Maybe there is something to this idea that, in a recession, Voice over IP service is an affordable alternative to traditional telephone service.

In the first half of 2009, VoIP services brought in nearly $21 billion in revenue, with both residential and business services looking healthy and poised for even more growth for the second half of the year, according to a report by market research firm Infonetics Research.

Residential voice services still brings in the majority of revenue, with the number of subscribers growing 14 percent from the end of 2008 through the first half of ‘09. On the business side, the research firm said it expected IP Centrex and hosted unified communications service revenue to grow 26 percent year-over-year.

But the current sweet spot, at least in North America, is small businesses with fewer than 100 employees. In the first half of the year, roughly two-thirds of all IP Centrex seats sold went to small businesses.

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"Government and PSUs were the top revenue earners for us, replacing IT services customers who were the biggest until slowdown happened," said Naresh B Wadhwa, managing director of Cisco India. Cisco also won the networking portion of Rs 1,200 crore ESIC contract along with Wipro.

Cisco does not give out its revenues from the Indian market, but according to Voice and Data, the company’s India revenues were around Rs 4,500 crore last year. "There are many markets that are still in the making, such as traffic management, water management and security.

Transport is also a big opportunity," said Mr Wadhwa. An expert tracking Cisco’s Indian wins said many tenders specify Cisco switches, which works to the company’s advantage. "Some of the tenders specify Cisco switches instead of a more generic specification," he said.

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The US Federal Communications Commission is considering a plan that would reclaim some precious airwaves from the country's television broadcasters and reinvent them as wireless broadband.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the FCC intends to release the plan on Friday as part of an effort to ensure that there's enough wireless bandwidth for the America of the future. "The record is very clear that we're facing a looming spectrum gap," said Blair Levin, who oversees the plan, part of a wider push to expand US broadband.

The plan would involve the FCC buying spectrum back from TV folk and then auctioning it off to wireless folk. The FCC has already opened up the television "white spaces" as unlicensed spectrum, hoping to create a kind of "WiFi on steroids."

But the new plan creates vast swathes of licensed wireless broadband, providing more bandwidth for the likes of AT&T and Verizon. Alongside God and Dolly Parton, the nation's TV broadcasters vehemently opposed the white spaces move, and you can bet they'll do the same with the proposed plan to take back even more spectrum.

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Aastra launches the Aastra 6739i, its most advanced desk phone to date. The company unveiled the new color touch screen phone today to hundreds of telecom resellers and service providers at the BroadSoft Connections executive conference.

In an increasingly competitive business climate, executives need access to the highest quality communication technology available to facilitate personal communications and collaboration. The feature-packed Aastra 6739i is a market-leading touch screen business desk phone, delivering high quality enterprise communications with advanced features, such as Bluetooth and dual Gigabit Ethernet.

The 6739i is ideally suited for senior professionals who require a powerful, flexible IP telephone to maximize their communications efficiency.

Features

• Large Touch Screen Display
  The The high resolution (640 x 480) full VGA backlit LCD Touch Screen display is at the heart of the Aastra 6739i. A state of the art display, the screen provides helpful navigational menus to take full advantage of the powerful telephony features this SIP phone brings to the desktop. Adjustable contrast and brightness settings can be used to ensure maximum resolution quality in any lighting environment. The screen size is large enough to offer multiple touch screen softkeys which can be customized as speed dial/function keys.
• Remarkable Audio
  All 67xi Series IP Telephones incorporate Aastra Hi-Q™ audio technology to deliver enhanced performance and voice clarity. Integrating wideband audio software and full frequency response hardware, the Aastra 6739i goes one-step beyond maximizing the acoustic performance to deliver a remarkable audio experience on every call, whether using the handset, hands-free speakerphone or headset port. Sound quality and performance are clearly elevated to a new level with the 6739i
  from Aastra.
• Flexible Headset Options
  Providing enhanced headset flexibility, the 6739i allows for a variety of headset options. Featuring a built-in Bluetooth interface and a dedicated EHS (DHSG) port, the 6739i facilitates mobility around the office while enjoying remarkable audio quality on your wireless headset. Additionally, a standard modular headset connector with built-in amplifier provides easy connection for traditional commercial headsets.
• Simplified Deployment
  From initial deployment and configuration to future enhancements and upgrades, the Aastra 6739i is designed to save your business time and money. Dual autosensing switched Gigabit Ethernet ports eliminate additional wiring and simplify installations without compromising the bandwidth required by power users. Integrated IEEE 802.3af Power-over-Ethernet allows easy deployment with centralized powering and backup. Easily created configuration files, using any text editor, can be used to configure phones individually or centrally.

