VOIP News

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> HP is introducing a smartphone, using on Windows Mobile 6, that will include SIP-based wireless VoIP connectivity. The GSM iPAQ 510, as it will be known in the U.S., will ship in the Spring. Article

> MobileSTICK is a gadget that lets users use softphones with the security of a SIM-based system. Article

> The Mobile Gateway Suite, from the Finnish startup Concilio Networks, is a pair of gateways that promises to connect any GSM phone to a WiFi IP network. Article

And finally… If this is all you’re doing for Valentine’s Day, your relationship was probably over anyway. Article

• Editor’s Corner
• Secure satVoIP net handed over to Iraqi government
• Zyxel ships POTS/VoIP line card
• wVoIP via Bluetooth with ASUS phone
• Jajah and Pageflakes in Web 2.0 VoIP mash-up
• Software SBC from Borderware
• SPOTLIGHT: Like it or not, wVoIP on EV-DO is coming
• ALSO NOTED: Earthlink hires outside help to promote VoIP; $15 billion in business VoIP and VPN by 2012; and much more…

A secure VoIP-over-satellite network–billed as the world’s largest–has been built for Iraq’s Ministry of the Interior. Construction on the Iraq Command and Control Network was started in November 2004 for the interim elections in January 2005. The network has been expanding since then to connect 100 sites. The lead contractor was Proactive Communications, Inc., which this week handed ownership of the network over to the Iraqi government. Other participants in the project were Blue Ridge Networks, Loral Skynet, PingTone Communications and iDirect.

For more information about the IC2N:

- read this article from SecurityPark.net and

- read this article from PortalIraq

Now for something a little more mundane. It’s the little things that will help drive VoIP adoption. Zyxel Communications this week released a carrier-level POTS/VoIP line card that includes a media gateway that converts analog voice to VoIP. Customers wouldn’t have to get new phones or ATAs to receive VoIP features. The 48-port VOP1248G works with Zyxel’s IES 5000 and 5005 Multiple Service Access Platforms. The company claims to be the fourth-largest IP DSLAM vendor, and sees the card as a way for carriers to migrate their legacy networks to IP.

For more information about the Zyxel POST/VoIP card:

- read this press release from Zyxel

Unless you’re a pretty hardcore computer hobbyist, you’ve probably never heard of ASUS, a Taiwanese company best known for high-performance motherboards and similar OEM equipment. We’ve heard, however, that ASUS has a tri-band mobile phone–a slide phone model–that can make Skype calls by using its Bluetooth radio to connect through a networked computer. Slick. The J501 also has a 2MP camera, 5MB of memory (plus a card slot), and the ability to play AAC, MP3 and MP4 files, and can tape music off its FM radio. In other words, the thing is a pocket-sized media disruption machine. It costs $300, and is currently available only in Taiwan, where every media company in the world will try to keep it bottled up.

For more information about the J501

- read this article from Far East Gizmos

In the market for some crunchy Web 2.0 goodness to go with your VoIP? Then look to Jajah (no surprise there) and an outfit called Pageflakes. You know how, if you have a Gmail account, you can create a Google home page with a bunch of different widgets on it that can show you your mail and news headlines and pictures from NASA? It turns out that those start pages are becoming a business, and Pageflakes is one of those start page companies. Jajah has created a Pageflakes widget that lets you place a Jajah call directly from your start page. What’s even better is that you can paste some HTML code into any webpage and it will put the widget on that page. So why doesn’t Jajah just create a browser toolbar, sell ads on it, and be done with it, already?

For more information on Jajah and Pageflakes:

- read this press release from Pageflakes

- Jajah’s FierceVoIP 15 Winner page

• Editor’s Corner
• VoIP in Africa shows market forces in action
• UAE finally embraces VoIP–gingerly
• Bangladesh VoIP shutdown floods legacy telco
• New Microsoft Mobile OS has VoIP built in
• Ericsson announced residential femtocell
• SPOTLIGHT: Spirent rolls out new security tool
• ALSO NOTED: HP smartphone to include SIP VoIP; softphone with SIM-based security; and much more…

Maybe the biggest untapped market for VoIP is Africa. China may have more people, but the history and political geography of Africa is far more complex. There’s a report out this week that seems to give a pretty complete picture of the African market, including the size and impact of the grey market, VoIP adoption by business, and the changing regulatory attitude. The findings: grey marketeers tend to be young, tech-savvy and entrepreneurial; the countries that have legalized VoIP have forced incumbent telcos into fixed-wireless and triple-play offerings; telcos themselves are turning to IP trunking to save money and offer new services; and most of the countries that ban VoIP have done so to protect legacy telcos. In other words, when it comes to VoIP, the African market behaves pretty much like every other market.

For more information about the African VoIP market:

- read this article from AllAfrica

We haven’t made fun of the state of VoIP in United Arab Emirates for a few weeks. When we last left the story, regulators were blocking VoIP service and forcing everyone to use the two legacy telcos. That’s a significant problem in a country with a large expatriate population. Now that VoIP has been pretty well squashed, a top official of legacy carrier Etisalat acknowledges that VoIP cuts into his revenues but says that “you cannot sustain such a ban.” So rather than banning VoIP entirely, regulators in the UAE will simply require that VoIP calls be handled by Etisalat or the other legacy carrier, Du. Maybe that will happen later this year. Maybe not. It seems to depend not on customer or market need, but on the economics of the legacy telco.

For more information on the UAE’s reluctant embrace of VoIP:

- read this article from Gulf News

Related Article:

UAE VoIP ban gets teeth, sparks debate. Report