VoIP News for 23 May 2006: INX Inc., General Dynamics, Whaleback, Ruben Gruber, Polycom, SoundPoint IP

INX Inc. has announced that it has entered into a partnering agreement with General Dynamics to provide an IP telephony product for Keesler Air Force base in Biloxi, Mississippi, which suffered severe damage to its medical facilities and telecommunications infrastructure as a result of Hurricane Katrina last year.

Keesler Air Force Base houses the second-largest medical facility in the Air Force.

General Dynamics, a United States Air Force NETCENTS prime contractor, was awarded a contract to deploy 3500 new Cisco VoIP telephones and supporting infrastructure at the base. General Dynamics and INX worked cooperatively to develop the bid that was ultimately awarded the contract. INX played a key role in designing a critical, fault tolerant and fully redundant communication system for Keesler AFB.


As part of the General Dynamics team, INX is responsible for the overall project management and successful deployment of the 3500 handset Cisco telephony system for the main hospital facility and additional medical buildings on the Keesler campus. Additionally, INX will provide Air Force personnel with Cisco certified training and on-going support to insure the capabilities and investment in the new system are fully realized.

Whaleback Systems announced that Ruben Gruber has joined Whaleback's Board of Directors. He is an experienced and successful entrepreneur and most recently served as the co-founder and chairman of Sonus Networks (News - Alert), a vendor of Voice over IP (VoIP) infrastructure.

Mark Galvin, co-founder, president and CEO of Whaleback said Gruber is “a 'serial entrepreneur' and he has practical, real-world experience in building an innovative and highly successful VoIP company."

Gruber recently retired from the Sonus Networks Board of Directors after serving as its Chairman Emeritus. Co-founded by Gruber in 1997, Sonus Networks sells wireless and wireline VoIP and multimedia infrastructure products for carriers, PTTs, ISPs, cable companies, CLECs and next-generation service providers.

Polycom (News - Alert), Inc., a vendor of unified collaborative communications products, has expanded its line of SIP-based VoIP desktop phones with the SoundPoint IP 430, a two-line phone with a full-duplex speakerphone and graphical LCD.

Polycom also introduced a SIP 2.0 software release, adding new features and functionality to the entire line of SIP-based Polycom phones, including integration with Microsoft (News - Alert) Live Communications Server 2005, new telephony features, advanced security, and system management capabilities that reduce deployment costs of IP phones.

Sunil Bhalla, senior vice president and general manager of voice communications at Polycom, said the SoundPoint IP 430 “addresses specific customer demand for a business phone that is priced for broad deployment and offers a high-quality full-duplex speakerphone.”

Bhalla said the SIP 2.0 software release “adds value to the entire IP phone portfolio."

David Sims is contributing editor for TMCnet. For more articles please visit David Sims’ columnist page.

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