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This transition allows Sakaria to focus on the company's overall direction and strategy. Sakaria sees Chris as the right person to continue and grow VoicePulse's success as an industry leader in quality VoIP products and unmatched customer service.

"I am confident that, by hiring Chris, I have strengthened VoicePulse's ability to deliver innovative services based on VoIP technology and capitalize on the company's core competencies,” Sakaria explains. “Chris' combination of management, financial and sales skills are a clear match for VoicePulse and I'm extremely excited about the company's future under his capable leadership."

Mr. Silk was brought on to accelerate the growth of the company and to build upon its core competencies. He brings with him a wealth of experience in operations management, sales strategy and business development.

“I am very excited about the opportunity to join VoicePulse in this leadership role,” says Silk. “This is a company I have known well for the last 5 years and I believe we are ideally positioned for continued success. Ravi, Ketan and the rest of the VoicePulse team have built an incredible foundation which will support a world class telecommunications company.” Silk adds, “It is our goal to take this foundation and move aggressively forward as an industry leader in VoIP technology.”

Silk's career has spanned over 15 years in the telecommunications industry, including leadership roles with Verizon, UUNET and SBC. He was also the CEO of a private cable company where he worked on several acquisitions as the "Mom & Pop" Private Cable industry evolved into consolidation. Silk's experience and expertise will be the driving force behind VoicePulse's continued success.

Source: PR.com

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Customers buy the Asterisk application from IBM’s Smart Market, and rely on IBM for support. Digium support staff is on call to IBM for tier 2 support, but customers only have to deal with IBM.

The PBX software is sold in two sizes, for 20 concurrent calls ($2,000.00 USD) and for 40 concurrent calls ($4,000 USD).

Smart Cube is sold as a hardware platform with a base set of applications on it and a second set of applications available for customers to buy via Smart Market to address their specific business needs.

The Asterisk software can be configure and managed via IBM’s Smart Desk management dashboard, which gives a common look to management of all the Smart Market applications.

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"The shareholders are convinced that Tandberg will generate strong returns as an independent company, but are open to evaluate a higher offer from Cisco or a third party," SEB Enskilda said. The 21 shareholders include both international and Norwegian, and both long-term and new owners of Tandberg stock, it said.

A Cisco spokeswoman declined to comment on the announcement, citing a continuing tender process. The company reiterated that it believes it is paying a fair price for Tandberg.

Tandberg wasn't immediately available to comment.

Cisco agreed to buy Tandberg for around $3 billion, or 153.50 Norwegian kroner a share, on Oct. 1 . It said Tandberg's board recommended the all-cash tender to its shareholders, and that the offered price was 11% above Tandberg's closing price the previous day and 25% above a three-month average price for the stock.

Cisco has recently pushed into 30 new business areas, including video-conferencing systems, which it says could each produce $1 billion a year in revenue.

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As of March 2009, "Gizmo5 serves more than six million consumer and business users" after six years. Skype adds that every 17 days. I don’t know if Gizmo5 has been successful enough to create attractive cash flow. If Skype owned the business, could Skype quickly build profits?

Gizmo5’s IP prime asset could be its SIP gateway. They’ve built on top of it a SIP-to-Skype (OpenSky) gateway, support for Google Talk, and Gizmo Voice, a Gizmo5/Google Voice mashup. If the code is good enough, it might be the base of an enterprise server product or a hosted service. If you trust Julian Cain’s critical fact-checking comments in Mike’s story, I doubt the code would survive due diligence.

