Convergence / VoIP Notes archives
By Tim Greene, NetworkWorld.com
July 21, 2006
Wireless VoIP is getting a push this week from Skype, which is introducing a handset that can link callers to the Skype service via Wi-Fi connections....
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July 18, 2006
VoIP PBX vendor Digium is responding to vulnerability warnings about its PBX code by urging users to follow sound security procedures and upgrade to the latest software version....
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July 05, 2006
Having closely covered Massachusetts politics for a living in a former life, I generally don't have high expectations from legislators, but based on his stated views of network neutrality, Sen....
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June 29, 2006
Congress has taken another step toward shooting down network neutrality, albeit a baby step that still leaves the issue subject to change....
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June 27, 2006
The federal government is getting into convergence as a way to make sure the president can address the public no matter what happens - terrorists attacks, war, natural disasters....
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June 14, 2006
Making it possible for law enforcement to tap VoIP calls will open up Internet security holes that could endanger business traffic, according to a report by a group of respected...
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June 12, 2006
Join Network World's forum this week on network neutrality - whether telcos should be allowed to charge tiered rates for levels of service on the Internet....
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June 08, 2006
Google is cranking up a political machine of sorts, trying to get readers of its blog to lobby Congress in favor of network neutrality, the principle that would keep Internet...
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June 01, 2006
Skype is extending its offer of free services to include audio conferences for up to 500 parties as a way to lure more businesses into Skype use....
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May 31, 2006
Figuring out the return on investment for VoIP is pretty complicated, but the general consensus is that there are few places to save a lot of money....
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May 23, 2006
A published report indicates the National Security Agency has equipment in AT&T's U.S. network that enables the spy agency to tap VoIP phone calls as well as any other Internet...
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May 22, 2006
Businesses and anybody else worried about eavesdroppers on VoIP phone calls can now encrypt the calls end-to-end with free software....
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May 17, 2006
A recent study shows that VoIP is gaining some popularity among businesses, but not taking off dramatically, at least not in North America....
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May 16, 2006
Skype will complete VoIP calls to traditional phones for free in North America in an effort to boost of its peer-to-peer technology....
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May 08, 2006
Converging voice and data networks isn't easy, as Butler University found out when it dumped Centrex for VoIP....
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May 05, 2006
Well maybe the right of law enforcement tapping into VoIP phone conversations isn't as cut and dried as it seemed....
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May 05, 2006
Check out the inside story on how Interop Labs set up and tested VoIP gear in preparation for demos at Interop....
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May 02, 2006
Maybe you think VoIP is safe from wiretapping by the government. Wrong....
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April 20, 2006
No, not that SBC. We're talking here about session border controllers. And if you're deploying VoIP outside of a single domain, you probably need an SBC to mediate VoIP flows...
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April 18, 2006
Packeteer is making its WAN acceleration gear more friendly to VoIP and video over IP....
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April 17, 2006
Technicians from a consulting firm accidentally shut down NASA's VoIP system in Washington, D.C., last week, according to an account of the incident....
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April 11, 2006
Skype is moving farther and farther from a free peer-to-peer VoIP company as it buys up two VoIP technology companies that can improve voice quality....
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April 10, 2006
Software vendors catering to VoIP network providers are starting to tune up their portfolios for a wave of buying by carriers....
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April 06, 2006
The latest revision of national telecom laws cuts protection of network neutrality, the notion that the backbone of the Internet ought to treat all traffic equally....
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April 06, 2006
While the benefits of convergence include broader integration of all forms of communication, it seems that service providers are also using it as a way to restrict communication....
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April 03, 2006
The merger of Lucent and Alcatel means the consolidation of IP network equipment providers has begun in earnest....
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March 31, 2006
Convergence isn't popular with everybody. Witness the Kosher phone....
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March 29, 2006
What's the big ticket item when it comes to installing a VoIP system?...
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March 28, 2006
Consumer advocate Common Cause has issued a report that ties big network service providers to attempts to block legislation that would guarantee top quality of service for all Web applications...
