Google has announced it has begun accepting new users for Google Voice, but this is not the full public launch. After a lot of speculation about when the service would actually go live, Google began sending emails to users who had registered interest back in March.
Google did not say how many invitations would be sent at this limited release for the service or when a general launch will begin.
Google will be using the transcribed voicemails for contextual advertising this has led to complaints from consumer groups that this may be an invasion of privacy, however it is obvious that like Gmail many users are prepared to accept targeted advertising for a free service. It seems that correctly targeted advertising sits OK with most users as opposed to being bombarded with glossy flashing general adverts.
See the announcement on the Officail Google Blog Here.
We are seeing lots of rumours about who is going to buy the Enterprise division of Nortel – it seems Avaya is the favourite with Nokia Siemens Networks and GENBAND also interested and for sure there will be several other parties looking closely as the price will be very good on account of Nortel’s financial problems.
We are interested to see what happens should Avaya acquire Nortel, they have in the past bought SDX Business Systems in the UK and what was originally the Network Alchemy system became the IP Office which is the mainstay of the SME business sector for Avaya. They have also in the past purchased Tenovis in Germany but that was more a market share acquisition and that product range seemed to disappear.
If Avaya completes the acquisition then it will need to be smooth and they will have to ensure that customers have a migration path from existing Nortel products to Avaya product or else the competition will be all over them.
We market a range of GSM gateways from Topex and Teles and up until now neither company had a VoIP product that is cost effective in the small business market. We all know that the vast majority of businesses are small to medium so this is a big business sector to sell to and we know Portech are very succesful in this area.
Topex have announced the release of the Mobilink IP gateway – we already market the Mobilink analogue gateway that is a single SIM and connects to an analogue PBX port, the Mobilink ISDN that comes as single or dual SIM and connects to an ISDN2 port of a PBX. The Mobilink IP connects to a PBX or VoIP Server using SIP or H323 and comes as single or dual SIM, there is a big market for this product in the Asterisk IP PBX (and the many derivatives) system market and with other IP PBX. Generally this device will connect without any extra items required on the IP PBX and just set your dial plan to route mobile calls via the gateway and off you go with big cost savings to be made.
The gateway also supports other mobile applications such as email to SMS and SMS to email as well as web to SMS so the user gets many applications for the price of one, the other added advantage is the quality and robustness of the gateway, Topex also manufacture systems for Air Traffic Control so their quality standards are very high and this reflects in the overall reliability of all their products.
Pricing and actual release dates will be confirmed shortly.
We have watched the development and deployment of femtocells with interest, to be honest we think the idea is sound but the problem is the implementation and the infrastructure required to support them.
Recently we have seen some announcement s that would seem to point towards femtocells becoming part of LTE deployment rather than trying to make them an adjunct of existing networks, this would seem to make sense both technically and commercially. Motorola has announced it would stop any further development of 3G femtocells, and instead focus on LTE. The company claimed trying to integrate 3G femtocells into an existing networks was troublesome, but for them the opportunity for LTE femtocells looked increasingly attractive.
We will defintely watch this subject with interest.
We are big fans of the Counterpath Eyebeam and Xlite but at the moment they run under Windows and Mac but cannot be used on Windows Mobile or iPhone, but we see Media5 Corporation has announced the launch, (approx July in the App Store) of its new softphone application for the Apple iPhone called the Media5-Fone.
We see a lot of specific SIP clients on the market but they are closed or locked to a particular service provider but the Media5-Fone is an open application designed to be used with any SIP service proivider or iPBX similar to the Counterpath products. The product looks nice with WiFi support, full SIP compliance, voicemail integration and a range of other features.
See the press release over on Media5 here and the application will appear as below:
I cannot believe it but have actually done two posts about items that directly reflect our own business, well I suppose we have to pay the bills somehow Many of you are aware we have had supply problems with Telrad Connegy product, well the good news is that is all behind us. Telrad Connegy now has a new owner called Wise Communication Solutions.
Wisecom are an Israeli Company based in Petah Tikvah and have been a reseller of Telrad Connegy for many years so are very familiar with the Product Range and routes to market, they have also provided all Sales and Service for Telrad Connegy in their home market so have a high level of engineering knowledge.
