November 18, 2009

VoIP Hits the $20 Billion Mark

Filed under: VoIP — Tags: , — admin @ 3:29 pm

US VoIP services have topped the $20 billion mark in first half of the year.

It seems that there may have been some truth to VoIP services being an affordable alternative to traditional phone systems.

Businesses and homes have been capitalising on the internet telephone system and more growth is set for the second half of the year.

Home use is still where the majority of the revenue is coming from, with the number of subscribers growing 14% from the end of 2008 through until the first half of 2009.

Businesses are expected to get involved with VoIP more and more as unified communication grows; unifying all company correspondence.

September 24, 2009

VOIP still going strong despite recession

Filed under: VoIP — Tags: — admin @ 5:02 pm

Many companies are pulling the purse strings in on spending, but it seems that despite this, VoIP and the growth of Unified Communications continues to rise.

500 call centres were contacted across 36 countries by network provider Dimension Data. Of the firms contacted most were still keen to have value-added services.

Spending may have dipped and the call for customer relationship management software fallen, but VoIP continues to prove popular for many businesses.

It is worth noting that the survey found that 60% of call centres in the UK now use VoIP software.

Howard Spink, of Dimension Data, says that the findings are a clear indication of the recession creating a ‘contact centre evolution’. With the intervention of VoIP, call centre communications will now be revolutionised and will enable companies to keep costs down.

VoIP is going to help companies to continue to communicate throughout the recession and keep a lid on costs.

August 28, 2009

Microsoft and JaJah Join Forces to Increase VoIP Communication

JaJah, a Mountain View California based VoIP service provider, have joined partnership with Microsoft to launch a new IP service for enterprises. This allows business customers to make calls from computers and landlines over the internet, with an improved quality of the VoIP calls made via Office Communications Server 2007 R2.

The partnership means that JaJah will provide Microsoft with SIP trunking services – a technology that connects OCS 2007 R2 to carrier networks, and maintains phone calls arriving at their destination that are made from PCs, VoIP phones and mobile devices. These trunking services are now authorised to be compatible with OCS 2007 R2.

Ebrandz explains that: “a SIP trunk is a concurrent call that is routed over the IP backbone of a carrier using VoIP technology.” Companies using OCS 2007 R2 will not have to buy additional hardware and software to enable their voice calls, because of JaJah’s VoIP platform.

JaJah competes with other web-based calling platforms (e.g. Skype, RingCentral and Google Voice) but its aim is to give VoIP accessibility to technology companies, carriers and mobile operators. By pointing the server at JaJah’s IP address, businesses who buy OCS 2007 can start making calls instantly.

Businesses can start taking advantage of making high quality calls by using JaJah’s IP platform, meaning no infrastructure upgrade is necessary. Microsoft OCS users can now make low cost voice calls from their IP phones, computers or mobile phones to any device because of the new partnership with JaJah.

Trevor Healy, JaJah’s CEO said: “The JaJah qualification on Office Communications Server 2007 Release 2 is a clear indicator of the strength of JaJah’s platform and quality as a carrier-grade SIP solutions provider. Enterprises across the world can implement VoIP and unified communication easily and cost effectively with Microsoft and JaJah.”

Lots of small to medium businesses use JaJah’s phone platform to enable calls as it is similar to Skype but without the need for headsets, downloads, software or hardware. Users on Yahoo Messenger making calls are also using JaJah – from when they are registering to when they are paying.

Healy explains: “What this indicates is that when you make an internal call inside the enterprise, we will carry [the call] all the way to your destination. … But then also, if you want to connect to a mobile phone in France, we will handle all the routing and trafficking of that call to Orange in France.”

April 21, 2009

VoIP gets ready to fight its corner

Filed under: Hosted IP Platform, VoIP, VoIP in the Workplace — Tags: , — admin @ 1:38 pm

According to a recent article published on Multichannel News, the issue with integrating VoIP technology isn’t that people don’t understand the benefits, but that they are loathe to undertake such a big job.

Kristine Faulkner, Cox Business vice president of product development explained that “nobody wakes up and says ‘I am going to change all the phones in my business,’”. The issue that people face when switching to VoIP services is not that they don’t understand the benefits or why they should look to VoIP networks to streamline their business communications, but the fact that it can be a daunting task. Companies become complacent and adopt a ‘better the devil you know’ attitude.

Regardless of how these companies feel about the overhaul of their telephone systems, VoIP is where the commercial market is headed and a lot of a businesses will be dragged kicking and screaming into the new age of communications.

As cable companies widen their rollouts of hosted IP services, there will be more and more options available to businesses. Although, VoIP services for businesses are still in the early stages, it is very much the way that business-class technology is going to be heading.

For more information on this, go to the Multichannel News article.

 

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