Internet and VOIP phones

When telecommunications hardware company Acme Packet of Burlington goes public today, the company expects to raise more money than it originally bargained for — up to $17 million more.
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Acme Packet yesterday boosted the price of its initial public offering, from $6.50 to $7.50 a share to $8 to $9 a share. The repricing could let Acme Packet raise a maximum of nearly $103 million from today’s offering.

Not many technology offerings have been increasing their prices of late; indeed, there haven’t been many at all. According to Thomson Financial and the National Venture Capital Association, the third quarter of 2006 was the weakest in three years for high-tech stock offerings. There were only eight, with a total value of $934 million. Acme Packet’s strong prospects are mainly because it caters to one of the tech industry’s hottest segments — next-generation phone systems based on Internet technologies.

Acme Packet’s venture investors, including Menlo Ventures, Advanced Technology Ventures, and Canaan Partners, are betting on the growing popularity of voice-over-Internet-protocol or VOIP telephone networks. These are systems that use Internet technologies to carry voice telephone calls. VOIP promises phone systems that are far more versatile than traditional systems, and also cheaper and easier to build. Worldwide use of VOIP phone networks grew 83 percent last year, according to British market research firm Point-Topic. Another research firm, TeleGeography of Washington, DC, said that Americans spent $1 billion placing VOIP calls last year, and will spend $8.1 billion on VOIP services in 2010.

Source and more info: boston

D-Link, has launched its new VoIP USB phone DPH-10U which is designed for use with any desktop, notebook or laptop computer running the Internet telephone software Skype under Windows XP or 2000. This handset allows users to make Internet phone calls from one PC to another PC, or from a PC to any ordinary analog phone, with great convenience. As a comprehensive unit complete with a dialing keypad, function keys, a built-in speaker and microphone, this VoIP USB phone allows you to operate with ease just like from any regular telephone.

Just by plugging VoIP phone into a USB port of the computer, users can run their favorite Skype soft�phone, and can make free PC to PC phone calls to anywhere in the world. Long distance calls to any phone in the world can be made at great savings. This VoIP phone has a built-in ringer, so users can pick up the phone to answer phone calls from any Internet caller in the world. Four user-selectable ring tones are available to customize incoming calls, so users can instantly identify the caller by listening to the ring tone.

Source and more info: dqchannels

Cell phone worms and VoIP Quintum VoIP solutions. The perfect fit for your Enterprise. fraud are among the top 10 security Get the Facts on BlackBerry Business Solutions threats to watch next year, according to a panel of experts assembled by the SANS Institute.

The panel’s findings were released Sunday at the SANS Network Security 2006 conference in Las Vegas.

Cell phone worms will infect at least 100,000 phones in 2007, jumping from phone to phone over wireless data networks, the experts noted.

“Cell phones are becoming more powerful, with full-featured operating systems and readily available software development environments,” they said. “That makes them fertile territory for attackers fueled by cell phone adware profitability.”
Hackers Looking for Value
Malware aimed at mobile phones has been seen in the past, but it has not been considered a serious problem. That will change, contends SANS Director of Research Alan Paller.

“No one could figure out why writing a cell phone worm would be useful,” he told TechNewsWorld, “but it turns out that it is extremely useful, because people are now doing their e-mail on their cell phones.

“So a worm in a cell phone can be a way to do phishing exercises, for example, to steal people’s passwords and user names,” he continued. “It can also be a way to launch denial-of-service attacks.”

Source and more info: technewsworld

If you’re looking for a VoIP handset but have an aversion to cords, Keyspan might just have the answer with their VP-24A Cordless VOIP Phone; plus, it’s one of the few phones that works with both PC and Mac.

Installing the phone is fast and easy. Insert the CD to your PC or Mac, plug in the USB dongle, fiddle the AAA Ni-MH rechargeable batteries into the phone, press a button on the dongle and hold the phone near to it to establish a connection. That’s it; in a few minutes you’re good to call. Don’t worry if you’re not too good at this kind of stuff, or if you’re giving it to a tech-clumsy relative. The user manual, which comes on the installation CD rather than in paper-form, shows you how to install step-by-step for both PC and Mac.

The phone’s dimensions are 116.7mm(L)x50.3mm(W)x25.5mm(H) and it weighs 92g with battery. Fitting nicely in the palm, the reasonably big buttons are easy to push. Its black text with blue backlight LCD display shows signal quality, phone status, volume level, your Skype status and battery level. It also shows caller ID when you get a call.

Making a phone call is indecently straightforward. Press the contacts button to browse who’s online, press call and you’re there. Unfortunately the phone doesn’t show you if a contact’s status is set to away, not available, or do not disturb; hopefully this could be solved with a later firmware update. Until then, it might be a good idea to make sure that the person you’re about to reach is not one of those statuses, so you won’t bug him or her. You can also make calls to speed dials that you have assigned to Skype. The phone lets you juggle two incoming calls, and lets you start a second call while you’re in conversation with the first; you can’t, however, talk to them at the same time. After finishing chatting with your buddy, you can end and close Skype all from the phone. I’d love to see a speaker phone facility added to it though.

Source and more info: slashgear

We’ve seen many a’ VoIP handset that takes a design page from cellphone manufacturers and seems to be similarly priced as well. But what about a VoIP phone for the rest of us? MacMice (the same folks who brought us the Danger Mouse) has just released one of the least expensive USB VoIP phones that we’ve seen, coming in at a nice and cool $30. This little rounded white handset, better known as the Danger Phone, will work with Macs and PCs alike — so we’ll take one for every computer at Engadget HQ, thanks.

Source and more info: engadget

I ordered my Netgear WiFi Skype phone in early August, and it finally arrived today. Given that my 3-year old lost my office phone (don’t ask) earlier in the day, it was a welcome package.

Like all good technology (read: Apple-created hardware and software :-), I took it out of the box, turned it on, plugged in my Skype user name and password, and was calling colleagues within five minutes.

Simple.

Sound quality is excellent, and with my SkypeOut account it was a snap to call those not using the Skype network. Now I just need to get a SkypeIn account so that people can reach me on the phone, as well.

Why use it? Well, I travel internationally a fair amount and don’t like the roaming charges I get for using my mobile phone abroad. Now all I need to bring is my Netgear Skype phone and find a WiFi zone and I’m set. (Note: It doesn’t work with hotspots that require browser-based authentication, but my guess is that this is a momentary problem.) It’s as small as a mobile phone and is not tethered to my laptop the way my IPEVO Skype phone was.

Source and more info: infoworld

Allworx, a company that specializes in VoIP solutions for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), recently announced general availability of its 24x communications systems, designed for companies with up to 100 users.

The 24x is a full-featured phone system with support for T1/PRI, FXO, and VoIP trunking.

In a statement, Allworx CTO Jeff Szczepanski noted that T1/PRI lines are becoming affordable for SMBs, yet pricing for the telephone system residing on these networks hasn’t kept pace. Allworx is changing that with the 24x system.

Allworx’s Principal/EVP of Marketing, Sandra Gault, said that there are four main differentiators making the 24x system stand out among other SMB VoIP solutions.

Source and more info: tmcnet