If the systems is rock solid, scalable, and easy to adapt, Skype might save two to six months development time by buying. The brand is fine for VoIP geeks, is known to buyers of cheap/free calling. However Gizmo is far from a broad consumer brand. Test for yourself. Gizmo5’s business relationships are available to Skype with a phone call. No exclusive channels of distribution. No high value marketing partners. No namespaces bringing millions of new Gizmo users.

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The widgetry is a version of the Aura solution the company brought out for the large-scale enterprise in May. It's supposed to be one of the first solutions to use standards-based virtualization for real-time communications - and Avaya thinks so much of virtualization - the use of software to run multiple applications on a single piece of hardware at the same time - that it says it will be its de facto method of deploying applications from here on out.

Avaya has rolled its own middleware based on Linux and the open source Xen virtualization projection to make unified communications and collaboration more practical and affordable for the mid-sized company. It says its new mid-size Aura can support 2,400 users and 250 locations on a single high-end Intel Nehalem server at prices starting at 60 bucks a seat.

Besides saving money, the widgetry is supposed to reduce complexity and power consumption and, compared to rival systems, obviously needs a whole lot less hardware, which explains why it's cheaper. Avaya calculates that Aura takes 80% less hardware than Microsoft, which isn't running communications of its Hyper-V hypervisor, and 65% less than Cisco, which isn't doing real-time. The less machinery, the less power, cooling and maintenance is needed, making the widgetry more environmentally friendly and lowering its total cost of ownership.

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Cisco launched software that shines light on potentially troublesome websites hidden in what the US computer security firm dubbed the "Dark Web."

Cisco IronPort Web Usage Controls promise to identify as much as 90 percent of "egregious" content that has escaped detection by business IT managers and security applications because of its stealthy nature on the Internet.

"The Dark Web is about corporate users' inability to see how workers are using the Web," Cisco product line manager Kevin Kennedy told AFP on Thursday.

"It is that dark, dynamic and churning part of the Web that has created the problem for business."

Computer users are growing increasingly savvy about sidestepping Internet filters, using proxy servers and other techniques to mask which websites they visit while at work, according to Cisco.

For example, if workers log into Facebook.com from an office computer someone in the IT department can typically tell how much time they fritter away at the popular social-networking website.

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Editor's Note:  WOW OMG YAY THANK YOU AT&T - Do I really need to say more.  This is a landmark decision and kudos have to go Ma Bell for finally giving your loyal customers what they want.  With the direction the trend is going, people want data in their pocket and they want to be able to do what ever they want if they are paying such a premium for the iPhone.  Hope everyone is happy, because I am, time to get my Skype number ready.

AT&T today announced it has taken the steps necessary so that Apple can enable VoIP applications on iPhone to run on AT&T’s wireless network. Previously, VoIP applications on iPhone were enabled for Wi-Fi connectivity. For some time, AT&T has offered a variety of other wireless devices that enable VoIP applications on 3G, 2G and Wi-Fi networks. AT&T this afternoon informed Apple Inc. and the FCC of its decision.

In late summer, AT&T said it was taking a fresh look at VoIP capabilities on iPhone for use on AT&T’s 3G network, consistent with its regular review of device features and capabilities to ensure attractive options for consumers.

“iPhone is an innovative device that dramatically changed the game in wireless when it was introduced just two years ago,” said Ralph de la Vega, president and CEO, AT&T Mobility & Consumer Markets. “Today’s decision was made after evaluating our customers’ expectations and use of the device compared to dozens of others we offer.”

AT&T allows customers to download or launch on their wireless devices a multitude of compatible applications directly from any lawful Internet website. Additionally, because AT&T uses GSM technology, the most pervasive and open wireless technology platform in the world, we support customers using any GSM phone that works on AT&T's frequencies.

Source: BusinessWire

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Editor's Note:  Polycom is for certain in play being such a large platform independent voice and video hardware manufacturer.  I have been brainstorming what this means having the 8,000 pound gorilla now in the video conferencing market in such a major way with an army of sales people and marketing.   If anyone have $3 billion and what to make a company to really take on this challenge, please contact me (I am very serious).  I have already had some wealth managers call me asking my thoughts on this acquisition.

