VoIP News: March 2008

Air passengers could soon be allowed to use their mobile phones during flights, after Ofcom approved their use on aircraft registered in the UK. Providing use is also approved by the Civil Aviation Authority and the European Aviation Safety Agency, airlines will be able to decide on whether to utilise the technology. The communications regulator said that mobile phones will need to be off during take-off and landing but can be used via an onboard base-station over 3,000 feet.

The PC application Skype is not a good choice for businesses due to its poor call quality, an expert has said. Colin Duffy chief executive of Voipfone conceded that Skype is "wonderful application which has changed an awful lot of the telephone industry" but is "rubbish" for businesses. He also said that the application can slow down a system by using it for other people's call - if Skype detects that there is quite a lot of bandwidth available it'll start routing other people's calls over users' network which slows down their whole network.

Telecommunications group Artelis has chosen Thomson's voice over internet protocol (VoIP) softswitches for deployment of IP telephony by its subsidiaries in Luxembourg and Germany with over 250,000 subscribers. Artelis selected Thomson's Cirpack VoIP platform to launch a double play offer packaged with primary line telephony to its residential customers as well as IP centrex services with advanced business features to enterprise customers.

Four European Union (EU) nations have the best broadband deployment rates in the world, according to a new publication. The European commission's 13th Single Telecoms Market Progress Report has shown that Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands and Sweden saw penetration rates in excess of 30 per cent at the end of last year. Along with the UK, Belgium, Luxembourg and France, these countries saw higher rates than the US in 2007, with some 19 million EU broadband lines added last year.

A significant proportion of firms are not doing enough to reinforce security for their voice over internet protocol (VoIP) systems, it has been claimed. According to a new report from In-Stat, less than half of US businesses have measures in place to make their VoIP facilities more secure. This is despite more than 80 per cent of companies deploying some form of VoIP service within their organisations.