Wisecom will be investing heavily in the areas of Operations and Research and Development and plan to build on the proven heritage of Telrad Connegy and grow and develop the markets throughout the world. The UK market is a strategic market for Wisecom and they will ensure we are all part of their future plans.
We can take orders for Telrad Connegy product now.
On the IridiaBlog in the main we like to talk about the VoIP and GSM industry in general but now and again we make a plug about our own business (something has to pay the bills !!!)
We have recently seen a demand from users who wish to purchase GSM and VoIP gateways online as they feel they have enough technical competence to implement them themselves with out the need for a reseller. So due to popular demand we have launched Voice and IP our on line store at www.voiceandip.co.uk
You are able to purchase our most popular gateways online and we will be adding more products over time. You will receive our usual high quality after sales service. Pop over and have a look.
In a previous post we discussed about Fax support not being dead on IP systems and we see that Asterisk has now added improved fax working to it’s portolio of solutions with the addition of Fax for Asterisk software.
Users can download software from Digium’s online store. It is free for installations requiring only one fax session at a time, while multiple session licence is available for extra cost per simultaneous channel. The software allows faxing to and from the PSTN and IP telephony networks.
If the Asterisk IP PBX in question uses analogue PSTN line cards, the software sends faxes through those. It supports V.17, V.27 and V.29 fax modems, and operates at speeds of up to 14.4 Kbps. If the IP PBX installation uses an IP telephony service, the software will then use the T.38 protocol (if the provider supports it). Users send and receive faxes in the form of TIFF image files.
Fax is one of those technologies that will not go away so IP PBX vendors are being pushed by market forces to produce a solution and it is good to see Digium respond.
Our regular readers will know one of our pet interests is the way mobile carriers react to VoIP applications, sometimes they seem to be happy and on other occasions do what they can to stop their customers from using them.
T-Mobile in Germany have reacted to Skype for i-Phone and Blackberry by stating they will not allow their customers to use it. T-Mobile spokesperson Alexander von Schmettow stated:
“It is clearly stated in our customer contracts that such services may not be used. There are two reasons for this – because the high level of traffic would hinder our network performance, and because if the Skype programme didn’t work properly, customers would make us responsible for it.”
Tech-savvy users should apparently not even consider figuring out a work-around, because T-Mobile will immediately “cut users off”.
“Those who violate their contracts can expect to have them cancelled. It’s the same with any contract. If you rent a no-pets apartment and expect no one to notice your little dog, you can’t be surprised when your landlord comes knocking.”
Skype have reacted to the news in a post on the company’s blog:
“This is a real shame: many other operators around the world know very well that people want to use innovative Internet applications, like Skype, and that’s the reason they pay their ISP to access the Internet in the first place. On top of that, there is no technical justification for this arbitrary blocking of Skype, and it represents a barrier to online business put in place by a private company just because they can, because they control access to the Internet.”
We believe that T-Mobile can stop users accessing Skype via mobile data but not via WiFi access (although it can block Skype traffic on it’s own WiFi Hotspots.
Usually carriers are subtle about such services and will ask a manufacurer to block it in the handset or attempt to black it on the network but I guess we have to admire T-Mobile for making their position clear even though you may not agree with their stance
We hear this term used a lot and from our experience it is far from dead, we sell Unified messaging solutions that combine Voicemail, email and Fax and we are still continually surprised by the number of users who still opt for the fax option.
With the march of VoIP solutions we see a big problem as VoIP networks were never really designed to carry Fax and so the old basic form of communications struggles on modern networks. For many businesses this is a real issue as certain types of companies will only accept fax communication and not email as a legal document.
We saw a really interesting article over on the FierceVoIP website Fax is Dead…Long Live FoIP! – FierceVoIP. by Marc Robins SIP Forum Managing Director entitles Fax is Dead…Long Live FoIP and in the article he discusses the challenges faced by VoIP networks and what the SIP forum is doing to try and sort this problem out – have a look as it makes interesting reading.
General, VoIP | admin | 
30 June, 2009 11:06 am | 
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Many of you are aware we have had supply problems with Telrad Connegy product, well the good news is that is all behind us. Telrad Connegy now has a new owner called Wise Communication Solutions.
