisk, the open source telephony software deployed by more than 4 million servers worldwide to manage voice over IP (VoIP) calls for businesses and individuals. More resellers, telecom professionals and software developers choose Digium’s products than those of any other open source telephony company because only Digium delivers the technical superiority, security and flexibility associated with Asterisk. Asterisk powers Digium’s family of software and hardware appliances, including Switchvox™, Asterisk Business Edition™ and AsteriskNOW.

Integrics sells Enswitch to telecommunications companies, Internet telephony service providers (ITSPs), VoIP providers and others to allow them to create offerings such as full-featured, telephone management and billing solutions, calling card integration, toll free and number translation services, voicemail, call queuing, automatic call distributor, fax to email and multi-level interactive voice response.

Enswitch is based on Digium’s Asterisk Business Edition or open source Asterisk, based on each customer’s preference, as well as other open source software such as OpenSER, MySQL and Linux. Enswitch runs on a single machine or on an Asterisk/OpenSER cluster and supports high availability and failover, allowing for failure of any single machine with only a few seconds of interruption to service. The clustered architecture, which can be geographically distributed, also allows additional machines to be added as the customer’s network grows.

“Enswitch is the most integrated system available today for hosted commercial telephony services,” said Alistair Cunningham, Managing Director at Integrics. “There are many other products available that provide PBX features, pre-paid billing, post-paid billing, invoicing and so on, but only Enswitch provides all of these in a single integrated product. Collaboration with Digium will help us better capitalize on sales and marketing opportunities and enhance our own product development over time.”

“The combination of Asterisk and Enswitch provides a cost-effective alternative to traditional methods for providing hosted PBX and other commercial telephony services,” said Steve Harvey, Vice President of Worldwide Sales at Digium. “Asterisk’s open source architecture also lends itself to a high level of customization to meet the needs of each customer. We believe that a closer relationship with Integrics will help push Asterisk further into the service provider market by giving those companies a very attractive alternative to closed-source products.”

Source: Business Wire 

Posted by Dal at 11:05 AM | Direct Link | TrackBacks (0) Posted to Asterisk News

We thought it would be good to give open source VoIP pioneers Digium equal time, given our recent post about Freeswitch. Digium's founder, Mark Spencer was the original author of the Asterisk PBX, one of the more mature open source VoIP platforms. The company's VP of Marketing, Bill Miller, told me that "Last year was a big year for us; at the year-end we had finished our 24th straight profitable quarter.

We had grown to about 130 employees." While Digium doesn't disclose financial figures, its sales have reportedly been doubling over the past few years and it has at least $14 million in venture capital since launching.

Digium has been traditionally focused on the SMB market with its line of telephony interface cards and small appliances and it is increasingly getting into services. Miller said, "We position the products with 2-400 users as an IP PBX. That business is growing over 100 percent year-on-year." The company recently revamped its entire product line and has announced a distribution partnership with 3Com for the sub-30 user range.

Digium continues to invest heavily in the open source side of the Asterisk product as well. Miller told me that "A sizable portion of our developers are 100 percent dedicated to the OSS side and don't do any commercial work." This is quite a difference from some other OSS-based companies like Red Hat that tend to cross-pollinate developers.

Digium has made some missteps in the past, which have stirred controversy among the community outside of the company. This was part of the genesis of several other forks of Asterisk. The genesis of much of the controversy has been the defense of the Digium brand, and Miller said, "It's not Digium that's hurting OSS, it's the people who leverage the Digium brand and don't give back that hurt the OSS side of things. We value it with a vengeance." This is often a point of contention when companies form around OSS projects, and one that has played out in different ways over the years.

With regard to Freeswitch, Miller says that Digium doesn't "see us competing with them any time in the near future." Freeswitch isn't currently capable of commanding the attention of the company in any big way. They are largely in different markets, with Freeswitch focused on service providers, and Asterisk focusing on the SMB market. The relationship is tenuous at best, but there is definitely room for many projects in the VoIP space.

Digium is in many ways a good model for building a company around an open source project. It is a profitable company that has grown very conservatively, picked experienced leadership, and has focused on products above all else. With sales doubling year-over-year, this is surely a company and a market segment to watch.

Source

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Posted by Dal at 02:32 PM | Direct Link | TrackBacks (0) Posted to WiMax

AstriCon is the pioneer and longest-running event devoted to all things Asterisk, one of the most influential open source projects today. Attendees will learn about trends in Asterisk use, the growing Asterisk ecosystem, the newest applications and a wide range of technical topics from Asterisk developers, users and entrepreneurs.