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March 27, 2006
Just when it seemed things might get interesting for eBay and its uses of Skype VoIP technology, a legal monkey wrench has been tossed into middle of things....
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March 23, 2006
VoIP could be perhaps nowhere more useful than in contact centers where linking caller ID with data stored about the caller can improve service. Yet adoption of the technology is...
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March 22, 2006
Consumers are starting to get vocal about network neutrality, the proposition that everyone's Internet access should be created and delivered equal....
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March 20, 2006
The biggest public safety issue with VoIP is E911 service, which is tough to deliver to phones that can be used no matter where you plug them in to an...
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March 17, 2006
The City of New Orleans is being supported almost entirely by VoIP, according to the city's CIO....
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March 16, 2006
A valuable and free VoIP seminar sets off country-wide next week and will be well worth the effort to attend for corporate IT executives charged with implementing converged communications for...
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March 15, 2006
Nothing less than the creative future of the Internet relies on an arcane U.S. regulatory principle known as network neutrality....
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March 14, 2006
Microsoft has chosen Radvision as the exclusive vendor of software toolkits needed to write SIP applications that interoperate with Microsoft's Live Communication Server....
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March 08, 2006
Open source IP PBXs sound like a good idea and apparently AT&T agrees. The company says it is scrutinizing IP PBX software from Asterisk to figure out how AT&T VoIP...
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March 07, 2006
Skype may be OK for your business. Depending on how much you want your phone system to resemble the traditional public phone network, Skype and other peer-to-peer calling may be...
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March 06, 2006
SIP, the VoIP call signaling and set-up protocol, is finally making its way into the products of the major VoIP vendors....
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March 02, 2006
Chip maker AMD is challenging the exclusive deal between Skype and Intel that could put AMD at a disadvantage in the eyes of Skype users....
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March 01, 2006
Important testing that will lead to better IP networks is on tap for later this year....
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March 01, 2006
Don't go out and buy VoIP gear without checking out what our testers are saying about purchasing VoIP equipment. We asked members our Network World Test Alliance for their tips...
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February 28, 2006
As enterprise users move to all-IP networks, so do their phone systems, as reported in Network World on Monday....
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February 27, 2006
Every year, Network World's testing program puts hundreds of products through the ringer, so you don't have to. And just in case you missed a test or two during the...
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February 24, 2006
This year's VoiceCon promises to be an exciting event. The show, which runs from March 6-9 at the Gaylord Palms in Orlando, will feature keynotes from Avaya CEO Don Peterson...
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February 23, 2006
XO Communications is reaching out to small and medium-sized businesses with new business VoIP services. The service provider's XOptions Flex offering extends availability to businesses with up to 160 employees...
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February 22, 2006
U.S. telecom business will see double digit growth in 2006, reaching $944.7 billion, and by 2007 it will hit $1.2 trillion, according to the Telecommunications Industry Association's market review and...
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February 21, 2006
Go figure. A VoIP call made using SSL VPN encryption can perform better than a VoIP call over the same connection that is unencrypted. Check out the Network World Clear...
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February 17, 2006
One of the messages out of the RSA 2006 conference this week was that security threats against VoIP may actually endanger convergence....
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February 15, 2006
Threats against VoIP specifically may be developing, but they haven' shown up yet as a major concern in the real world....
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February 13, 2006
Privacy lines need to be drawn now and clearly to create the trust needed for IP converged services to flourish....
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February 10, 2006
Ten years ago, the telecom reform act became law, making it possible for competitive local phone companies to exist, and they have done a lot to push along technology since...
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February 09, 2006
Vonage is going public, a rare enough event in any industry but particularly noteworthy because the company is the best known VoIP startup....
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February 07, 2006
Tiered IP services with tiered pricing seem more and more inevitable with the news that both AOL and Yahoo are going to charge for guaranteed, on-time delivery of e-mails....
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February 06, 2006
OpenZoep, an open source, peer-to-peer VoIP platform has been making a splash since its recent introduction....
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February 03, 2006
Cable companies that provide VoIP need to adopt the IP multimedia subsystem (IMS) architecture and soon if they hope to keep stealing customers from traditional phone providers....
