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Wireless VoIP: VoWiFi Calling Shaking Up Communications |
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Wireless Internet Calling Shaking Up Communications
March 18, 2005
By Staff
NEW ORLEANS - Cell phones and Internet-based calling revolutionized the traditional phone call. WiFi cut the Internet's cord.
Now the three technologies are coming together, changing the rules of business communication and aiming at consumer wireless services and devices.
Cellular companies have taken notice and are moving to adopt the technology to expand their own offerings and keep an eye on a potential competitor, particularly for business customers.
"We're really at the pioneer stage," said Frank Hanzlik, managing director of the Wi-Fi(cq) Alliance, an Austin-based trade group whose members include Dell, Intel, Microsoft and Texas Instruments.
"The carriers are recognizing that voice over IP isn't going away and WiFi and hot spots are not going away," he said. "We're seeing a lot more awareness that WiFi and cellular together are really offering a very powerful combination."
That combination was an undercurrent running throughout CTIA Wireless 2005, the annual wireless industry convention held here last week by the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association.
At the show, many new "smart phones" _ cell phones with computer functions _ included WiFi for to allow e-mail and Web surfing. At least one handset was specifically geared toward allowing voice calls to roam between cellular and wireless Internet networks.
"You can start thinking about single phone number across anything that you do, with maybe charges that aren't so significant," said Ellen Daley, a Forrester Research analyst who focuses on the new calling technology. "The carrier fear is that now people roam into those WiFi spots, which they may or may not own, and suddenly they're not getting cellular charges."
The new technology goes by the unwieldy name Voice over WiFi, or VoWiFi; a mashed acronym formed from Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP, and the Wireless Fidelity standard for high-speed Web access that creates local networks in homes and businesses.
Voice over IP offers a lower-cost alternative to traditional local and long-distance service by converting voices into data that speeds over the Internet. For callers, the experience is typically no different from a traditional phone call except for added features such as voice mail delivered to an e-mail inbox.
Spurred by start-up firms like New Jersey-based Vonage and competition among major cable and telephone companies, the wired version of the technology has come into the consumer mainstream in the last couple of years.
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Posted by vonage on Saturday, March 19 @ 00:00:00 CST
(1948 reads)
Read More: Wireless VoIP: VoWiFi Calling Shaking Up Communications
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VoIP Helps You Receive All Your Calls |
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Receiving All Your Calls
March 15, 2005
By Staff
The Problem: You miss important phones calls when away from home.
The Solution: Now, you can automatically have homebound calls simultaneously ring your cellphone or your work phone. A number of carriers, mostly Internet phone providers, have recently started offering such routing services free or for a minimal fee.
Telephone companies that use VOIP technology like Vonage, Lingo and BroadVoice offer a service that allows you to have calls to your home always ring your other phones.
Vonage and Lingo include the feature free when you subscribe to their phone service, while BroadVoice charges $1.95 a month.
Meanwhile, AT&T's CallVantage broadband-telephone service includes Locate Me, a free feature that rings your various telephone numbers either sequentially or simultaneously before sending a call into voicemail.
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Posted by vonage on Wednesday, March 16 @ 00:00:00 CST
(825 reads)
Read More: VoIP Helps You Receive All Your Calls
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Florida Works To Kill Potential VoIP Tax |
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Florida Works To Kill Potential VoIP Tax
March 15, 2005
By Marguerite Reardon
Internet telephony supporters won a big victory in Florida last week when legislators voted in favor of repealing part of a communications tax on businesses that run their own networks.
The State House of Representatives voted unanimously on House Bill 49, which removes the tax from Florida's tax code. Bill sponsor John Stargel, a Republican in the Florida House of Representatives, said the move would "encourage growth and investment in the state." The bill must now be considered by the state Senate, expected to weigh it next month.
The complex tax dates back to telecommunications deregulation in the 1980s. The statute was originally meant to tax businesses that bypassed the local telephone network by establishing their own communications networks.
While it was originally written with technologies such as satellite and microwave in mind, critics have argued it could be applied to businesses carrying voice traffic over their IP data networks as well as individual customers of companies like Vonage that provide voice over Internet Protocol services, which route phone calls over the less-expensive, less-regulated Internet.
