VOIP and SIP News

Residents of the United Arab Emirates can now make use of the Viber application for free voice over internet protocol(VoIP) calls on their iPhones.

The program works by sending bunches of data across a wireless Internet connection. It is legal as long as used in a special data package.

The application can be purchased from the Apple store and allows both domestic and international VOIP calls on the iPhone. It also has a nifty feature of being able to detect which other phones have the Viber application in your address book and showing you the contact details.

The Chief Commercial Officer for telecoms company du, Farid Faraidooni, said that this was one of a number of legal VoIP in the UAE applications.

Strict legislation preventing VoIP in most cases throughout the Emirates has now been lifted.

He said “Voice over Internet protocol is popular among UAE iPhone users and some products are legal in the UAE telecommunications sector. Their use will not affect our revenue.”

VOIP is now accessible in the UAE from iPhone to iPhone but not from smartphones to landlines or mobile phones.

I just read an amusingly titled article about practising safe SIP.

This is a witty title but also a good analogy when you consider that computers can get diseases in the same way that humans do.

Therefore there are a lot of decisions to be made and risks to be recognised when setting up VoIP. VoIP and SIP Trunking is incredibly useful for fast and cost efficient communication. However any such system is always at risk of being corrupted, and if it is corrupted there is a lot of important data at stake.

You only have to look at the events over at gossip website Gawker recently when hackers managed to access more than 1 million user passwords through a security breach. It is thought that there are many more infiltrations which are not reported due to embarrassment on the part of the company. The cost of these breaches is significant.

When you are considering the advantages of virtual PBX hosting, you should also keep in mind the risks. These include denial of service attacks and the exposure of network vulnerabilities. IP telephony is a particularly good target because there are so many endpoints as well as weak infrastructures created by the transition to IP communications.

It is up to sellers, value added resellers, IT professionals and users to make the system as secure as possible with high security passwords to prevent it being compromised.

An authority on the subject Dan York wrote a book entitled the Seven Deadliest Unified Communications Attacks. He identifies the weak spots as being in applications, integration and equipment. That includes PBXs, database access and the integration of video into your VoIP or UC system.

Yet there are a number of Session Border Controllers firms which offer managed VoIP security solutions such as AudioCodes and Sipera. They could be a worthwhile investment.

The VoIP equipment industry will be worth $6bn by 2015, according to market research firm In-Stat.

Mobile VoIP gateway equipment market is being snapped up by mobile and fixed-line users.

Service providers are making big bucks and can also offer infrastructure support to both individuals and enterprises. While the VoIP industry is profitable, there are consumer savings to be had compared to normal cellular bills.

The advantage of VoIP can really be felt among mobile workers who can stay connected with the office even when they are in transit.

VoIP can increasingly be accessed via smartphones as long as you are in reach of Wi-Fi connectivity.

With faster and faster broadband networks, VoIP is just one of a number of
unified communications advantages which include instant messaging and presence.

Increasingly VoIP is becoming a must have technology, but many users will play catch up for a while as they learn to deploy and manage their systems.

Yet companies such as 3CX offer an upgrade or replacement of your standard PBX to small and medium sized businesses.

Voice over Internet Protocol is causing problems in the Himalayan country of Nepal.

Companies which have sprung up and are using the service illegally are costing the legal telecoms companies big bucks.

Only four companies — ATS Telecom, United Telecom, Nepal Telecom and Spice Nepal Ltd have licences to operate VoIP services and they are suffering at the hands of a number of illgeal operators.

Lost revenue totals more than two million US dollars (NPR160 million) per month, according to the parliament’s Public Account Committee.

Rajendra Singh Bhandari, the Deputy Inspector General of Nepal Police said in a statement: "Illegal VoIP channels are eating up huge amount of revenue and account for calls worth two million minutes. They are also posing the country of Nepal with serious security threats."

Nepal has attemped a crackdown, but black market VoIP providers are hard to track down. Although they have shut down around 160 operations, 5 still remain.

Jay Mukunda Khanal, the joint Home Ministry secretary, explained that VoIP accounts for great revnue loss and can also be used by organised crime outfits to commit fraud.

Companies breaking the law can be tried under Article 47 of 1997 Nepal Doorsanchar Act. It states that doing anything harmful to the telecom system or its equipment with malicious intent is a punishable crime with a fine or jail time.

Skype may have suffered from the recent service outage which left millions of users disappointed, but the VoIP company also has something to celebrate.

The launch of the Skype video-calling service for the Apple iPhone has been a huge success.

Record numbers of users downloaded the app this month. Normally Skype sees around 25 million users sign on at peak times, but this week that figure was boosted to 27 million users.

Another filip for Skype has been the announcement of a deal with video streaming company Qik. That will help to provide excellent quality video calls.

These developments will be good news for the company which is seeking an Initial Public Offering and it also hopes to a corporate service to users.

The Research firm Telegeography reported that one in five international calls were made using Skype last year.

While one door closes on Voice over Internet Protocol, another opens. China VoIP may be illegal to all but the approved state carriers, but UAE VoIP is becoming more widely accessible.

The Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA), which regulates VoIP for the United Arab Emirates, is now allowing licensees to offer VoIP services.

The TRA has stated that only regulated licensees such as Etisalat and du may provide VoIP services, although other parties may approach the licencees to work with them.

This is a step forward from a previous ban on VoIP services in much of the UAE and the Middle East.

VoIP services are defined as an end-to-end voice service or an additional feature to a connectivity service.

Executive director at the TRA, Mohammed Gheyath, said: "We believe that this regulatory policy will provide opportunities to benefit from VoIP services in keeping with the market demands.

He added: "The TRA looks forward to the introduction of VoIP services which respond to business and consumer needs."

Meanwhile Mohamed Al Ghanim, the director general of the TRA, explained that the rules protect telecom customers, as the TRA can only help customers of registered services.

He also said that the TRA had been working with Skype and other VoIP providers to potentially establish their services in the UAE.

Last week China sought to clarify what it says is a misunderstanding about its position on Voice over Internet protocol in the country.

Most news outlets believed that this would lead to an attempt to ban the Internet calling service Skype in order to protect the state telecoms carriers.

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has now said it is supportive of Internet-based telephone services as long as they are legal.

Wen Ku, the director of the ministry technology department, said: "The ministry is not against Internet-based telephone services, but only those operating illegally in the country."

He added: "VoIP is a worldwide trend in the telecom industry and we are not against that technology."

Of course in China it is always difficult to tell what is legal. After all this is a nation where public access to Google is censored.

So far there is no sign of any ban taking place and China's Skype users have reported business as usual.

Ministry spokesman Wang Lijian told the China Daily newspaper that the "whole issue is over". Heexplained that the purpose of the crackdown was to target online fraud and crime.

Nevertheless only two companies have been allowed to trial VoIP in four Chinese cities. It is probable that only their VoIP services will be deemed legal.

That will give China Unicom and China Telecom a virtual monopoly while getting rid of other Internet phone services that have sprung up in the meantime.

Kan Kaili, a professor at the Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, said: "I think the authorities will be extremely cautious in dealing with the regulations to avoid raising international concerns."