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February 01, 2006
MIT and Cambridge University researchers warn that VoIP traffic could become a way to mask where denial of service attacks come from....
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January 25, 2006
It's time to stop looking at convergence as bringing together existing technologies on a single network. Instead, it's time to start breaking down communications into component parts and embedding those...
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January 20, 2006
The IEEE is working on a way to boost the power in power over Ethernet and to fine-tune how much power a switch can send to any given device. While...
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January 20, 2006
Cisco Call Managers are vulnerable to denial of service attacks under certain circumstances, so anyone with the gear should check whether their configuration falls into the danger zone. The threat...
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January 12, 2006
The Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas was dominated by announcements related to VoIP, a healthy sign for the technology. If VoIP can overshadow the foremost consumer gizmo show, it...
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January 09, 2006
The biggest threats to VoIP security are those exploits that threaten the security of the underlying network, but all that will change this year....
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January 06, 2006
A battle may be brewing between facilities-based ISPs who want to start charging extra to support high-bandwidth services like VoIP, gaming and streaming movies; and the companies that provides those...
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January 04, 2006
VoIP needs promotional help if consumers are going to accelerate their adoption of the technology, according to a newly released study done by Level 3 Communications, which wholesales VoIP to...
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January 03, 2006
The Skype business model for selling VoIP seems to be catching on, based on a new approach being tried by a South American service provider....
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December 22, 2005
Despite the possibility of attacks designed specifically to disrupt, intercept or hijack VoIP, none has emerged yet that has caused the widespread damage that other viruses and worms have....
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December 15, 2005
MCI and Microsoft have announced a PC-to-public-phone service that lets users of upcoming Microsoft Windows Live software place calls to regular phones. The way it's described so far, MCI Web...
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December 13, 2005
Check out Network World's debate on whether Skype is ready for use in the enterprise and you will agree that the peer-to-per communications software is not ready. Columnists Rodney Thayer...
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December 07, 2005
Whether you want to see Bon Jovi in concert is a matter of personal taste, but the fact is you can see the band's Dec. 17 concert in Washington, D.C....
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December 06, 2005
If nothing else books about VoIP have good titles, like Skype Me! and Fire the Phone Company. Both tell readers how to set up VoIP at home, in the case...
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December 02, 2005
Skype's new video features may cause indigestion in IT departments because unauthorized use can hog bandwidth and slow down more important traffic....
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December 01, 2005
The latest version of peer-to-peer VoIP software from Skype includes video support - meaning you can see and be seen when you place calls. Apart from the fun of finding...
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November 29, 2005
There's a bit of hysteria about whether VoIP service providers comply with the FCC desire that VoIP customers connect to the nearest police/fire/ambulance service whenever they dial 911....
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November 21, 2005
With the purchase of Scientific Atlanta, Cisco now owns 40% of the market for set-top boxes that bring cable TV into homes via IP streams....
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November 07, 2005
Some of the biggest proponents of VoIP services are the cable TV companies because they own networks that touch customer buildings and VoIP is the best technology for delivering voice...
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September 29, 2005
The Federal Communications Commission has moved back the deadline - again - for when VoIP service providers have prove all their customers know that 911 may not work....
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September 12, 2005
$2.6 billion is a lot of money to pay for anything, but for e-Bay to pay that much for VoIP phone company Skype, whose business model is to make money...
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September 12, 2005
VoIP service provider Vonage, which at the very least has won the name-recognition contest among U.S. VoIP carriers, says it has logged a significant milestone: it's 1 millionth paying customer....
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August 24, 2005
IP PBXs are starting to rule the land....
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July 29, 2005
There's been a lot of complaints about the Telecommunications Act of 1996 - it's too easy on incumbent carriers, it's too easy on startup competitive carriers - and it's too...
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July 28, 2005
XO Communications is firmly establishing itself as a VoIP vendor that small businesses should take a look at for voice and data networking....
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July 25, 2005
Frost & Sullivan says residential use of VoIP will boom over the next five years as problems are solved and features are added....
