VoIP Evolution

Whaleback Pushes Managed, Not Hosted, VoIP Through Carriers

Like hosted VoIP providers, Whaleback Systems provides IP PBX capabilities to SMBs, with no upfront equipment costs. Customer companies simply pay monthly fees for phone service plus an array of sophisticated call-handling features. But Whaleback calls its CrystalBlue service managed VoIP. It differs from hosted VoIP in where it places the IP PBX and how it delivers the calls. And now Whaleback is offering a new version of the service for sale through carriers, namely SIP trunking providers.

In a Biannual VoIP Market Worth $21 Billion, Where's the Innovation?

The numbers from Infonetics Research certainly sounded impressive. A new report by the market research firm revealed that the global market for VoIP services reached $21 billion in the first half of 2009. That sheer volume of revenue made it seem as if VoIP had become the massively disruptive technology everyone said it was going to be. A closer look, however, reveals just the opposite. In fact, VoIP itself is not inherently disruptive. Rather, it's merely a technology that makes the creation of disruptive services possible for those with the vision and insight to use it that way.

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.