News to Review for 9/12/06

Here are some news items for the past day or two.

8x8 Announces High Performance T.38 Fax Over IP Service
ITU T.38 Standard Offers VoIP Industry's Most Reliable Fax Solution
BOSTON, Sept. 11 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Fall VON 2006 -- 8x8, Inc. , provider of Packet8 residential, business and video Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) phone services, today announced the launch of a new, high performance T.38-based business-quality fax over IP service. Packet8 fax service can be immediately provisioned on the 2nd line of any Packet8 Virtual Office BPA-410 business phone adapter. No additional hardware is required, other than the business' existing fax machine(s).

I probably don't fully appreciate the need for FoIP (or another acronym). Certainly fax is important to business, but more and more electronic document processing is performed every day and I see fax as a shrinking business.

Covad and Level 3 Team to Accelerate VoIP Adoption in the Small and Medium Business Market
BOSTON, Sept. 12 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Level 3 Communications today announced it has added Covad Communications (Amex: DVW), a leading national provider of integrated voice and data communications, to its Premier Master Reseller program, which provides sales and marketing support to select service provider business partners.

Interesting news from two companies who haven't made a lot of noice in VoIP space lately.

Polycom Selling New VoIP Phone
By TSC and IRIS Staff
9/11/2006 1:26 PM EDT

Polycom (PLCM - commentary - Cramer's Take) started selling a high-definition voice over Internet protocol phone.

The Pleasanton, Calif.-based said the SoundPoint IP 650 provides good quality, clarity and richness beyond the capabilities of existing traditional and VoIP phones.

Polycom has been in the news a lot the past few months with a variety of new offerings. As the premier provider of speakerphone technology, they continue to bring new products to market.

Other Stories
Polycom Announces VoIP Interoperability Partner Program for VoIP ...
Polycom Brings HD Voice to Telephony with the SoundPoint IP 650 Great review of the Polycom IP 650 by Dal

Samsung VoIP phone uses Broadcom chipset
Broadcom says its Wi-Fi phone chipset has been selected by Samsung for use in its consumer Internet phones.

"Broadcom's Wi-Fi phone chipset offered Samsung a compelling solution for our next-generation families of consumer and small business IP phone products," said W.S. Cho, v-p for the Internet Infra R&D team at Samsung. "Broadcom provided us with a solid roadmap that will enable us to incorporate advanced functionality for features such as video and multimedia into our phone designs."

Other Stories
Broadcom(R) Chipset Shipping in New Samsung Wi-Fi(R) Phone
Broadcom Drives Emerging Residential IP Phone Market in Asia by ...

Quite a few articles in the news from another mobile device maker and another chipset manufacturer that tie to FMC and VoIP.

Leading Vendors Initiate Voice and Video Over IP Quality Alliance
VON Fall - BOSTON, Sept. 11 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Ditech Networks (Nasdaq: DITC), Empirix, Global IP Sound, JDSU (Nasdaq: JDSU), Polycom (Nasdaq: PLCM) and Telchemy jointly announced today that they will take a leading role in establishing the V2oIP Quality Alliance (http://www.v2oipqualityalliance.org), an alliance of communication industry innovators that will help shape and support the direction of voice and video- over-IP (V2oIP) quality issues. The new alliance will combine the expertise of key technology providers, service providers and industry experts to define industry best practices as well as help educate the market about relevant technologies, standards, and deployment methods.

Other Stories
West Corporation Chooses Ditech Networks' Packet Voice Processor ...
Another story coming out of the VON conference that again points to the importance of video in the constantly evovling world of unified communications. Look for other key players to join in and grow the V2oIP Quality Alliance in the months ahead.

Global Crossing Launches VoIP Professional Services
FLORHAM PARK, N.J., Sept. 11 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Global Crossing (Nasdaq: GLBC) today announced it is introducing VoIP Professional Services, which will leverage an enhanced agreement with Avaya (NYSE: AV), a global leader in business communications applications, systems and services.

VoIP Professional Services includes technical services, transition management and managed solutions. Common elements in many solutions may include network readiness assessment and design, network integration and implementation, and managed VoIP PBX services. The offer includes an initial four-hour consultation to qualified prospects, which is risk-free, with no charge or further obligation for customers. Global Crossing's agreement with Avaya also would allow Global Crossing to resell Avaya's IP telephony applications, systems and services as part of a complete VoIP-based solution.

Other Stories
Global Crossing, SunRocket Implement Industry-Changing VoIP ...

I expect we'll also be seeing more about this on Global Crossings VoIP Blog Dave Seigel and the rest of the Global Crossing team do a great job of sharing their insights there.

Alcatel, Lucent Shareholders Approve Merger
Shareholders approved Alcatel's takeover of Lucent Technologies Thursday in a deal worth $10.8 billion. The new company will be called AlcatelLucent.

The merger was first introduced to shareholders last April and is expected to close in the next six to 12 months.

This really isn't new news at all. It's been in the works from quite a while now. Richard has some more info on his VoIP and ENUM blog.

Apparent, Nortel Unite to Tackle VOIP Problems

Apparent Networks at VON on Sept. 12 will announce that it has
signed an OEM deal with Nortel Networks to deliver greater visibility
into problems affecting the quality of voice over IP calls in customer
engagements.

Apparent Networks, which markets software that measures and
diagnoses problems across networks that can affect the quality of VOIP
calls, is working across multiple Nortel organizations to integrate its
technology into Nortel products as well as services.

This is another announcement coming out of VON, but was of particular interest to me. I had a long conversation yesterday witha financial analyst in the industry about something I posted recently around the Mircrosoft and Nortel alliance. In particular we talked about how the players fit. They cover a broad range from Microsoft, as a desktop player, to Cisco as a network player, to the triad of Avaya, Nortel and Siemens as the telecom players. Each brings unique strengths, but none will win the dominant position without embracing aspects of the others and integrating smoothly with applications.