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July 25, 2005
The FCC says VoIP service providers must get customers to sign off that they know 911 for VoIP is different from traditional 911 - but the FCC is mum on...
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July 25, 2005
Voice over IP equipment is so new and cool that it's being placed in Hollywood productions as eye-catching technology....
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July 18, 2005
Cisco's Call Manager has a flaw that could subject its Call Manager software to denial of service attacks, memory leaks and memory corruption, but there are fixes and workarounds....
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July 18, 2005
In mid-2007, Vodafone Germany plans to block peer-to-peer VoIP traffic from is network, but won't say why....
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July 18, 2005
VoIP subscribers doubled over the past year, according to a study, a promising sign for competitive carriers....
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June 21, 2005
Forbes Magazine took a look at VoIP providers and decided it liked cable companies as the most likely to do well selling the service....
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June 21, 2005
IP PBXs based on open source software - and there are more of them than you might think - seem to be making headway with commercial vendors building for-profit products...
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June 06, 2005
A report from analyst firm Ovum says VoIP quality and acceptance of VoIP technology mean it will become dominant among businesses by 2008....
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June 06, 2005
BCE, the largest phone company in Canada, says the government ">shouldn't cap prices incumbent phone companies charge for VoIP, but the regulation is already in place....
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June 06, 2005
A new study says 60% of U.S. consumers are aware of VoIP, but trying to understand service options makes their heads spin. Helpful tip for reading link: punter is Brit-speak...
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May 31, 2005
If VoIP services came in a package with TV, cell phone and broadband internet access, a third of customers would buy it, according to a study....
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May 31, 2005
In Europe, local VoIP providers ">can hire Global Crossing to terminate calls from their customers to phones on traditional phone networks. This saves the expense of the local VoIP providers...
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May 31, 2005
Two Swedish firms have come up with support for 911 emergency calls in IP voice networks as is being demanded by U.S. regulators....
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May 16, 2005
A group of security vendors under the banner of Cyber Security Industry Alliance is asking Congress to mandate VoIP security measures in any revisions it makes to the Telecom Reform...
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May 16, 2005
VoIP business users - still a vast minority - like VoIP better than traditional phone service for its cool features even though voice quality may suffer, according to a survey....
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May 16, 2005
Although it hasn't announced it, Qwest offers VoIP services that undercut its own traditional phone service but not the services of independent VoIP competitors....
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April 04, 2005
Canada's traditional phone carrier is introducing VoIP services to guard against rivals that already offer the services, although not in all its territory....
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April 04, 2005
Juniper Networks is buying Kagoor Networks, makers of session border controllers that help VoIP traffic make it unmolested through firewalls that aren't tuned to handle packet voice....
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April 04, 2005
A new industry group called the VoIP Security Alliance is classifying threats to VoIP as groundwork for shoring up security holes....
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March 28, 2005
The Texas attorney general is suing to force Vonage to make more clear that its VoIP phone service doesn't automatically come with 911 emergency dialing, as a Vonage customer found...
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March 28, 2005
The U.S. Supreme Court hears a case this week to decide if cable TV companies have to lease their lines to competitors who want to offer broadband Internet access and...
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March 28, 2005
Network World is running a stories this week testing VoIP quality test tools, plus tips on VoIP quality management so you can make sure your CEO doesn't get bad calls....
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March 14, 2005
AOL is getting into voice over IP with a new service it will roll out next month to its current broadband Internet access customers....
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March 14, 2005
Nortel has teamed up with a cluster of companies in an effort to promote VoIP by providing a range of VoIP gear that is interoperable....
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March 14, 2005
Clearwire, the U.S. wireless company, will receive $100 million from Bell Canada via support for IP telephony and other Internet services on Clearwire's network....
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March 07, 2005
The FCC fined a broadband service provider for dropping VoIP calls placed by customers of VoIP service provider Vonage....
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March 07, 2005
It's just a trial, but TowerStream Corp. will be testing VoIP over Wi-Fi in New York City and Rhode Island as a way to figure out what customers want and...