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Posted by vonage on Tuesday, March 15 @ 21:20:00 CST
(708 reads)
Read More: Florida Works To Kill Potential VoIP Tax
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Vonage VoIP Phones Are Talk Of Town |
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Web Phones Are Talk Of Town
March 15, 2005
By Peggy Rogers
Voice over Internet Protocol is a growing technology that keeps customers in touch anywhere in the world.
Hollywood car dealer Jorge Chavez travels frequently to Latin America and still uses his local phone to make free phone calls to South Florida.
"I used to pay for international and long-distance calls overseas probably $1,300 to $1,500 a month," said Chavez, president of SAI Motors. "Now, the charges are reduced to about $100 or about $150 a month."
Chavez uses Voice over Internet Protocol, a Net-based telephone system that is growing faster in total new lines than traditional phone service, said senior analyst Arrian Shafqat of the telecommunications industry research firm The Eastern Management Group.
"The fact it took VoIP lines a mere three years to increase from 673,000 . . . to 1.796 million depicts how fast the migration to IP is taking place," he said, describing the growth of business customers. `The transition is remarkable.'
Internet-based service allows customers to route calls to several phones in different locations. It can also shift missed calls into e-mail and may still work in an emergency when phone lines are down.
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Posted by vonage on Tuesday, March 15 @ 20:40:57 CST
(843 reads)
Read More: Vonage VoIP Phones Are Talk Of Town
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Vonage VoIP Service Being Blocked Again |
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Vonage Being Blocked -- Again
March 9, 2005
By Paul Kapustka
Vonage Holdings Corp. said it is investigating new potential incident of its Voice over IP service being blocked, this time by a cable television company that also provides Internet services.
Brooke Schulz, Vonage's vice president for corporate communications, confirmed that the company is "investigating a new instance" of service interruption that appears to be another case of port blocking. Schulz said the incident involves Vonage customers who use high-speed Internet services provided by a cable operator, somewhere in the Midwest U.S.
Last week, the Federal Communications Commission reached a consent decree with Madison River Communications of Mebane, N.C., under which Madison River agreed to pay the government $15,000 for its action of trying to block Vonage's service, and to never block Vonage's VoIP service in the future.
Over the past two weeks, industry sources who declined to be named said they had heard rumors that some Vonage customers in the Midwest were having their services blocked. On Wednesday, Schulz confirmed that Vonage is "investigating an instance [of service outages] on a cable operator's system in the Midwest."
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Posted by vonage on Tuesday, March 15 @ 00:00:00 CST
(1508 reads)
Read More: Vonage VoIP Service Being Blocked Again
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Vonage Makes Telecom Companies Sit Up And Listen |
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Weakening Voice
March 14, 2005
By Keith Humphreys
EuroLAN has resisted the temptation to move to a Carrier Pre-Select (CPS) telephony supplier, despite the daily bombardment by telephone, fax and email. We resisted 'free' Skype calls because of the lack of provision for a quality of service. BT's own voice over IP (VoIP) offering - BT IP -was dismissed because the service has very little price advantage. But when a company such as Vonage quietly releases a VoIP service in the UK, companies have to sit up and listen and - at least - evaluate, the offering.
It is not only the savings through call arbitrage that make Vonage attractive. The ability to re-route calls with a 'follow me' feature makes dialling and receiving calls in hotels, airport lounges and even Starbucks possible. This facility was available only to companies that had committed fully to an internal VoIP system.
With broadband becoming ubiquitous, prices falling and speeds doubling, Vonage's ability to add two voice lines to a broadband line (which already has spare voice or fax line), and one line uses only 90kbps of upload and download.
The adoption of Vonage will produce great savings from our Blue Bill. But as EuroLAN is a customer of BT, which supplies our voice, data and mobile services, loyalty does have some bounds. And as this becomes the general trend, voice revenues will decline, not only because of call arbitrage but because of competition; not least of which is mobile substitution.
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Posted by vonage on Monday, March 14 @ 22:06:47 CST
(851 reads)
Read More: Vonage Makes Telecom Companies Sit Up And Listen
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FCC Fines Mebane Firm For VoIP Blocking |
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Telecom Industry Notices As FCC Fines Mebane Firm
March 11, 2005
By Mick Normington
Madison River Communications Corp., a regional phone company with customers in eight states, has attracted national attention as the first carrier penalized for blocking customers from using its network to make cheap long-distance calls using the Internet.
