Dash to provide e911 services for Gizmo5

Continuing our coverage of announcements coming out from IT Expo West held last week, Dash Carrier Services (DASH a provider of wholesale carrier voice solutions, announced that it would provide E911 emergency service solutions for Gizmo5. Gizmo5 offers VoIP services to both consumers and businesses from any computer with either browser access or with IP phones. Gizmo is also interoperable with Google Voice.

PAETEC announced that its "IP Simple Solutions" are now being offered to a national audience where Dynamic IP voice service is available. According to a statement from John Chapman, senior vice president of marketing at PAETEC,. "With IP Simple Solutions, PAETEC can offer and support SIP Trunking, High-Speed Internet and MPLS VPN nationwide, as well as our own IP PBX and phones." The solution couples a PAETEC Dynamic IP product with a customer-defined equipment bundle choosing from the Allworx 24x or 6x IP-PBX, 9212 and/or 9224 IP phones, and optional software.

Digium and Skype announced the general availability of Skype for Asterisk with a software solution that connects Asterisk-based business phone systems to Skype. The software includes encryption for voice calls and provides Skype user account management through Skype's Web-based Business Control Panel. Additional features of the joint solution include Asterisk call features like call transfer, interactive voice response, automated call distribution, flexible call-routing and more. The software is available now for $66 per concurrent call and comes with 90 days of installation support.

In other news separate from IT Expo, NEC announced enhancements to its UC for Enterprise (UCE) portfolio with the introduction of UCE Mobility, Microsoft Outlook integration for UCE Desktop Client, and new integration capabilities for the UCE Attendant. UCE Mobility features include single-number reach, simultaneous ring, and unified voice mail.

The UCE Desktop Client, now with Microsoft Outlook Toolbar Integration allows employees to move from an audio call collaborative sessions with video, desktop or presentation sharing while the Conference Manager feature provides ad hoc conference calls and "meet-me" conference without the need for an audio bridge. Vertical features for general business, healthcare and hospitality have also been added.

Next time, one more IT Expo news item as InVox launches a new hosted service.

Steve Taylor is president of Distributed Networking Associates and publisher/editor-in-chief of Webtorials. Larry Hettick is a principal analyst at Current Analysis.