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March 07, 2005
The national carrier in Costa Rica, Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad (ICE), says VoIP should be regulated, but government officials say the move would hurt the country's software developers....
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March 07, 2005
A panel of experts weighs in on the impact VoIP has had on call centers. (Hint: It's really big.)...
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February 28, 2005
A new study finds that most of the carrier VoIP equipment sold is being sold to service providers in North America, with Asia in second but lagging....
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February 28, 2005
The IEEE is sharing 20 papers of IP telephony from its Communications Society Journal, but only this month....
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February 28, 2005
Sprint is introducing a dual-mode CDMA/GSM phone that will elable roaming around the world on cellular networks....
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February 21, 2005
Specialists in U.S. public-safety communications are urging that the FCC regulate VoIP at least to the extent of requiring that emergency calls to 911 be routed reliably to the nearest...
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February 21, 2005
Vonage claims in an FCC complaint that unnamed service providers have purposely blocked VoIP calls coming from its customers....
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February 21, 2005
Customers of Teleo can buy voice over IP via Wi-Fi networks or cellular networks and use features such as click to dial....
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February 14, 2005
The Colorado House will consider a bill to exempt VoIP from being taxed and regulated, but even if it passes, the bill could run afoul of federal efforts to tax...
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February 14, 2005
Voice and data technical staff need to work together if businesses expect to roll out VoIP, and that's not always easy....
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February 14, 2005
Users find out that VoIP is more than just making phone calls....
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February 07, 2005
A survey says most people don't want to switch to VoIP unless they can save big money over their current phone services, but those who have switched love it....
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February 07, 2005
PCTel has announced its version of a wirless phone that can receive calls via cellular networks or over Wi-Fi networks....
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February 07, 2005
A study says the number of VoIP customers grew by 10 times from 2003 to 2004, up from almost nothing to 10 times almost nothing....
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January 31, 2005
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) says VoIP offers valuable opportunities but needs to be implemented carefully. Duh, but NIST has written a report that sets forth a...
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January 31, 2005
After more than a year of offering 3 (Tone) VoIP service, which it supplied to other service providers so they could offer VoIP services to end users, Level 3 is...
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January 31, 2005
A study by Infonetics says Wi-Fi- IP phones could drive customer demand for other wireless service such as 3G and WiMax....
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January 24, 2005
Training for customer service reps is tricky for VoIP providers because the customers need to be talked to in standard telephony terms or they don't understand what's going on....
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January 24, 2005
Packet 8 makes real live IP videophones and has managed to get them used as props in several prime-time TV shows this season including Alias, Law and Order and King...
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January 24, 2005
Covad Communications, a DSL pioneer and broadband wireless purveyor, now sells VoIP services over its last-mile connections to the Internet, making it a better rounded local competitor....
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January 18, 2005
It's the last of the big cable vendors to announce VoIP services, but as the biggest U.S. cable operator, it's impact will be significant....
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January 18, 2005
The pricing structure of traditional phone services in Europe is particularly vulnerable to flat-rate Skype and other VoIP services, a study says....
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January 18, 2005
The sale of integrated circuits for VoIP, particularly for dual mode VoIP/cellular phones, is expected to increase five-fold by the end of 2008, according to an analyst report....
January 06, 2005
Although it promised VoIP services by the end of 2004, Qwest has delayed the launch of its residential service so it can clear up some problems with the associated 911...
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January 06, 2005
The cable TV companies are relying more and more on delivering combined voice and data services over their netiworks, not just entertainment programming, to boost their profits....
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January 06, 2005
Students in Northwestern University dorms get cable programming to their rooms via the campus IP network rather than a separate coaxial cable feed....
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December 13, 2004
Instant messaging giants like Microsoft and AOL are missing the boat if they don't buy up VoIP carriers, according to an industry analyst....
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December 13, 2004
In Canada it is now possible to buy Vonage VoIP phone service at business-supply chain Staples....
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December 13, 2004
Vonage again. The company is teaming up with Viseon to offer videophones to its VoIP subscribers....
