VOIP and SIP News

For all the benefits of VoIP, such as increased efficiency and cost savings for businesses, the phone system technology has its downsides too.
Emergency services in California have complained about being called out to large office blocks and campuses without knowing exactly where the incident is taking place.

Karina Yandell, the corporate development manager of 911 ETC Inc, said: “If an employee dials 911 but the caller address is just a billing address, emergency services can arrive at a multi-story building and have no clue where exactly the emergency is.”
She added: “VoIP has brought the issue to the forefront because of the problem it presents for 911 calls. Up until now the public has been largely unaware of this glitch.”

Ms Yandell was speaking in the hope that the state of California addresses issue with organizations which employ multiple-line telephone systems.
E-911 is an American system that matches phone numbers with physical addresses. It is mainly used by emergency services responders.
Currently only a tiny fraction of California’s 1.3 million businesses, non-profit organisations and government entities have provided telephone extension location information to the voluntary E-911 database.

The lack of these records creates a gap in the Californian emergency call system. California is now one of a number of states proposing regulations which would shore up the gaps in these records.

VoIP technology is predicted to help end the recession by bringing new revenue streams to small-to-medium enterprises (SME), according to VoIP and broadband services provider DSML.
A report by Infotechnics Research has detailed how VoIP service revenue has increased towards the end of 2009 and will continue to do so.
This was further substantiated by a recent web poll by trade publication Comms Business which found that 54% of respondents had lost a sale to a hosted VoIP company.
John Carter, the managing director of DMSL said: "There is a rapid uptake of hosted VoIP for a number of reasons. First of all the technology is here, it works and it makes sense.
“You can have hosted VoIP up and running in a matter of minutes, and it gives businesses more flexibility and will rapidly deliver a return on investment. VoIP is the future and as exit the recession, more businesses -especially SMEs and start-ups - will be looking to adopt hosted services that allow them to do business anytime and anywhere.
He added: “VoIP also has the advantage of allowing them to upscale quickly and inexpensively when they need to."

3CX appointed Official Technical Supplier

Lotus Racing and 3CX announce that, 3CX has been appointed as technical supplier and that Lotus Racing has installed 3CX Phone System in its technical centre and mobile race track operations. Thepopular VoIP PBX system will be used for each F1 race around the globe – providing the vital comms link between Norfolk HQ and the track team.

Commenting on this alliance, Lotus Racing Head of IT Bill Peters said “We needed a state of the art PBX that would deliver unified communications and high quality voice across the globe. 3CX and Lotus Racing clearly share the same ethos of excellence and success, with a winning attitude.” 3CX Phone System Enterprise Edition 8 was implemented last month at the Technical Centre in Hingham, Norfolk with 1 Patton ISDN E1 gateway, VoIP Unlimited trunks and 130 Cisco SPA phones.

Nick Galea, CEO of 3CX felt privileged to be selected by Lotus Racing. “It's a team with a long heritage of success and technical innovation in a sport which depends so much on technology and reliability. We’ve built reliability into the core of 3CX and to receive acknowledgment from Lotus Racing is a great accolade for the 3CX Team.”

Although there are many benefits to implementing 3CX Phone System, the top paybacks for Lotus were seen as follows:

• Mobility: 3CX Voip technology enables staff to work remotely around the globe. Remote extensionstrackside enables the racing crew to talk to each other irrespective of their location. The MyPhone portal makes it easy foreach employee to configure rules on how calls were to be treated and routed.


• Manageability: Extensions and phone lines can be added on-the-go with a few clicks and the phone system can be backed up like any other windows application.


• Savings: A large proportion of Lotus’ phone traffic is now sent over inter-company VoIP
  circuits thereby considerably reducing high mobile phone costs and prohibitive roaming charges.


• Unified Messaging: Employees have easy desktop call control and can contact colleagues and transfer calls with a click of a button. Voice mail and faxes are delivered to the users email inbox.