“AstriCon is so vibrant and productive because it brings together the people who live and breathe telephony innovation,” said Mark Spencer, creator of Asterisk and Digium’s chief technology officer. “This is the one time in 2008 when the individuals who are most focused on development and use of Asterisk will come together, making it the show that both enthusiasts and those who are looking to get to know Asterisk must attend.”

In the past, many Asterisk users and Digium partners needed to select one Asterisk event to attend in the fall—AstriCon or Digium|Asterisk World, which has been held in conjunction with Pulvermedia’s VON Conference & Expo. However, due to recent changes at Pulvermedia, Digium will not hold Digium|Asterisk World this fall. As a result, the many ISVs, resellers and integrators, and developers who selected one over the other in the past, or needed to split attention and resources, will be able to focus on AstriCon.

AstriCon 2008 will be held at the Renaissance Glendale Hotel and Spa in Glendale, Ariz. Those wishing to submit speaking proposals may do so by June 1, 2008. Registration is now open at www.astricon.net.

Posted by Dal at 12:21 PM | Direct Link | TrackBacks (0) Posted to Asterisk News

The new company, to be named Clearwire, will receive a $3.2 billion investment from Intel Corp., Google Inc., Comcast Corp., Time Warner Cable Inc. and Bright House Networks. The investment is based on a target price of $20 per Clearwire share and will give the companies a 22 percent stake in the new venture.

Overland Park, Kan.-based Sprint Nextel Corp. will be majority owner with a 51 percent equity stake, while existing Clearwire shareholders will receive about 27 percent interest.

Clearwire, which will concentrate on rolling out a mobile network based on the emerging WiMAX standard, will also receive an investment from Trilogy Equity Partners, led by U.S. wireless industry veteran John Stanton.

WiMAX promises faster download speeds than the latest networks run by cell-phone operators, and it's even seen as a potential competitor to fixed-line broadband.

Rivals such as AT&T Inc. and Verizon Wireless have eschewed WiMax, opting instead for upgrades to their current wireless broadband networks and a future technology called Long Term Evolution.

Clearwire already provides wireless Internet service in some parts of the country, using a WiMax-like technology. The company had a subscriber base of nearly 400,000 wireless broadband customers at the end of 2007.

The new company is looking for a U.S. network deployment between 120 million and 140 million people by the end of 2010.

Sprint and Clearwire, a startup founded by cellular pioneer Craig McCaw, had already announced their plans to build out networks using WiMAX technology, but had been looking for outside funding.

The new company will be led by Clearwire Chief Executive Benjamin Wolff, with Sprint Chief Technology Officer Barry West serving as president. West also leads Sprint's XOHM division.

The Kirkland, Wash.-based venture will house workers from Clearwire and Sprint's XOHM unit and will have research and development and other operations located in Herndon, Va. Its board will consist of 13 members at the start. Sprint will name seven of them, which will include at least one independent director. The investor group will name four members, including one independent. Eagle River, a private investment company controlled by wireless veteran Craig McCaw, will name one member, with the remaining independent member selected by Clearwire's nominating committee.

McCaw is expected to serve as non-executive chairman. Other anticipated board members include Sprint President and CEO Dan Hesse, Comcast Chairman and CEO Brian Roberts, Time Warner Cable President and CEO Glen Britt and Stanton.

The deal, which has been approved by the boards of all companies involved, is expected to close during the fourth quarter. The company will apply for a Nasdaq listing under the ticker "CLWR."

Posted by Dal at 12:06 PM | Direct Link | TrackBacks (0) Posted to WiMax

AOL Math: 1.7 + .3 = 4   AOL has taken a page from Ma Bell in terms of creative mathematics. With each call, AOL first rounds UP the time of the call to the next minute and then rounds UP the total price to the next penny. Here’s the way their Terms of Service describe it:

“For point of clarity, the rounded up minutes are multiplied against the current rate effective at the end of the call (generally based on the location the call is placed) and then rounded up to whole cents (USD).” So a 70-second call in the U.S. (which should cost under 2¢ at 1.7¢ per minute using Plain Old Math) actually is billed to you at 4¢. Charitably speaking,

it’s creative to advertise the cost of a call in the U.S. as 1.7¢ per minute with all the rounding that is taking place. For short calls, it can be more than double that rate once you factor in AOL’s double rounding. In our example, the 70-second call is first rounded up to 2 minutes. And then the cost of the call is computed at 3.4¢ for the already rounded up call. Then the 3.4¢ computation is rounded up to 4¢. So you see 1.7 + .3 really does equal 4 in the bowels of AOL.

Source:  Click Here for the Full Nerd 

Posted by Dal at 10:44 AM | Direct Link | TrackBacks (0) Posted to Asterisk Software

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