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November 29, 2004
Like any new technology area, VoIP will come to the Darwinian shakeout period when weaker startups go out of business - so do your homework on your VoIP provider's stability....
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November 29, 2004
In the U.K., CD/DVD retailer CD Wow is reselling VoIP services in its stores....
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November 15, 2004
Federal regulators say it's their job to regulate voice over IP, not the states', because VoIP phones can move around freely, blurring the difference between local and long distance calls....
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November 15, 2004
Because distributed network elements as opposed to centralized switches are aware of IP services that get delivered, figuring usage bills for VoIP is complex....
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November 15, 2004
Customers in Germany can buy Skype phones and adapters from Siemens so they can use the wireless technology for their home or office phones....
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November 08, 2004
As much as 13 % of European broadband customers could adopt voice over IP by 2008, according to a U.K. analyst firm....
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November 08, 2004
The Federal Communications Commission says it will rule this week on whether it should regulate IP voice or treat it as an application running on a packet network....
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November 08, 2004
IP voice provider Nuvio seeks an FCC ruling to bar broadband providers from throttling back on bandwidth used for VoIP....
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November 01, 2004
Voice over IP has a different set of risks from traditional TDM voice and a new white paper by consultancy KPMG details what to look out for....
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November 01, 2004
VoIP is creating competition to traditional voice providers but also the chance to enter new lines of business, according to a Gartner Group analysis....
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November 01, 2004
Most major businesses will implement desktop voice over IP within two years, according to a survey by consulting firm Deloitte & Touche....
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October 25, 2004
FCC Chairman Michael Powell views VoIP as an interstate service that states should not have the power to regulate....
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October 25, 2004
Software vendor Xten has written a new version of its voice and video over IP platform to be compatible with Macs....
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October 25, 2004
Service providers Vonage and Boingo are teaming up to offer VoIP services from public Wi-Fi hotspots later this year....
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October 18, 2004
Running voice over IP on a wireless LAN is certainly possible, but requires close examination of the capacity of the WLAN....
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October 18, 2004
IP voice carrier Vonage has demonstrated an emergency 911 system that it says is good to go....
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October 18, 2004
Spam over Internet telephony needs to be stopped in its tracks before making phone calls becomes a disaster....
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October 04, 2004
AT&T dropped its VoIP pricing, so upstart Vonage did the same, making voice bargain hunters giddy....
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October 04, 2004
Stock traders who theoretically could benefit from VoIP to merge their voice and data trading networks are wary of its security....
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October 04, 2004
A broadband industry group in the United Kingdom says that for now VoIP is the biggest new lure for potential customers....
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September 27, 2004
Businesses buy voice over IP technology to support specific applications, not to save money, according to a survey by Infonetics....
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September 27, 2004
Financial writers at The Motley Fool interpret Ford's purchase of VoIP services from SBC as a sign the technology is mature....
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September 27, 2004
A group of 23 companies is participating in a trial of an AT&T VoIP service that gives traveling workers a single phone number that can reach them anywhere as long...
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September 20, 2004
In order to help service providers deliver VoIP quicker, Cisco has bought Dynamicsoft and its SIP-based presence software....
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September 20, 2004
Participants at an industry forum agree that VoIP could be a key technology to get the telecom sector moving, but it still faces some technical and image problems....
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September 20, 2004
The traditional wired Hong Kon phone company PCCW says running VoIP services over its broadband Internet access lines could screw up the quality of Internet access. Hmm....
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September 13, 2004
The United Kingdom is setting aside phone numbers for voice over IP calls, the latest step the continent has taken toward embracing the packet technology....
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September 13, 2004
In Australia, one in seven businesses surveyed has started using voice over IP in some form, but that will jump to nearly half in three years, according to a study...
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September 13, 2004
Businesses looking at VoIP have to worry about the return on investment, and there may be cost factors that don't come readily to mind....
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September 06, 2004
Businesses near Madison Square Garden took their VoIP phones home so they could work at home, receive work calls at their office number and avoid the crowds jamming the New...
