VoIP News: January 2010

3 UK turned on its 10,000th 3G mobilebroadband site this week, the Mobile telecommunications company has announced.

The switch on is part of a work programme 3 UK is undertaking to advance and expand its 3G infrastructure, which is already the biggest in the UK.

The new site means that 3 UK's 3G coverage now reaches almost 93 per cent of the population. 3 UK plans to extend its network to approximately 13,000 sites in 2010.

Graham Baxter, CTO at 3 UK, said: "Over the past two years the continued growth of internet communications, smartphone use and mobile broadband uptake have brought the need for good 3G network coverage into sharp focus for millions of consumers."

The expansion of 3 UK's 3G coverage could mean that, potentially, more of the UK would be able to make use of IP telephony solutions, such as mobile VoIP solutions.

The cloud-based mobile applications market, which could include applications from VoIP providers, will make almost $9.5 billion a year by 2014, Juniper Research said recently.

This income will be driven by demand for converged unified communications and extensive take-up of mobile broadband, according to the technology research company.

Posted on: 2010-01-29, in: Broadband

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Consumer electronics and computer software company Apple launched its new tablet computer, the iPad, yesterday.

The device is designed for web browsing, emailing, viewing photos, watching videos, listening to music, playing games and reading ebooks.

Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple, said that the iPad "defines an entirely new category of devices that will connect users with their apps and content in a much more intimate, intuitive and fun way than ever before."

The iPad, available late March, will come in to versions, one with Wi-Fi and one with both Wi-Fi and 3G.

The inclusion of Wi-Fi and 3G gives the iPad the potential to use IP telephony solutions, such as applications which allow it to perform similar functions to VoIP phones.

The iPad's 3G connection allows users to obtain speeds of up to 7.2 Mbps through HSDPA networks. Combined with the latest Wi-Fi, this should allow HD VoIP solutions to be used with the iPad.

IDC predicted the iPad's arrival last month, saying that it will help push the number of mobile devices accessing the internet by the end of 2010 up to one billion.

Posted on: 2010-01-29, in: VoIP Hardware

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The time is now for engineers, developers, providers and vendors of Asterisk solutions, ChannelWeb has said.

The theme of the recent Digium|Asterisk World conference in Miami was that open source VoIP PBX has come of age, according to the IT and communications industry information website.

Open source supporters at the event felt that now is a better time than ever to further establish the likes of Asterisk PBX into networking and infrastructure, Chad Berndtson writes.

According to Mr Berndtson's article, entitled Is Asterisk Channel Finally Ready For Its Close-Up?, enterprises and smaller businesses are ready to take note of what open source VoIP could do for them.

Aficionados at the event explained that this is because many organisations are currently in the process of overhauling networking and infrastructure channels, creating opportunities for open source.

John Malone, president and CEO of telecommunications management consulting firm Eastern Management Group, said that open source PBX systems have costs 25 per cent to 50 per cent less than many privately owned systems.

An official online applications store for Asterix solutions, AsteriskExchange, was recently launched by Asterix company Digium.

Posted on: 2010-01-29, in: General VoIP

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UK VoIP hardware is beginning to be understood by the lawmakers of the country, according to a report by John Higgins, director general of Intellect - the UK's technology industry trade association.

Higgins said that the Digital Britain report "has contributed significantly to the sense that politicians of all parties understand just how vital next-generation broadband, and the digital economy as a whole, is to the UK’s future competitiveness - even though they may differ on the route to achieving it".

Next-generation broadband is a duel term, denoting both the widespread availability of broadband for the lay consumer and the upgrading of key areas of the national fibre optic network to allow for greater speeds - such as BT's recent launch of a high-speed 24Mbps (Megabits per second) line.

The effectiveness of VoIP systems increases in tandem with greater broadband provisioning, while the costs of a VoIP network decrease as bandwidth increases.

As the ideas in Digital Britain take shape and schemes begin to run, VoIP will rise in importance along with the UK's quality of access to high-speed, universal broadband.

Posted on: 2010-01-29, in: General VoIP

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Support for VoIP solutions is set to grow through to 2014 and beyond, according to a report.

The study by Juniper Research - "Mobile Cloud Applications & Services: Monetising Enterprise & Consumer Markets 2009-2014" - highlights the importance of data storage for the mobile phone sector.

Cloud applications and services are used by VoIP carriers to support applications, provide operational infrastructure and better shuttle the flow of data.

The report identifies the growth area on the basis of expansion of VoIP supporting mechanisms, such as HTML5, combined with a greater adoption of smartphone technology by the enterprise space.

HTML5 has been used by Google as an alternative to Adobe Flash as a platform for delivering Google Voice on the Apple iPhone.

The one blot on the cloud sector's horizon is the growing issue of security, though companies such as McAfee and Kaspersky are working on this.

Dr Windsor Holden, author of the Juniper Research report, said: "Not only is it imperative for cloud providers to ensure that access to and storage of customer data is secure, but that the procedures that they put in place in this regard - including data backup strategies - are transparent to the customer."

Posted on: 2010-01-28, in: VoIP Hardware

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