Last week, the Federal Communications Commission ordered Mebane-based Madison River to pay a $15,000 "consent decree" penalty for blocking customers in Alabama who were legally using voice-over Internet protocol, or VoIP, equipment to make long-distance calls without having to use their phone company.
"The (telephone) industry must adhere to certain consumer protection norms if the Internet is to remain an open platform for innovation," said FCC Chairman Michael Powell in a prepared statement. "We saw a problem, and we acted swiftly."
The FCC's swift action is being viewed as a win for consumers who are trying to cut calling costs by sending some of their calls via the Internet. After consumers invest in specially designed telephones and pay VoIP service fees, they can eliminate long-distance calling charges.
Phone companies are complaining that they're being required to maintain the networks that VoIP calls still use, but they are not being compensated for that use.
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Posted by vonage on Monday, March 14 @ 21:57:06 CST
(641 reads)
Read More: FCC Fines Mebane Firm For VoIP Blocking
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Vonage UK President: Take Your VoIP Adapter To France And Spain |
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VOIP
March 10, 2005
By Staff
They say there's no such thing as a free lunch, that you never get something for nothing. So how come millions of people are making long-distance telephone calls without paying?
A range of new talk services has sprung up on the web, many of them offering free calls. In the past, delays and dropouts often led to frustrating experiences with 'net calls, but in these days of fast broadband Internet connections new companies promise crisp, cheap calls. Advances in headsets, which now offer less distortion, have helped, as well handsets which connect to your computer.
So why is making a call on the Internet so much cheaper? When we make a traditional phone call a dedicated two-way channel or circuit is left open between the two phones. That's a waste of resources, given that usually only one person is talking at a time.
Voice Over Internet Protocol - or VOIP - splits up our speech into tiny data packets. They travel much more efficiently over the 'net before being reassembled at the other end into an audio signal. The call is free because the telecoms operator has been removed from the process.
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Posted by vonage on Monday, March 14 @ 21:45:53 CST
(943 reads)
Read More: Vonage UK President: Take Your VoIP Adapter To France And Spain
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Vonage Chooses TI As Preferred Provider |
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Vonage Chooses TI As Preferred Provider
March 9, 2005
By Charlotte Wolter
Texas Instruments Inc. and Vonage Holdings Corp. this week announced that Vonage has selected TI as its preferred provider of VoIP silicon and software.
The companies say the agreement encourages VoIP equipment manufacturers to use TI’s VoIP silicon and software technology when developing products for Vonage’s broadband telephony network.
“TI is a great partner and has helped Vonage become the largest provider of broadband telephony, and this partnership will continue to drive consumers to switch from the traditional PSTN service to broadband telephony,” says Jeffrey Citron, chairman and CEO of Vonage. “This will help us deliver to our customers the highest quality and most advanced VoIP solutions, spurring faster VoIP adoption rates and further validating the market.”
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Posted by vonage on Monday, March 14 @ 21:32:32 CST
(648 reads)
Read More: Vonage Chooses TI As Preferred Provider
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Vonage Puts Its Money On The Line |
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Vonage Puts Its Money On The Line
March 11, 2005
By Staff
Founded just four years ago, Vonage Holdings has mushroomed into the largest provider of Internet-based phone service in North America. The company's offerings let consumers and small businesses make unlimited local and long-distance calls over their broadband Internet connections for $25 a month.
The residential market for Internet phone service is set to triple this year, to 2.8 million subscribers, according to researcher Yankee Group. That rapid growth has attracted major players such as Cablevision (CVC ) and Time Warner (TWX ) to the market. Though Vonage has an early lead, it remains to be seen how long it can compete against well-funded giants.
Vonage Chairman and CEO Jeffrey Citron spoke with BusinessWeek Correspondent Justin Hibbard on Mar. 1 about the outfit's prospects. Edited excerpts of that conversation follow:
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Posted by vonage on Monday, March 14 @ 17:16:04 CST
(586 reads)
Read More: Vonage Puts Its Money On The Line
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