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VoIP Week in Review from TMCnet: VoIP News from the WestTMCnet VoIP Minute Watch Columnist
I have to admit it. It was extremely hard for me to sit down and manage to shrink down my lengthy list of VoIP news items for this piece during the craziest week in the industry, while the Internet Telephony Conference & EXPO took place at the Los Angeles Convention Center in California, of course. The VoIP Minute Watch radar spotted news right from the show's exhibition hall and speaker roster from Juniper, Voxeo, Quintum, Netcentrex, Epygi, and Vonage.
IP network service provider Juniper Networks Inc. announced on Tuesday it acquired Acorn Packet Solutions Inc. in a cash transaction valued at up to approximately $8.7 million. Acorn is a developer of products and technologies that connect legacy Time Division Multiplexing (TDM) and other circuit-based apps across IP networks. Jupiter also announced on Tuesday its Dynamic Threat Mitigation system. The new system enables service providers to offer enterprise and residential customers enhanced security and assurance of network services, including VoIP communications. The offering bundles the company's routers and intrusion detection and prevention (IDP) systems with its service deployment system (SDX) software to prevent SIP attacks, worms and DoS attacks from impacting SIP-based voice communications and network services.
Voxeo Corporation also made noise on Tuesday when it announced it acquired the customers, support contracts, and VoiceXML platform products of Vocomo Software Corporation. The move will enable Voxeo to support existing Vocomo customers, provide Vocomo platform bug fixes and enhancements, and sell new customer licenses for the Vocomo platform. The agreement also allowed Voxeo to hire Vocomo's support staff.
The acquisition will add over 100 new Vocomo enterprise accounts to Voxeo's premises-based IVR customer portfolio. Vocomo technology will also be incorporated into Voxeo's own VoiceCenter 7.0 IVR platform release, due next year. Vocomo customers with active support agreements will receive a free software upgrade to the combined platform.
That same day Voxeo also introduced the VoipCenter 6.0 SIP platform for the delivery of standards-based VoIP application creation, integration, and deployment capabilities to enterprise or service providers at the show. The VoipCenter SIP platform enables open SIP application delivery via the Call Control XML (CCXML) and VoiceXML standards.
VoIP technology provider Quintum Technologies, said at IT EXPO on Wednesday it will soon be announcing a brand new line extension to their Tenor AX MultiPath Switches. The AXT 4800 is Quintum's newest Tenor. It offers 48 FXO connections to support VoIP applications requiring large numbers of analog telephone network connections, such as call centers and service provider termination services in geographies where analog trunks are common.
The Tenor AXT 4800 will join the company's existing Tenor AX VoIP MultiPath Switch and Gateway products, which are available in 8, 16 and 24-port models.
Voice and video systems provider Netcentrex picked IT EXPO to make two important announcements this week as well. The company announced on Wednesday it was tapped by VPN de Mexico, a Mexican VoIP service provider, in order to deploy Netcentrex' MyCall to deliver VoIP residential and enterprise services to 25 cities throughout the Mexican country.
Netcentrex also announced yesterday it scored another deal from Charlotte, North Carolina-based InVueTel, a hosted IP-based services provider for the hospitality market. InVueTel picked Netcentrex' MyCall and IPlay3 systems in order to deliver IP-based communications and entertainment services for hotels and other lodging industry properties.
Chicago, Ill.-based ISI Communications Inc. has become the newest member of Epygi Technologies' Channel Partner program for within the United States. Epygi made the announcement yesterday at the show. The new alliance will help both companies to deliver SIP-based trunking services and introduce VoIP-based telephone services for the small and medium-sized business (SMB) markets nationwide.
Sixth Avenue Electronics announced yesterday it will sell Vonage's VoIP-based telephony starter kits in all of its New Jersey retail locations and on its online store.
Customers with high speed Internet connections will now be able to walk into a one of Sixth Avenue Electronics stores and purchase a Vonage starter kit to sign up for any of the VoIP provider's calling plans. Vonage will offer customers a choice of devices, including voice gateways bundled with routers from Motorola starting at sixty dollars. Fifty dollar rebates will also be offered after 60 days of service.
There you have it folks, a more than exciting week in the VoIP industry! I can't begin to tell you how much I am looking forward to our next Internet Telephony Conference & EXPO, coming sooner than you think, so mark your calendars! We shall see you in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, at the Ft. Lauderdale-Broward Convention Center on January 24-27, 2006.
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Johanne Torres is contributing editor for TMCnet. To see more articles by Johanne Torres, please visit:
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