Voip Tech Chat

Digium announced today the release of Asterisk version 1.4.21.2 (as well as version 1.2.30). These releases address security issues with the IAX2 channel driver. More details of course can be obtained from the asterisk.org website. As always, you can download the updates free from the asterisk.org website.

Why free? It’s just how Digium rolls. They really take that GPL open source to heart.

Asterisk is free, open source software provided under the GNU General Public License (GPL). Asterisk is the most popular open source software available, with the Asterisk Community being the top influencer in VoIP.

For more information, please check out:

• Asterisk.org
• Digium, Inc.

In a press release earlier today, VoIP Supply announced that it has partnered with Bandwidth.com to deliver total business VoIP solutions. VoIP Supply is one of the leaders (if not the leader) for VoIP hardware solutions. And Bandwidth.com has been providing origination and termination (along with other internet services) to consumers with an excellent track record.

For more information, go to VoIP Supply’s Bandwidth.com page.

Something just didn’t add up to us. So we looked to the Interweb for research, because as we all know, the Interweb is only filled with 100% accurately researched articles. Anyway, the good folks at Telephony Online, published a snazzy little article back in September 2007 about the way MagicJack earns revenue on their VoIP internet telephone adapter.

Apparently, while one hand created the the VoIP USB telephone adapter “jack,” the other hand created a CLEC. The acronym CLEC stands for Competitive Local Exchange Carrier and is the phone provider (or carrier) for local access numbers. These CLEC’s can charge for access to their numbers as well as lower costs paid to other parties for making or receiving calls. It’s quite the win/win.

MagicJack’s Don Burns explained that SunRocket was paying upwards of $7.00 per month for each phone number they had. By operating as a CLEC, MagicJack’s cost on the same service — zilch.

Talk about pulling a rabbit out of a hat!

Just when we were going to post the next series of “What is,” Mr. Cory Andrews scoops us with his “Ask Mr. Andrews: What is NAT Transversal?” post. He even made a super cool logo.

Well, we have only 2 comments:

1. No Star Wars or Dungeons & Dragons references?
2. Two Words: Ben Affleck

Seriously, it’s a nice post. And if you liked it, please check out:

• What is a VoIP?
• What is POTS?
• What is DTMF?
• How does 911 work with VoIP?
• and the opinion piece, Mommy, What’s a Phone Cord?

Two weeks ago, we discussed how MagicJack recently became the fastest growing phone company in the US. Well, today twice.com reports that MagicJack is on track to reach 500,000 subscribers. Not too shabby considering the population of Tampa, Florida is about 300,000.

If MagicJack reaches 500,000, they will be the second largest VoIP provider; with only Vonage’s 2.5 million plus internet telephone subscribers ahead of them. The twice.com article talks about the MagicJack business plan and some of their future ideas. It’s not a bad read.

Digium announced today the release of Asterisk version 1.4.21.1. The release is a “ bug fix” for the voip telephone system and is available, as always, free from the asterisk.org website. This includes a critical bug fix for 1.4.21. All users that experienced lockups when upgrading to 1.4.21 should have their issues resolved with this update.

To paraphrase Spinal Tap, this is 1 better than 1.4.21 — this is 1.4.21.1.

Asterisk is free, open source software provided under the GNU General Public License (GPL). Asterisk is the most popular open source software available, with the Asterisk Community being the top influencer in VoIP.

For more information, please check out:

• Asterisk.org
• Digium, Inc.

Thomas Hughes, CIO of the Social Security Administration (SSA), gave a nice interview to Nick Walkerman of Washington Technology. The interview provided some insight into the VoIP deployment of the SSA.

For more on the deployment, check out our VoIP Tech Chat article.

The New York Law Journal made the most unusual comparison today; stating that VoIP may actually represent the Holy Grail of information technology. Although the article, written for lawyers and the legal community, discusses many legal issues, it actually discusses some interesting aspects of recorded internet phone calls.

Some huge names finally see the attraction of VoIP. On June 27, 2008, NetCracker announced they had been acquired by NEC for 300 million dollars. NetCracker, based out of Massachusetts, provides technology to service providers to assist in telecommunications deployment (ie Triple Play services).

Some big names call on NetCracker for assistance, such as Sprint, france telecom, Time Warner, and more. NEC expects to earn over 1 billion dollars in new sales over the next 5 years from this investment.

Imagine this scenario — You’re the bus driver. At your first stop, half of your passengers get off the bus and none get on. You keep driving and on the next stop, half of the remaining passengers get off, and again, no new passengers get on the bus. At the next stop, the same thing happens. You keep seeing passengers get off the bus, but no one is getting on. Now, what do you do? If you’re at&t, you raise the price of bus service. (For extra credit, who’s the bus driver?)

The Tennessean posted today that at&t is raising the rates of basic phone service and calling features in the hopes of increasing profits. Although basic phone service would increase by “pennies,” other features would see a much more significant increase. For example, Caller ID and Call Forwarding would increase about a dollar and bundle packs would increase about 2 dollars. Oh, and at&t reported a profit of 3.46 billion dollars — in just the first quarter.

So now, you’re a landline service provider. People are dropping landline service for VoIP and Wireless Only plans. You’re making an average of just over a billion dollars a month profit. You want that number to increase. So, you raise rates? Wouldn’t that make people jump ship even more? So, instead of making your services more attractive, you’re going to jack up prices on your loyal customers who are chosing to stay with you despite cheaper alternatives. Nice.

We love this quote:

A spokeswoman for AT&T, Dawn Benton, said the company’s decision to raise rates had nothing to do with the loss of landlines.

“Our focus is to bring greater value to our plans: a unified portfolio, greater consistency and simpler pricing right up front,” she said in a statement. “Even with these changes, we still offer some of the best values and offers in the market today.”

VoIP providers like voip.com, Vonage, and Packet8 bundle residential service and include more features than you’ll ever need. Oh, and most plans include long distance, too. Someone needs to help Dawn Benton find a clue.