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September 06, 2004
Mediacom has signed up to sell Sprint VoIP services as part of its offerings, allowing customers to buy the service even if they buy Internet access from someone else....
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September 06, 2004
The South African government says voice, video and data traffic are all to be treated the same on networks in that country, making VoIP services possible by more providers....
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August 30, 2004
IP phone company Vonage is adding low-cost Linksys and Netgear wireless equipment to its list of customer-site gear that supports its services....
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August 30, 2004
Sprint has signed a deal with cable operator Mediacom to provide it with voice services that Mediacom will sell to its customers. It's the third such deal for Sprint....
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August 30, 2004
AT&T has signed deals for Best Buy and amazon.com to sell its CallVantage IP phone service in the retail chain's stores and the online bookseller's Web site....
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August 23, 2004
Nine carriers are suggesting to the Federal Communications Commission a new rate structure for completing calls dialed in other carriers' networks, but two heavies - BellSouth and Verizon - have...
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August 23, 2004
By enlisting the major cable TV companies, AT&T hopes to reach broadband customers to supply them with Internet access and VoIP services....
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August 23, 2004
With a new service that connects its IP voice calls to the public phone network, Skype is trying to go mainstream, but it's unclear whether it can make a dent...
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August 16, 2004
Technology to enable tapping of VoIP calls could drive up the price of VoIP services....
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August 16, 2004
An amended U.S. Senate bill that started out to shield Voice over IP from taxes now includes a provision to tax VoIP, making such a tax inevitable, says Jim Carlini,...
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August 16, 2004
Covad Communications will sell VoIP services to businesses in 113 cities in combination with DSL-based Internet access....
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August 09, 2004
The FCC has ruled that the government needs to be able to tap IP voice calls just like it can traditional phone calls so it can deal with terrorists and...
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August 09, 2004
According to a study by Probe Research, Russians represent a ripe market for converged voice, data and video services, especially in cities where broadband is more available....
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August 09, 2004
A major insurance company lost all its voice capabilities for eight hours when its VoIP network succumbed to a virus....
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August 03, 2004
n the U.S., major carriers trying out consumer voice over IP services offer similar features....
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August 03, 2004
ISPs and cyber cafes sell VoIP services on the sly despite laws against it because they can undercut sanctioned carriers and still make a profit....
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July 26, 2004
A U.S. Senate committee recommends that the Federal Communications Commission, not states, regulate VoIP for the next three years, but also says states should decide whether VoIP providers must pony...
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July 26, 2004
The Internal Revenue Service says it won't apply an existing phone tax to VoIP services....
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July 26, 2004
Verizon sells voice over IP services nationwide in a calculated risk to cannibalize its own voice customers before they are lured away by VoIP competitors....
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July 26, 2004
AT&T says from now on it wants only business customers and residential customers that buy voice over IP services....
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July 19, 2004
The European Telecommunications Standards Institute says it needs testing standards so vendors can build VoIP gear that interoperates well with gear made by other vendors....
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July 19, 2004
The CEO of Siemens in the U.S., Andy Mattes, says corporations still lack faith in voice over IP, slowing their adoption of the technology. See the Q&A here....
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July 19, 2004
IP-based call centers have a new name - contact centers - that use the packet nature of the technology to mix data and voice to create more efficient and distributed...
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July 12, 2004
Cable & Wireless is launching a VoIP service for large corporations this fall that requires no upgrade to existing PBXs and that could save customers money....
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July 12, 2004
Testimony before Congress last week from service providers pushing VoIP indicated they don't want a state-by-state patchwork of regulation that would result in slower rollout of such services....
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July 12, 2004
VoIP vendors find that banks and other financial institutions are particularly receptive to VoIP for cost and efficiency....
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June 28, 2004
Qwest is introducing bundled local and long-distance IP voice with broadband Internet access in four cities by mid-July with 22 more cities on tap. Can video services be far behind?...
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June 28, 2004
VoIP will be slower to catch on in Canada than in the U.S. because phone prices are already less expensive in Canada and the population at large doesn't understand the...
