VoIP News: December 2007

VoIP to benefit from higher broadband speed

Experts are predicting that VoIP telephony solutions stand to benefit from advances in the UK's broadband network.

The Internet Service Providers' Association (ISPA) said that as demand for high-quality online TV grows, broadband providers will increasingly warm to the idea of upgrading their connections.

Countries such as South Korea, France and Germany have already begun investing in ultra-fast 100 megabit broadband networks, capable of streaming up to a dozen high-definition TV channels.

And with the industry regular Ofcom warning that the UK economy stands to suffer if it cannot keep up with the pace, the ISPA says the benefits of faster connections will ripple throughout the wider industry into filesharing, gameplay and IP telephony sectors.

"Broadband has made these web technologies such as streaming media, such as telephone over the internet [possible]," a spokesman said. "There are developments going on all the time to improve connectivity and that has a consequence of driving technological innovation on the content and applications side."

The BBC recently launched its new iPlayer service, which allows UK broadband users to watch any BBC show broadcast in the past seven days on demand via its website.

Posted on: 2007-12-31, in: General VoIP

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Asterisk racks up millionth download

Sneaking in just in time for the New Year celebrations, Digium has announced the millionth download of its Asterisk open source IP telephony platform.

Coming at the end of the 24th straight quarter of growth for the firm, the milestone highlights both the expanding influence of VoIP and the importance of Asterisk in this process.

"I am very proud of the great strides Digium made in 2007 to demonstrate Asterisk's unquestionable growth and impact on the SMB and enterprise markets," said Digium chief executive Danny Windham, in a recent press release.

"In many ways 2007 was Digium's coming of age with regard to aligning award-winning products and partnerships with a clear vision for the future of open source telephony and unified communications."

Asterisk allows phones to be connected to each other through an internet-based private branch exchange (IP PBX) and interacts with existing legacy phone systems.

But unlike many other IP telephony software applications, Asterisk is provided by Digium for free under open source agreements.

Posted on: 2007-12-28, in: Telephony technology

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South Yorkshire in line for broadband boost

Homes and businesses in South Yorkshire are in line for a significant boost to their broadband speeds as a new fibre-based network is to be built in the region.

The Yorkshire Forward development agency has appointed French firm Thales to build the new network which will provide speeds of up to 50 mbps.

Covering almost 600,000 homes across South Yorkshire, the fibre-optic connections will substantially increase the reliability and quality of VoIP services in the area due to the greater bandwidth available.

Although cities have improved their connections to broadband services immensely over the past few years, there has been concern that people and businesses in countryside areas could be left behind.

Rural communities commission chairman Stuart Burgess told the Norfolk Eastern Daily Press that businesses in the countryside "saw potential in developments in IT and knowledge-based jobs, and highlighted the importance of access to good quality broadband services to help small businesses develop".

Posted on: 2007-12-28, in: Broadband

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SMEs 'optimistic' for 2008

More than one in three British small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) feel positive about the coming year, according to new research.

A study by Alliance & Leicester found that some 35 per cent of the SME population in the UK are feeling optimistic about their future, with 46 per cent claiming the outlook for 2008 was the same as this year.

These results are a welcome positive sign after a year of economic turbulence, with both consumers and businesses of all sizes struggling with the credit crunch.

Nevertheless, just under one in six SMEs felt that 2008 would be a bad year and had a negative outlook.

Steve Jennings, director of business banking at Alliance & Leicester Commercial Bank, said: "Our research shows that the British entrepreneurial spirit is alive and kicking.

"Entrepreneurs are key to the continued vitality of the UK economy – with small businesses accounting for more than 99 per cent of the country's business population – so it's positive news that the economic unrest of the last few months hasn't put small businesses off looking to the future in a positive frame of mind."

However, a report by the Rural Communities Commission has found that there are increasingly large areas of rural England with very poor telecommunications coverage, which makes SMEs and other businesses much weaker.

Speaking to the Times, Stuart Burgess, chairman of the Rural Communities Commission and the government's Rural Advocate, said: "Broadband is still not accessible and, even where it is, the quality is questionable.

"For the modern rural economy to develop and grow you need good internet access. We also need to improve the mobile phone coverage."

Posted on: 2007-12-27, in: Broadband

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Experts offer VoIP setup tips

Businesses looking to tap into the cost saving and efficiency-boosting benefits of voice over internet protocol (VoIP) systems have been offered tips on how to integrate it successfully.

Jocelyn Philbrook, the vice president of corporate marketing at Canadian-based Sonus Networks highlighted the speed at which IP telephony services have spread in the business world.

She told the IT Business Canada website: "What we've seen in the past five years is the quality assurance and high speed bandwidth that are able to support multiple types of communications-video, voice, data-very rapidly and with a high degree of quality throughout the network."

These faster networks have encouraged the development of VoIP as larger bandwidth connections allow for greater reliability of services and higher quality voice and video links.

However, Roberta Fox of Mount Alberta-based Fox Group Consulting pointed out that established companies have been slower to adopt IP telephony services.

"VoIP has become the de facto standard on net new locations, but we're not seeing people rip out legacy TDM systems and replace them with IP telephony," she said.

However, these firms could make the transition easier by bringing in the systems incrementally, Ms Fox advised.

"Within a single office you could have some IP phones that plug into the LAN and others that plug into the traditional TDM system - you don't have to be 100 per cent VoIP to take advantage of some of the capabilities," she said.

Posted on: 2007-12-24, in: General VoIP

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