To read more on this press release, please click here.

3CX, the leading IP PBX software manufacturer, partners with EFL to help expand it’s UK channel business

London and Theale, Berkshire, 16th February 2010: Electronic Frontier Ltd (EFL) has been appointed UK distributor by 3CX, the award-winning IP PBX software manufacturer. EFL will promote the complete range of 3CX products and offer full support and training for UK based dealers and resellers. At a strategic level, the agreement will allow EFL to offer 3CX as a bundle with a range of approved products, including Patton VoIP gateways and IP Phones.

Conor McCann, EFL’s General Manager, commented on the agreement, “We are delighted to be working with 3CX who we see as a pioneering player in the software-based IP PBX market. It offers great synergy with our existing VoIP portfolio and will allow us to offer even greater value to channel partners seeking best of breed VoIP solutions.”

To read more on this article, please click here.

Spitfire, the leading Internet Telephony Service Provider, has completed full Interoperability testing with 3CX and agreed to promote 3CX to Spitfire’s 200 strong partner channel. Spitfire has become a 3CX Supported SIP Trunk provider, with Spitfire SIP Trunk configuration built into the latest release of 3CX software, and support for Spitfire SIP Trunks being available from 3CX’s global technical support center.

Spitfire presented 3CX to its partner channel in a joint seminar for Spitfire Partners at the end of January 2010, to promote the benefits of the 3CX IP phone system using Spitfire SIP trunks. In addition to this 3CX is holding two fully subscribed training days exclusively for Spitfire Partners at their training center in Kingston-upon-Thames.

The 3CX phone system is a Windows based IP PBX that replaces a proprietary hardware PBX. 3CX’s IP phone system has been developed specifically for Microsoft Windows and is based on the SIP standard.

Spitfire’s Partner Service provides a wide range of telecoms support for IT support companies and VARs looking to move into voice. This includes overviews on an introduction to telecoms, third level support and access to Spitfire’s Wholesale Line Rental and SIP products.

Nick Goodenough, Spitfire’s Partner Service Manager says, “Our aim is to help IT companies that wish to move into voice take the initial steps. IT resellers have great relationships with their clients and are on site on a regular basis. They should consider providing voice as delivering and supporting another application on the LAN. Spitfire’s role is to provide our IT Partners with the service wrap and products to give them the confidence to provide voice services with our support. Spitfire offers over 20 years experience in the voice market and is now a leader in SIP Trunks, VoIP and business Internet connectivity, so we offer the complete package to support IT companies moving into voice”.

To read more about this post, click here.

3CX – developer of the popular software PBX for Windows - 3CX Phone System, and Beronet – an industry leader in VoIP gateway equipment – announced today a strategic technology partnership that pairs 3CX’s software-based IP-PBX with Berofix VoIP gateways.

The partnership ensures that both companies will commit to do ongoing interoperability testing, ensuring that customers can buy best of breed VoIP software and hardware, yet still be assured of an end to end solution supported by both vendors.

The IP PBX and VOIP Gateway certified interoperability allows companies to immediately realize the cost-saving benefits of VoIP, whilst utilizing existing ISDN lines and thus enabling a gradual transition to VoIP. The Berofix VoIP Gateways are available as add in cards or as separate stand alone units. In both cases they fully support virtualized environments and do not require operating system drivers. The range starts with 4S0 (4BRI) and goes up to 4E1 connections. The cards can be upgraded allowing the customer full flexibility. A GSM and Analog interface module is in development. Selected 3CX and Beronet distributors will be offering special bundle pricing.

“We are very pleased to cooperate with Beronet,” said Nick Galea, CEO of 3CX. “Berofix VOIP Gateways are well-designed, competitively priced and highly scale able. They work perfectly with 3CX and thus resellers can deploy the solution with confidence, knowing they will be fully supported by both Beronet and 3CX.”

To read more on this article, click here.