Current Articles

Using Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), T-Mobile has just waged what could become one of the fiercest price wars between telephone companies in years. Starting July 2nd, T-Mobile customers will have access to unlimited domestic calling from their regular home phone for the extremely low price of only $10 per month. Customers will need to have high-speed Internet access to use the service though because VoIP converts calls into digital signals that travel over the Internet.

Though Apple is having no problems winning over legions of customers with the return of Steve Jobs and the introduction of the highly popular iPhone, the company is putting plans in place to win over a widely untouched customer base-corporate America.

The House voted overwhelmingly on Friday to approve a new surveillance law to amend the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The majority 292 to 129 vote will further extend the government’s eavesdropping capabilities while shielding telecommunications companies from lawsuits as a result of cooperating with the Bush administration’s unwarranted wiretapping program.

The bill will proceed to the Senate next week where it is expected to pass; putting to rest a yearlong battle with President Bush.

It’s becoming well known that VoIP is the best way to make and receive cheap phone calls. Whether domestic or international, it saves more than 60% over traditional phone calls and in many cases it is even free. Though mobile VoIP applications are on the rise, it’s often not very convenient to use because of software downloads and registration requirements. However, one company, Jaxtr, Inc., offers a way to make free inbound VoIP calls from mobile phones easy.

Although the deal has not yet been approved, Verizon Wireless has agreed to purchase its competitor, Alltel, for a reported $28 billion. The buyout would add Alltel’s 13.2 million cellular customers to Verzon’s subscriber base making the wireless provider the largest in the US.

Verizon Communications has announced it will begin offering Starz Entertainment video subscription service to its subscribers. According to the companies, Tuesday’s announcement to add this additional service is an effort to expand Verizon’s current video offering on the Internet.

Claiming to offer one of the most user-friendly IP PBX’s, ShoreTel Inc. is now offering it’s latest 8.0 release with the addition of many more convenient features to it’s newest PBX version. Now users will have access to IM (instant messaging), presence, softphone and even video capabilities. In addition, the company is also introducing new target specific hardware configurations.

Asterisk was created back in 1999 by Digium Inc’s Mark Spencer as an open source PBX telphony applications system. As the most inexpensive telephone system available, Asterisk is free and operates on low cost Linux servers and other options on a range of various hardware.

New search engine TripleMe.com has added more advanced searching capabilities to help users easily sort results from the top 3 major search engines. Displaying search results from Google, Yahoo and MSN, TripleMe has grown in popularity with over 1,000 unique visitors using the engine per day.

According to a Friday filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission the company is planning to lay off approximately 4,650 employees. The company said the 1.5 percent decrease in its workforce is “the next step in streamlining its operations.

The majority of the job cuts will be at the managerial level and that the overall headcount is expected to remain stable throughout 2008. The company also stated in the SEC report that it will continue to seek and hire talent to support the main growth areas of the company.

With a focus to become a more prominent player in the small business VoIP market, Microsoft plans to release a powerful service pack to dramatically improve its Response Point software.

Available this summer, the free service pack update will offer far more VoIP capabilities to current and future users than the system currently does. The software giant hopes the more sophisticated features will offer a compelling new reason to pick or stick with their phone system technology.

MyRapidMD, a personal mobile content developer, is announcing the release of Emergency Service Profile (ESP) v2 for cell phones.

The proprietary ESP application allows users to create their own Emergency Service Profile installed on their cell phone. The potentially lifesaving feature can provide first responders at the scene of an accident access to your photo identification and information that could be crucial in treating the emergency situation, and this can be done without a service connection.

Sirius Satellite Radio received approval from the Justice Department to purchase XM Satellite Radio for $5 billion. Determining the deal would not hurt consumers or competition, the Justice Department approved without conditions the deal which will now go before the Federal Communications Commission for approval.

The proposed buyout is facing opposition from consumer groups as well as the land-based radio industry which has been lobbying to stop the merger.

For 2008, the story on VoIP will be about technology with increased business market penetration, improved consumer suceess and growing dominence by cable providers with in the US residential market.