Cisco Systems Inc's overture for Norway's Tandberg puts U.S.-based Polycom Inc in play as it is the only public company now left in the video conferencing market. Polycom could also be gravitating toward selling itself as the threat of competing with a behemoth like Cisco looms large, analysts said. On October 1, network equipment maker Cisco said it entered a deal to buy Tandberg for $3 billion.

Polycom might be the best bet left for companies that want to tap the fast-growing video conferencing products market, worth about $2 billion in 2008. Cisco's peers might also want to play catch-up as a key high-growth market ends up in their rival's lap.

"Video has become strategic and there's a limited place to play it," Piper Jaffray analyst Troy Jensen said. "Now that Tandberg is getting acquired, maybe it accelerates the timeframe."

"Polycom is a logical acquisition target for someone," Jensen added.

Polycom and Tandberg control three-fourths of the video conferencing products market. The rest of the market is fragmented with firms like Cisco, with its Telepresence products, Hewlett-Packard and privately held LifeSize rounding it out.

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Editor's Note:  Now this is the 4th article I have read from another intelligence agency citing the strong encryption of Skype.  At first I thought this might be a ruse to get people that are committing crimes to feel an increased sense of safety in using Skype for their communications (In no way do I support illegal activity), but now I am wondering if it is as good as it has been claimed to be?   With the attacks in Mumbai, I can see why this is a concern being that is was reported that the terrorists used a form of VoIP (non-skype) to coordinate these most unfortunate attacks.   I am going to do some deeper research to see what I can find.  

NEW DELHI: Intelligence agencies have asked the government to consider blocking Skype as operators of the popular global VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) engine are refusing to share the encryption code that prevents Indian investigators from intercepting conversations of suspected terrorists.

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The network covers Santa Clara, Mountain View and parts of downtown Palo Alto, California. That means it can service the campuses of Google, Intel and Cisco, and perhaps the apartments and garages of many other independent developers. Clearwire originally announced plans for the network in April.

In order to get unlimited access to the network developers must prove that they are working on a legitimate project, and they must purchase one of Clearwire's WiMax modems, which start at $50. And the free service offer lasts only one year.

What's In It for Clearwire?

Clearwire hopes that by being the first in the area to offer a fast 4G network in the neighborhood, it will spur developers to create new apps that depend on and leverage 4G speed. (WiMax can deliver average download speeds of 3 to 6 Mbps, while most 3G networks average download speeds of between 600 kbps and 1.4 Mbps.) For instance, a Clearwire rep told me, possible apps might use multiple high-bandwidth services like video and large file sharing.

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Editor's Note:  Very Interesting move on Cisco's part.  Looks like they are making a move into video conferencing portion of the market with this purchase.  Cisco already had a an active channel in the tele-presence market, that includes large full size video projections of a person to make you feel like the person is actually in your office. 

Problem was that the gear was easily into the hundreds of thousands of dollars so the market was specific for major fortune 1000 companies and government agencies.  With this purchase they will be able to compete with companies like Polycom in the small to medium sized business market with this video conferencing gear.

New York Times - 
Cisco Systems continued to show just how serious it is about video conferencing, announcing late Wednesday night the $3 billion acquisition of Tandberg, a Norwegian video communications company.

Cisco sells expensive, room-sized video conferencing systems to companies known as TelePresence systems. Tandberg has similar technology but also sells smaller-sized, cheaper conferencing units. In addition,

Tandberg has specialized software for managing video conferencing systems and for creating connections between systems that rely on different underlying technology. “It really enables us to build out our portfolio,” said Ned Hooper, a senior vice president at Cisco.

Cisco’s corporate video conferencing products require the company to outfit a customer’s conference room with several large displays, networking equipment and even special tables, chairs and wall paint. By contrast, Tandberg has a range of gear, including high-definition video systems, that can sit on desks or be used with personal computers.

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