VoIP Evolution

The Top 25 VoIP and Video Developments of 2010

After starting as the year of HD voice, 2010 ended as the year of video communication. Video in fact became so prominent that it earned a place in the title of this list. Announcements about new video communication products and services were so numerous they became routine. As the year progressed, it became clear that video conferencing/calling was no longer a luxury for the corporate and government elite, but was well on the way to becoming a commodity for the masses. Ordinary individuals will soon be making video calls with little more thought than they now give to picking up a telephone. Making that happen, however, will be a complex challenge for vendors and service providers.

A variety of other factors shaped voice and visual communication during the year. Chief among these were developments in mobile VoIP and video calling, along with an acceleration of the move to cloud-based voice services. Politics and the weather played unusually high-profile roles as well. So did the negative: Unlike last year, not all the important developments were advances – some were downright problematic. But even the negative developments had some constructive aspects. Skype of course figured prominently in many of the developments. So pervasive was the influence of the Internet VoIP pioneer that it seemed that the corporate slogan of "Skype Everywhere" applied to its appearances in headlines as well.

Polycom Adds New Desk and Video Phones to Lineup

Polycom has added several new desk phones to its product portfolio. One brings SIP-based HD voice capability for under $200. A second works specifically with Microsoft OCS 2007. And a third provides compatibility with both video conferencing and unified communications platforms.

Sprint Expands SIP Trunking Availability

SIP trunking services deliver voice calls from telecom providers to companies over IP data connections. Feeding their traffic directly into IP PBXes on the companies' premises, such services can bring considerable benefits. Sprint began offering SIP trunking to companies using Microsoft's Office Communications Server 2007 R2, an IP PBX software package that runs on Office servers, in February of this year. Now it's making the service generally available to business customers.

JAJAH Launches SIP Trunking With Microsoft OCS Deal

SIP trunking brings a number of benefits to small and medium-sized businesses. Incoming and outgoing calls travel over the company's Internet connection to and from the provider's facilities. That means there is no need to buy separate voice and data lines from phone companies. Calls between the company's different branches or sites are typically free. And long-distance and overseas calls are usually quite cheap, since they're traveling over the provider's backbone IP network.