Thanks for the mention Andy, I have been busy with my own projects for the last couple of years but I appreciate the fact you still remember some of the projects I had some significant success with, just a wee bit disappointed you forgot to mention them, that’s what I get for not speaking at […]

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Toktumi recently announced a partnership with Dell to distribute its small business VoIP service through a co-branded site on Dell.com (www.dell.com/voip), which also features Fonality, Nortel, and Bandwidth.com. So what’s so special about Toktumi, (a word play on ‘talk to me’) and it’s USB-based plug-in device? Well, Toktumi is very similar to the popular Magicjack, which also uses a USB connector for connecting an analog phone. However, Magicjack is only $19.99/year (first year is $39.95) for unlimited U.S. calling while Toktumi is $179.40/year ($14.95/month) for unlimited dialing inside the U.S. and Canada. So what does this extra cost get you?

Continue reading Toktumi Now Offered on Dell VoIP Website…

Tags: Bandwidth.com, Fonality, Magicjack, Nortel, packet8, Toktuni, voip

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When I met with PIKA Technologies  at ITEXPO they told me support for FreePBX was coming. Well today, PIKA Technologies announced that PIKA WARP the Appliance is now compatible with the Asterisk-based FreePBX GUI (Graphical User Interface) application. I reviewed the PIKA Appliance recently and was pretty impressed with it. Having FreePBX support is a huge milestone for the PIKA Appliance. FreePBX is a popular user-friendly web application  that makes it easy to setup and configure Asterisk.

According to PIKA, “While customers often develop their own GUIs, many have told PIKA that if WARP were compatible with industry-standard GUIs like FreePBX, they would be much more inclined to adopt the portfolio. With today’s announcement, PIKA has once again demonstrated its responsiveness to the needs of its user base.”

“We are very pleased to have supported the effort to adopt the FreePBX application to run in the PIKA Warp environment,” said Terry Atwood, vice president of sales, marketing and customer care at PIKA Technologies. “Used in many Asterisk implementations around the world, including Trixbox, FreePBX has proven its value, time and again. When the FreePBX team expressed their willingness to work with us to port to the Warp Appliance, we jumped on the opportunity.”

“FreePBX has become the de facto standard for enterprise grade PBX functionality delivered to the SMB business and includes a very rich set of functionality and customization potential,” said Philippe Lindheimer, open source community director of Bandwidth.com and leader of the FreePBX project. “But no GUI is complete without a wide range of hardware options to complete the package. We are delighted that PIKA can now include FreePBX in the PIKA WARP and bring our two eco-systems together.”

Today’s announcement from PIKA follows news of a new partnership between FreePBX and Bandwidth.com, a complete business communications provider offering advanced VoIP, Internet services and managed network services to small and medium businesses. Bandwidth.com will devote significant resources to expand the scope of FreePBX while protecting its charter to remain open source and free.

“The partnership with Bandwidth.com is great news as it gives FreePBX the support it needs to grow while ensuring it remains a free GUI for the entire open source eco-system,” said David Clarke, business development manager at PIKA and director of the PIKA Warp Community. “I know the choice of Bandwidth.com was a decision that Philippe made only after months of consideration and sound input from the key developers and contributors to the FreePBX project.”

Out of the box, FreePBX provides a long list of features including many typically found only in an enterprise-grade PBX, some examples are:

• Unlimited number of voicemail boxes
• “Follow me” functionality
• Ring groups and call queues
• Unlimited number of conference bridges
• Paging and intercom functionality
• and much more

The PIKA WARP Appliance product portfolio is ideal for deploying small- to medium-sized IP-PBX systems, IVR self-service systems, predictive dialling systems, fax servers and many other features typical of a traditional, purpose-built business telephone system that are often lacking in a computerized system. Compatible with a variety of open-source development platforms, including Asterisk and Linux, the Appliance offers a cost-effective alternative to traditional off-the-shelf computers and plug-in-card network connectivity in a smaller footprint.

