VOIP and SIP News

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Skype is moving on from recent unfortunate events with the acquisition of the video internet service Qik.

According to reports the company could pay anything from $100 - $150 million to acquire the fast-growing mobile video software provider.

That will be a step in the right direction after the recent Skype service outage which saw them offer compensation to millions of customers.

In only one year Qik has proved very popular by amassing more than 5 million users. In the meantime it went into partnership with huge companies such as T-Mobile, Samsung, Nokia and Sprint.

Buying Qik makes sense for Skype as the companies have complementary services. The announcement was made at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas with private terms expected to conclude by the end of the month.

Skype’s CEO Tony Bates stated: “The Qik team has delivered exceptional video experiences for its mobile partners and millions of end users across a range of devices.

"Skype’s software enables an estimated 25% of the world’s international long distance voice calling minutes, and approximately 40% of those Skype-to-Skype calls are happening over video. Qik’s deep engineering capabilities and strong mobile relationships will be an impressive complementary fit with Skype.”

Anyone wondering what the concept of net neutrality means for VoIP
will be intrigued by MetroPCS’s discounted 4G LTE mobile broadband plans.

They are an example of wireless Internet Service Providers charging consumers different rates for content depending on who produces it.

A $40 a month tier includes unlimited talk, text and 4G Web browsing with unlimited YouTube access.

For $50 per month you also get VoIP, international text messaging, turn-by-turn navigation, corporate e-mail, mobile instant messaging and 1 GB of additional data access.

At $60 per month, users get unlimited data access and MetroSTUDIO premium content such as 18 video-on-demand channels and audio downloads.

Basically that means you will not get broad unlimited internet access to things like VoIPSkype unless you can afford the top two tiers. And while you can access Youtube videos, other video services may be inaccessible.

This may contravene the new FCC net neutrality guidelines, according to Gigaom, and the organisation will be looking into MetroPCS’s pricing tiers.

Spokesperson Drew Crowell said: "MetroPCS is not prepared to discuss the net neutrality implications of our latest service plans."

“We saw that YouTube is one of the main ways that our customers get multimedia content and we wanted to make sure that content was available to them.

He added: "The $50 and $60 plans are about choice and providing options to meet the needs of our consumers.”

If MetroPCS is granted its way it could have a big impact on the future of mobile broadband and VoIP.

The media has been awash with reports of a VoIP ban in China but so far it has not taken effect.

While newspapers and websites have singled out Skype for special treatment this is not in fact the case and the government ban will extend to all illegal voice over Internet protocol telephone services.

The China Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) stated on its website. “Currently our ministry is working with relevant departments on striking against illegal Voice over Internet Protocol services, and we are collecting clues from the public.”

The website listed a phone number that locals could call to report illegal VoIP, which is seen as a threat to the state telecoms companies.

Skype operates openly in China through TOM-Skype and a venture known as Tel-Online Ltd, which is 51% owned by TOM Online and 49% owned by Skype.

Despite there being an estimated 88 million Skype users in China, only two million of them are connecting to Skype on a monthly basis

Skype stated. “Users in China can access Skype via TOM Online. All operations and access are normal, and operations in China conform with national regulations. Nothing has changed.”

China VoIP has become a booming industry recently, one which the government is watching closely.

British Telecom will promote VoIP in rural Britain by giving six communities access to high-speed broadband.

The move follows a BT competition to see which parts of the country were most desperate to have excellent internet access.

That is in turn part of a wider UK government initiative to allow all parts of the United Kingdom to have broadband.

Culture secretary Jeremy Hunt has said that he wants to deliver high-speed broadband to rural areas by 2015.

The idea is to give a boost to small and medium-sized country businesses which would benefit from using the Internet and services such as voiceover internet protocol. The scheme will even receive funding from the television licence fee.

The six communities are Baschurch in Shropshire, Whitchurch in Hampshire, Blewbury in Oxfordshire, Madingley in Cambridgeshire, Innerleithen in Tweeddale and Caxton in Cambridgeshire.

Originally it was only planned to offer broadband to five communities but the scheme was incredibly popular so BT increased it to six.

They will each get a superfast broadband hub with download speeds of up to 40 megabits per second by the beginning of 2012.

Campaign co-ordinator for the Blewbury exchange, Chris Whatmore, said: “With proper, future-proof broadband, Blewbury can attract people or businesses that need and depend on high-speed data connectivity and VoIP.”

Two of the companies looking at UK broadband access opportunities are BT and Virgin Media.

They are testing in which areas of the country it is practical to lay down fibre optic cables.

Nimbuzz and VoX have joined forces to offer a Cloud-based VoIP application for the iPhone.

The application will work with SIP standards. Pervasip's CIO Mark Richards said: "We are very excited to become the first American premier partner to integrate Nimbuzz with our cloud-based SIP mobile calling software."

VoX Mobile Out is embedded in Nimbuzz so that iPhone smartphone users can make low cost calls within the United States.

The Nimbuzz Chief Executive Officer Evert Jaap Lugt said: "The VoX and Nimbuzz service offerings give users freedom and power.

"Wherever they are, they can choose how they communicate, across any device and network."

The VoX Communications new mobile VoIP is availble for the Apple iPhone or via a calling plan for just $4.95 per month.

Press8 has released a Voice over Internet Protocol App for the iPhone so that customers can make and receive cheap calls on their smartphones.

In doing so it joins the market for existing VoIP iPhone apps by companies such as 3CX.

Industry research by the Insight Research Corporation showed that more than two thirds of all workers use wireless and mobile computing.

Like the 3CX phone system for Windows, Press8 is a VoIP PBX system which runs phone systems over the internet.

The company is based in Austin, Texas, and has been in operation for three years and serves a number of SME's and SMB's.

Transferring these benefits to an app allows for mobility and a number of remote features. These features mirror those advantages of being in an office such as call forwarding and call attendant.

Tamara Field, the President of Press8 Telecom, said: "Maintaining phone system communications is important for all types of businesses.

"Our new app caters to employees who are on the road. The Press8 Telecom iPhone App allows employees who are reluctant to travel to do so in the most efficient way possible while keeping in contact with the office.”

The Press8 Telecom iPhone App can also be bought and downloaded via iTunes onto an iPod, iPod Touch, or iPad.

A school managed to save large amounts of money by using Voice over Internet Protocol technology.

The Minooka Grade School District in Illinois has installed VoIP telephony to keep parents informed about changes to their schedule.

Superintendent Al Gegenheimer said: “We saved money and at the same time improved our Internet, to make communciation with parents and other shools much easier."

For instance if the school is closed due to snowfall, they can set up an automatic voice mailbox with emergency school closing information.

The process is instigated as soon as the superintendent makes the decision to close.

That saves the school from having to call each of the parents individually, which could cost up to $40,000 per year.

Then each parent can instead make the call, pressing 5 to get information. The time saving is also notable, saving the school around four hours of administration for every closure.

This plan is all part of a district wide upgrade to an IP telephony service.

It gives the school increased bandwidth from 2 megabits to 100 megabits for fast and efficient communication. And all that is actually cheaper than paying for two different internet and phone lines.