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.
Continue reading "The Top 25 VoIP and Video Developments of 2010" »
Dec 31, 2010 11:45:00 AM
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Android,
Apple,
Avaya,
BT,
Caller ID,
China,
Cisco,
FaceTime,
FCC,
Fonality,
fring,
fringOut,
Google,
Google Voice,
Grandstream,
HD voice,
IBM,
IP5280,
iPad,
iPhone,
LG,
Lync,
magicJack,
magicTalk,
Microsoft,
Microsoft Lync,
Microsoft OCS,
Mingleverse,
Network neutrality,
ooVoo,
Panasonic,
Samsung,
SBCs,
Session Border Controllers,
Skype,
SkypeOut,
Tango,
Telepresence,
Tokbox,
UCIF,
Unified communications,
Viber,
ViPR,
ViVu,
XConnect
XConnect's recently announced plan for a trial HD voice peering federation marks a significant advance in the move to HD communication. The trial, to take place between April and June of this year, will directly connect providers offering HD voice services. That will let them pass HD calls, which provide audio quality superior to that of conventional PSTN phone calls, to one another rather than just among their own customers. The trial thus represents an effort to start building a critical mass of HD-capable voice subscribers. As such, it is as much a commercial effort as a technical one.
Continue reading "XConnect's HD Voice Peering Trial: Focusing on Who Rather Than How" »
Jan 26, 2010 2:47:24 PM
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8x8,
Cable VoIP,
Cellular,
Codecs,
HD voice,
Hosted IP PBX,
Hosted VoIP,
Skype,
Voice over Broadband,
Voice over IM,
VoIP peering,
Vonage,
XConnect
There were more advances than true innovations in the VoIP world in 2009. That's because some of the most important developments had more to do with commercial and political maneuvers than with technical creativity. Still, such maneuvers often helped spread the benefits of VoIP as much as did technical innovation. And collectively, the advances brought some already-evident trends into clearer focus. A key such trend is the increasing integration of voice with other applications and services. Another is the intensifying interest in HD voice. A third is the growing interconnection of VoIP services, in part in response to the possibilities that end-to-end HD voice offers. With such trends as background, here, in no particular order, are our top 25 VoIP advances of 2009.
Continue reading "The Top 25 VoIP Advances of 2009" »
Dec 29, 2009 1:50:19 PM
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Android,
AT&T,
Call centers,
Cellular,
Cloud telephony,
Collaboration,
Conference calling,
Dashboards,
ENUM,
FCC,
Gizmo5,
Google,
Google Voice,
Google Wave,
GSMA,
HD voice,
Hosted,
Hosted IP PBX,
Hosted telephony platforms,
Hosted VoIP,
Ifbyphone,
Internet video,
Internet voice,
iNums,
IP PBX,
iPhone,
ITU,
Jaduka,
Junction Networks,
Mobile VoIP,
my1voice,
OnSIP,
Phone.com,
PSTN,
Ribbit,
Ribbit Mobile,
Seven Scale,
SIP,
Skype,
Speech recognition,
Speech to text,
Symbian,
Transcription,
Verizon Wireless,
Video conferencing,
Virtual receptionist,
Voice mail,
Voxbone,
Wireless,
XConnect
VoIP and cellular services alike can do a lot of things that conventional landline services can't. For example, they can transmit both voice and various other kinds of data between phones or other end devices. That capability makes possible all kinds interesting combined services, often starting with or based on the ability to detect users' presence – that is, their availability to receive calls or respond to messages.
Once those services encounter the traditional phone network, or PSTN (public switched telephone network), though, they hit a roadblock. The PSTN can transmit only voice calls and limited kinds of call-related data. That means presence and other information, not to mention the various kinds of video or other data streams themselves, can't get through. A new deal between XConnect and the GSM Association, or GSMA, attempts to circumvent that roadblock.
Continue reading "XConnect and GSMA Open Way to VoIP-Cellular Interconnection" »
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