Tags: Asterisk, Bandwidth.com, David Clarke, FreePBX, Philippe Lindheimer, PIKA WARP Appliance, Terry Atwood, voip

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Ok, now my head is getting dizzy from the number of times Microsoft Windows Live Messenger/MSN Messenger has had outbound VoIP-to-PSTN calling (2006), then pulling outbound VoIP calling (early 2008), and then putting it back in. Also, I believe it was 2004 when the Messenger client used Net2Phone before they pulled the plug. Well, apparently outbound PSTN dialing using VoIP is back in!

Windows Live Messenger has now teamed up with Telefónica to offer VoIP services. Previously Net2Phone and Verizon have had exclusive deals with Microsoft’s Messenger client.

When you click on Make a Phone Call you see the dialpad window and it explains you can sign up with Telefonica’s Voype service to call directly from within Windows Live Messenger.

Telefónica’s rates seem decent as compared to SkypeOut. For instance,Telefónica charges $0.014 per minute for the U.S. comparaed to $0.021 SkypeOut calls. Unfortunately, there is no dial-in (DID) capability equivalent to SkypeIn with Telefónica’s service.

The service uses prepaid amount in dollars. Increments of $5, $10, and $20 are available and you can set it up to automatically recharge the account when it reaches a certain threshold. To use it you just need Windows Live Messenger 8.0 and above.

If Microsoft really wants to compete with Skype what they should do is partner with all the major SIP trunking service providers (Bandwidth.com, DIDX, Junction Networks, Packet8, etc.) and offer them all as a drop-down list within Windows Live Messenger for quick and easy configuration. After all, unlike Skype which is proprietary, Windows Live Messenger is based on the SIP protocol. Further, Microsoft could allow Windows Live Messenger users to manually enter their existing SIP trunking service provider account info, essentially making Windows Live Messenger a SIP softphone client able to make and receive calls. Microsoft could even do revenue sharing with the SIP trunking service providers.

Even better, Microsoft could offer the ability for users to enter in custom SIP credentials to use with the user’s SIP-based IP-PBX! Since in this scenario the connection is direct to the IP-PBX no revenue sharing is required. Of course, since SIP is SIP, a user could simply go into manual mode, and enter in, for example, their Bandwidth.com SIP trunking info thus bypassing the drop-down list, connecting directly to Bandwidth.com and eliminating any revenue share Microsoft might receive.

However, Microsoft could restrict the manual SIP credentials entered simply by having a database of their SIP trunking providers’ URLs or Microsoft could simply stick something into the SIP header which the SIP trunking service providers can parse and detect and then give credit/revenue to Microsoft for sending the call from Live Messenger onto their network. So many ideas,  I should write a book.

Tags: Bandwidth.com, DIDX, Junction Networks, Packet8, SIP, sip credentials, sip trunking, Skype, SkypeIn, SkypeOut, Telefonica, voip, Windows Live Messenger

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Today at ITEXPO, Microsoft will announce a few more SIP trunking service providers that come pre-configured in the Response Point unit making it virtually plug-and-play when selecting a SIP trunking service provider. At ITEXPO Microsoft will announce they are adding NGT, Cbeyond, and Junction Networks. In addition they are also adding support for broadband VoIP service provider Packet8, as well as Bandwidth.com, a provider of Internet and managed services, including SIP trunking.

At ITEXPO Microsoft will also announce that they will be supporting the ClearOne IP conference phone, what Microsoft told TMCNet they consider one of the best quality IP conference phones out there.

Additionally, Sangoma will announce a board/gateway in a PC that supports Microsoft Response Point along with Response Points network auto-discovery method. Perhaps the biggest news is that Microsoft is announcing T1 support through a pertnership with Quintum and a special Response Point compatible T1 gateway. It also supports Response Points auto-discovery, so it’s very easy to add a T1 trunk line to the system. This marks the first time Response Point supports digital T1 trunk lines. With analog trunk lines already supported, the addition of T1 support should open up more opportunities to sell this product in the SMB space.

Tags: 8×8, Bandwidth.com, ClearOne, IP-PBX, Microsoft, Packet8, Quintum, Response Point, Sangoma, SIP, T1, voip

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