VoIP News: January 2010

Local IP telephony solutions have been boosted off the back of news of Herefordshire Council's plans for heavy development of its broadband network. Herefordshire Council will be developing a major broadband network to make sure that the area, ?which is relatively remote, and spread out - will not miss out on Britain's digital revolution. Broadband networks support high-bandwidth internet products, such as hosted telephony, streaming video or data mining.

VoIP could be helping the environment as well as the bottom lines of small and medium-sized businesses. Online trade magazine The Register, citing a poll by Redshift Research, said more and more small firms were using VoIP-powered video conferencing. By turning to video conferencing solutions, smaller companies can reduce the need for face-to-face meetings.

The prevalence of new technologies like VoIP phones has changed the traditional telecommunications industry, SecurityInfoWatch. com has said. The likes of IP telephony solutions and smartphones have opened up the potential of the home phone market, according to the systems integration information website.

The desire for paid-for mobile content, such as mobile VoIP solutions applications, will grow over the next year, the Mobile Entertainment Forum (MEF) has said. Nearly two-thirds of mobile media returns over the next quarter are forecast to be generated by payments for content like IP telephony solutions apps. These are the findings of the recent fourth Business Confidence Index (BCI) from the trade association of the mobile media industry, conducted by professional services firm KPMG.

Consumers are not using up the call time and texts offered by their mobile plans because of VoIP solutions and instant messaging (IM), GoMo News has said. IP telephony and IM are removing the need for mobile subscribers to use their allocation of voice calls and SMS, according to the mobile marketing news website. The accessibility offered by VoIP providers to these services means that consumers need not own a sophisticated phone to use them.