In the past we mentioned that Fonality caused a few waves in the Opensource Community by developing their own version of FreePBX to work more closely with their Trixbox product, it seems that FreePBX has now entered the hands of bandwidth.com by hiring the project’s main developer as its Open Source Community Developer and is said to be committing significant resources and effort to expand the scope of the project.
An informal announcement of bandwidth.com’s commitment to FreePBX came through the main developer Philippe Lindheimer’s blog at www.freepbx.org on 14th November in a post called “A Bright Future for FreePBX.” Lindheimer said he had “joined forces” with bandwidth.com as its Open Source Community Director and indicated both he and bandwidth.com would work to expand the scope of FreePBX and to assure it remains “open and strong.”
Lindheimer cited bandwidth.com’s efforts in purchasing the FreePBX trademark and its efforts with FreeSwitch as areas where the company has been helpful to the open source community. Since bandwidth.com sells VoIP and data services not software then there appears to be no conflict of interest.
This is the latest coup for FreePBX; the web based GUI provides preprogrammed functionality and ease of use on top of Asterisk, including features such as follow me, ring groups with calls confirmation, music on hold, conferencing, and paging and intercom functionality for many SIP phones. Digium incorporated FreePBX into its compilation of the AsteriskNow 1.5 turnkey release in October.
See the blog entry here.
We see that British Telecom has released one of it’s regular VoIP surveys, which they say showed increased adoption rates and planned VoIP expenditures over the next two years. Half of the respondents to the survey planned to increase VoIP expenditures during next year.
Demonstrating the Return on Investment of moving from a PSTN system to VoIP services was listed by the highest percentage (27%) of respondents as the main hurdle for a move to VoIP. Network reliability, voice quality and security were the three most important considerations for managers considering the migration to VoIP products; these three concerns were also the top concerns for the BT surveys conducted in 2005 and 2007. Around 25% of respondents stated that they were planning on switching to an IP-based network in the next year.
Read the survey in full here
We saw a great article over at processor.com that descibes problems and pitfalls to watch out for if you are implementing VoIP or Unified Communications - the key points listed are:
- Converged Network Woes
- Ageing Networks will not fly
- Business Issues Bog Down Process
- Beware the UC Promise
- Network Threats Plague Voice Systems
We have discussed many of these points in the past but it is useful to see the warnings laid out in a single article - the key points to watch for are:
Voice data is far more sensitive than other network data, in turn requiring specific planning and troubleshooting to avoid latency, jitter, and other quality related problems inherent in VoIP and UC technologies.
Because IP based voice systems reside on the same architecture that can suffer traditional network based attacks, it’s imperative to ensure that these systems are included in the overall enterprise security policy.
See the article Here
The IridiaBlog runs on Wordpress and we are big fans of it but one of the (small) limitations for us is that we like to have a nice graphical theme which tends not to play well for our readers who are using mobile devices. We have found a great plugin called MobilePress that renders our blog in a perfect fashion for mobile devices, the following screenshot is our blog using MobilePress as viewed on a Nokia N95 - pretty cool !!!
MobilePress on Nokia N95
To get a copy visit the MobilePress guys here.
Our regular readers will know that one of our pet subjects that we watch with interest is the different ways Mobile carriers attempt to stop VoIP over WiFi being used on handsets connected to their networks. Obviously they see it as a big threat to their revenue and in many cases handsets are provided ‘free’ as part of a contract.
We see in Germany T-Mobile has taken issue with a VoIP application developed for the iPhone. Sipgate, has developed a SIP client for iPhones (first version) and this has upset T-Mobile who has been able to persuade a German court to ban the use of Sipgate on the iPhone in Germany.
Overall this has to be a very small issue as there are many handsets VoIP capable and many applications available for them.
We will keep our eye on this issue as this one is going to run and run….
Skype have been trying to push hard to penetrate the business market and especially the medium to large enterprise type market, we see that Digium and Skype now plan to work together to Skype enable Asterisk.
The Skype for Asterisk connector will enable a presence on the Skype network while getting all the functionality of a PBX. A general Skype login name could be routed into an Asterisk system for call processing and delivery to the next available person in a queue, a single Skype ID could be used for sales, technical support or other types of customer service queues. So in essence a Skype connection will be treated in the same way as a regular trunk or CO line.
While the two companies have had various discussions over the years on how they could work together, a serious effort came to a head at a June meeting at Digium’s Headquarters in Huntsville USA, since then Digium’s software engineers have worked to produce the solution, making it more robust and suitable for a formal beta, but as yet there is no firm date for release. The software is slated to run with all versions of Asterisk including trixbox.
We will watch this one with interest to see if it elevates Skype to be a serious tool for many businesses.
Sometimes we see something that catches our eye that just makes us smile. GMail or should I say Googlemail has just added a feature called Mail Goggles 
I am sure we have all done that late night email sent after a long day and a few beers or glasses of wine that in the cold light of day you would never have sent, so Mail Goggles helps with this by asking you to do some simple maths equations before you send the mail which should ensure you are sober or at least make you think again !!!
A great idea that should save some embarrassing moments just make sure the hours are set correctly so it checks you only when it needs to
We like Google Mail and the origional features that it provides - Get more information
here.
We like to talk about news that could change the marketplace in our industry - well we believe that the launch of the first phone supporting Google’s Opensource Operating System Android is big news. We see lots of phones supporting the Symbian Operating system, Microsoft and various other manufacturer specific well this is the first time we see an Opensource Linux based phone.
T-Mobile have launched the G1 phone manufactured by HTC to the USA market and it shows some of the most advanced capabilities of the Android operating system, by including a touchscreen, QWERTY keyboard, accelerated 3D graphics, Wi-Fi and 3G support, GPS and accelerometer. The device won’t have an impressive design and it won’t be as easy to use as an iPhone, but it will certainly be able to run a lot of interesting applications.
G1 Google Android Phone
We will be watching to see which other manufacturers will adopt the Android system - it looks as though those currently using Microsoft will be able to move the quickest.
Visit the google Android blog here or visit the unofficial Google System Blogspot here for some useful information on the G1
We have previously discussed Tesco offering VoIP to the consumer - see our post here, well we see that Tesco are also offering a cheap VoIP service using WiFi on Nokia handsets. The offering makes use of a service by Australian company Freshtel, and requires an application download for the Nokia phone.
The service is currently only available for a limited number of handsets, all of which are Series 60 WiFi enabled Nokias - the E51, E65, E81 and N95. However, more handset support is slated to be available soon.
This move may not be significant for the VoIP business marketplace but when a big player like Tesco offers VoIP then it helps the acceptance of the technology in the overall marketplace.
Visit the Tesco Talkwifi website here.
With Asterisk based products one of the big objections to deploying them is compatibility with software and hardware, there is such a wide range of products in the market place that often it is the customer who suffers the pain while ‘glitches’ are sorted out.
Fonality has added a new partner to its “ecosystem” this week, as Snom Technologies announced it would be a third-party partner for deployments of Fonality IP PBX systems. Snom makes VoIP phones, such as the 3xx series and M3 IP Dect, for the SME market, which Fonality is strong in.
Fonality’s FACE program (Fonality Authorized Certified Ecosystem) allows resellers and third party vendors to assure customer confidence and decrease issues like non compliance. These companies also offer increased integration with Fonality’s products, including trixbox CE, trixbox Pro and PBXtra.
So it is good to see a couple of big players in this marketplace working together.
Have a look at the Snom Press Release here.
VoIP | admin | 
21 November, 2008 1:40 pm | 
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