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June 28, 2004
Startup Peerio has launched a peer-to-peer IP telephony product that sits inside IP phones, PDAs with telephony capabilities and even PCs, and it doesn't require a separate call server to...
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June 21, 2004
According to testimony to Congress from the U.S. Department of justice, unregulated VoIP will be a haven for terrorist communication because law enforcement agendies wouldn't be able to listen in...
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June 21, 2004
According to British analyst firm Juniper Research, voice over IP traffic will grow steadily but reach only 12% of all voice traffic by 2009....
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June 21, 2004
Depending on how businesses use VoIP, they may or may not save money, so it's wise to consider other reasons the technology might be desirable....
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May 24, 2004
British Telecom and European wireless provider Vodafone are working on converged services that will give customers a single phone number and voice mail, but the handset would tap into the...
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May 24, 2004
The argument that voice over IP is less expensive doesn't stand up to close scrutiny, at least not the close scrutiny of James Carlini, who teaches at North Western University....
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May 24, 2004
Here's a sample of information the public is getting about voice over IP through general-circulation newspapers. Does it sound attractive to you?...
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May 24, 2004
IBM will sell Cisco phones as part of its consulting services following a joint-marketing agreement between the two companies....
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May 24, 2004
The most famous IP telephony service provider, Vonage, is OK in the eyes of CNN columnist Eric Hellweg because they dropped prices he thinks will create a VOIP price war....
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May 24, 2004
Global Crossing's network carries 2.4 billion minutes per month of voice traffic as IP, which means a steady 55,555 calls being handled at any given moment....
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May 24, 2004
The State of New York says Vonage is a phone company subject to regulation, a decision that VOIP champion Jeff Pulver regards as troubling....
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May 03, 2004
A theme at the recent VON 2004 conference was the impending arrival of voice over Wi-Fi, what with vendors making combo phones and businesses looking to offer telephone mobility within...
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May 03, 2004
Nothing is more central to the future of converging voice and data networks than regulation and the federal statutes governing telecommunications. The U.S. Senate is in the thick of listening...
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May 03, 2004
A British systems integrator polled corporate networking executives and found that many of them didn't have a clear idea of what convergence was, let alone have a clear plan for...
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April 12, 2004
In case you missed it, starting this month MCI is wheeling out services it calls Convergence Networking that includes interoperability among frame relay, ATM and IP services so businesses can...
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April 12, 2004
Customers don't care whether sound quality is as bad as cell phones if the price for VOIP is cheap enough, according to a survey commissioned by the financial firm UBS....
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April 12, 2004
The Motley Fool - the financial analysts for the masses - say the FCC and legislators should overhaul regulations and taxes so carriers and startups are treated equally in respect...
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March 15, 2004
Supercomm is one of the biggest service provider shows of the year, and the one coming up in June is touting itself as a big showcase for convergence, voice over...
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March 15, 2004
Covad Communications doesn't have the brightest bottom line - net loss was $12.8 million in the fourth quarter of last year - but it has been taking bold steps to...
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March 15, 2004
Yahoo is trying a new voice/data mix in the United Kingdom: instant messaging in combination with Internet voice over IP. Multi-taskers will no doubt be delighted. See here for the...
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March 01, 2004
The U.S. Senate recently held hearings on one of the key convergence issues: voice over IP, whether to regulate it and if so how. Even more recently, the U.S. Senate...
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March 01, 2004
While much of the attention about regulation of voice over IP has been paid to Federal Communications Commission hearings, individual states have authority here as well. Their progress is being...
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March 01, 2004
It's always good to be skeptical of white papers written by vendors because you might rightly think they are just trying to sell you something. But that doesn't mean they...
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February 23, 2004
Few factors will have more of an influence on converged services over carrier networks than regulation. Depending on what assets the major carriers are forced to share with competitors, these...
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February 23, 2004
Ciena, the equipment vendor that has been assembling technology for core, regional and metro networks, has been on a pretty regular buying spree. The company just announced plans to snap...
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February 23, 2004
Nortel's CEO Fra
