Does Skype make sense for business?

Skype - the voice-over-IP software - is known for offering a way to make free calls anywhere in the world. Its friendly user interface, which you can personalise with pictures just like instant messaging apps, screams 'consumer' and one would imagine customers include university students and home users. Yet Skype CEO Niklas Zennström plans to make the software an accepted part of corporate communications - both on the desktop and on smart phones.

voip forum report

the eurotelcoblog has an interesting article about the osney media voip forum at le meridien picadilly in the uk the 29th and today.

VoIP is no threat, says BT

The emergence of useable voice-over-IP (VoIP) services, which let individuals and companies make phone calls over the Internet -- in many cases for free -- is not a threat to BT but an opportunity, said the telco on Monday. Speaking at the Voice over IP Forum in London's Le Meridien Hotel, John Blake, head of hosted IP services at BT Global Services, said that although there is a "dichotomy" for BT, which will involve some cannibalisation of existing services, the company has an aggressive VoIP plan.

the top voip bloggers of 2004

jeff pulver updated his list of top voip bloggers of 2004 (i'm on it too... :)

von europe 2005 sold out

according to jeff pulver (and he can now) von europe 2005 completely sold out. another sign of the european voip market doing well ...

european regulators discuss common position

the european regulators will be discussing a common position regarding voip at their next plenary meeting in brussels. there will be an industry debriefing on monday, 6 december.

babble broadband voip service

uk telecom solutions provider bon.net recently launched its broadband voip telephony service babble. the service is very similar to skype, chargeable destinations are paid with prepaid calling cards that can be topped up with a credit card. babble will introduce a flat fee plan in 2005.

Level 3 Takes VoIP to Europe

Level 3 Communications has launched a partner program in Europe, allowing resellers to offer Voice over IP services to small and medium businesses. The offering debuts in the United Kingdom today and will expand to other countries throughout 2005, the Broomfield, Colo., backbone network operator said.

t-online starts doing voip

according to this story, german isp t-online (part of deutsche telekom) is going to offer voip. the press release states: "In 2005 the company is planning to introduce a DSL resale product and Voice over IP in Germany". they also have international ambitions in france and spain.

german numbers only for germans

here's a follow-up to an earlier post. the german regulator reg-tp decided to dedicate a prefix to voip numbers (instead of allowing itsp's to use geographical numbers), with some stringent requirements. itsp's will have to reside in germany if they want to offer numbers, furthermore the customers using them will also have to reside in germany. this is bad news for voip providers, let's hope it doesn't become a trend in europe.

kazaa ads skype

kazaa, the popular peer-to-peer file sharing app, adds skype to it's newly released version 3.0. both kazaa and skype are based on p2p technology and are brainchilds of skype ceo niklas zennström. according to the press release "v3.0 also offers advanced search capabilities and a free weblog trial.".

cd wow launches wow-talk

uk cd & dvd e-tailer cd wow today launched it's brand new voip service wow-talk. for £1.99 a month customers can make free voip calls to other wow-talkers, other national and international networks can be reached at these rates. cd wow uses on instant's technology for the service.

HP & Mitel partner for VoIP

Hewlett-Packard's ProCurve networking unit and IP communications vendor Mitel Networks this week expanded their partnership to offer converged IP solutions. The two companies are working to bring together their channel, service and support, and research and development efforts as part of an overall initiative to deliver Mitel VoIP solutions built on HP infrastructure, said Matt Zanner, global mobility solutions manager for ProCurve Networking by HP, Palo Alto, Calif.

callserve looking for acquisitions

according to this story, british itsp callserve is looking for acquisitions or partnerships in the voip industry. "... the time is right to bolster our offering in the UK market for Internet telephony and we have plans to transform the market next year with some great new services." says callserve's ceo ajaz ahmed. another sign that the voip industry is booming

dual mode wifi - 3g phone shipping

ntt docomo has started shipping the n900il handset. the phone, which runs linux instead of symbian, supports both 3g and wifi networks and allows you to seamlessly transfer your calls from the 3g network to voice-over-wifi (based on sip). it has a web browser, im client and a 2 megapixel camera. it's retailing in japan at around €280 - €350. not yet available in europe, but i want one!

logitech & skype

Logitech and skype have announced a joint marketing agreement. as part of that agreement logitech will be including free skypeout prepaid cards of up to 120 minutes for users to try out the service. the new usb headsets will be sold across europe, the us and canada.

microsoft's voip plans

Microsoft might have been late to the voice-over-Internet-protocol party, but now the company has a plan to take over the world of IP-based communications. In the coming months, Microsoft will likely release a new version of its instant-messaging server, Live Communications Server, and a corporate IM client code-named Istanbul. The LCS/Istanbul combo is a way to cash in on the trend toward IP-based communications.

clickx article

there's a good and complete article about internet calling in this week's belgian magazine clickx (nr. 80). it's in dutch and packetnet gets reviewed in it as well. get it now if you're interested.

cisco sells 4 millionth ip phone

Cisco Systems today announced the sale of its 4 millionth Cisco Internet Protocol (IP) Telephone ... "It took us 4-and-a-half years to sell our first 2 million IP phones and only 14 months to climb from 2 million to 4 million phones sold to customers," ...

german itsp's get geo-numbers

the german regulating authority reg-tp has published a framework for internet telephony (german). according to the press release all itsp's will now be able to obtain geographical numbers - previously this was limited to carriers who controlled access to their network. there are some limits however: operators will only be allowed to attribute a geographical number within that certain geographical area and the number ranges will be subject to number portability obligations. note that this is a draft document, itsp's are welcomed to provide input before 2004-12-15

skype security bug

it seems that all i ever do here is report about skype. this time around it's about a security vulnerability that affects skype versions 1.0.*.58 to 1.0.*.59. here you'll find the technical description or you can just go and download the latest release which fixes the problem

skype hardware

here's some recently announced skype compatible hardware. i doubt that this has actually anything to do with the skype api being released a couple of days ago, that would be too a little too soon. the ipmate s90 adapter allows you to use a regular telephone on your skype account. the dualphone is a dect handset which can also be used to call skype users. both units connect to your computer via usb. unfortunately it's not stand-alone hardware, you still have to have your pc running, unlike the ata's used by other itsp's.

pulver.communicator

there's a new beta release available of pulver.communicator, the "sip-softphone-meets-instant-messaging" product of voip zealot and vonage co-founder jeff pulver. the new release sports video instant messaging and a light-weight rss/atom reader. this is probably a trend we'll see with other softphones (xten, ...) real-soon-now™. pulver.communicator currently only supports free world dialup accounts, which is why i haven't gotten around to taking it for a spin.

skype news

big news for voip software and hardware developers: skype have released the api for its software phone. documentation and c++ sample code is available here. expect to see a flurry of new skype spinoffs and plugins in the coming weeks and months. speaking of which, skype also announced the availability of a siemens usb key and dect handset that allows you to make skype & skypeout calls using a regular handset. read all about it in this engadget interview with skype ceo niklas zennström

welcome

welcome to the very first post on this blog. the idea is to get you all information and news relevant to the european voice over ip market. whenever a european itsp as much as blinks, you'll read about it here. not that you're not going to find any interesting global newsbits, but we will try to focus on the european market. in the interest of full disclosure, the author works for packetnet a belgian itsp.