-
/
Mitel connects directly to Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 via SIP
Continue Reading: Mitel connects directly to Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 via SIPIn my incredibly long queue of things I’ve wanted to write about for the past few weeks, one item was the Mitel news release about making a direct SIP connection to Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 Unified Messaging. The cool part is that you can just use our basic 3300 ICP communications platform (or IP-PBX, or whatever you want to call it) and connect it directly into a Microsoft Exchange Server to use the Exchange Server for a unified inbox (email, voicemail, fax, etc.). No other boxes or gateways necessary. Just a nice, standard SIP trunk. As a long-time proponent of open standards and general “standards geek”, it really can’t get much better. It’s great to see.
Technorati tags: mitel, microsoft, exchange, voip -
/
My article "Using IP Communications as a Tool for Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity" is now online
Continue Reading: My article "Using IP Communications as a Tool for Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity" is now onlineI just realized that I never wrote here that an article I wrote recently came out online. Published in Mitel’s “Presence” magazine, it’s titled “Using IP Communications as a Tool for Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity“. Okay, so the title’s not overly catchy, but here’s the first paragraph:
If a hurricane devastated your main office, how rapidly could you restore telephone connectivity? If a branch office had a fire or other disaster, how soon could you connect back into the main office? Or if Avian flu or some other pandemic created a situation where you needed to stay out of the office, could you access remote phone capabilities equal to that at the office? How long would it take your business to recover? How much (and how many customers) could you afford to lose in the process?
I go on to talk about why IP communications/IP telephony/VoIP fundamentally changes the traditional way you might address these issues and offers tremendous benefits. In fact, to me, the ability to put an IP phone pretty much anywhere you can get an IP address remains one of the major – if not the single biggest – disruptive aspect of…
-
/
Skype begins private beta of Enterprise Edition, rolls out new versions for Mac (including Call Transfer), Windows beta…
Continue Reading: Skype begins private beta of Enterprise Edition, rolls out new versions for Mac (including Call Transfer), Windows beta…Quite a bit of activity lately, it seems, over in Skype-land:
1. Private beta of an “Enterprise Edition” – First seen on Jan Geirnaert’s weblog and then subsequently confirmed, it appears Skype is sending around an email looking for participants in an “Early Adopter Program” for a product that would include:
- Enterprise network compatibility.
- Company-owned Skype Name creation.
- Customisable to your corporate requirements.
- Direct technical support from Skype.
- Ongoing upgrades maintenance.
A bit more text about it on Jan’s weblog. Will be interesting to see what evolves out of this.
2. New version 2.6 for the Mac with Call Transfer, public chats, Skype Prime, etc. – Over at Skype Journal, Jim Courtney writes about the new Mac version that brings the Mac version closer to parity with the Windows client (as seen in the release notes). It also apparently includes “call transfer” that will, per the download page, “Transfer calls to your Skype contacts – effortlessly.” Jim provides a teaser to us that Windows users can use this Call Transfer as well… and this will be described later this week.
If Call Transfer does indeed work, this is the first time I’ve really seen it in a P2P client. (I’m…
-
/
MAKE: Turning an antique phone into a USB headset (and therefore Skype phone)
Continue Reading: MAKE: Turning an antique phone into a USB headset (and therefore Skype phone)Through a link from Phil Wolff, I learned that Bruce Stewart has posted at the Emerging Telephony blog about someone turning an antique phone into a Skype phone (which actually points to a post on the MAKE Blog). Okay, so as best I can tell, it’s really a glorified USB headset, but I admit that the geek side of me finds it rather a fun idea. Bruce links to a page on the Instructables site that has more pictures and instructions.
(I’d note that while the articles say that it is an “antique Skype phone”, it really looks to me like it’s a USB headset, so it could really work with any VoIP program.)
Fun stuff…
Technorati tags: skype, etel, make, voip -
/
Attaining BLISS… (at least in the world of SIP)… a.k.a. why can’t we all just get along?
Continue Reading: Attaining BLISS… (at least in the world of SIP)… a.k.a. why can’t we all just get along?So you’d like your SIP phones to all work together, eh? And you’d like your SIP phone from Vendor A to work with the SIP phone of Vendor B and yet give you the business functionality that you used to have in the PBX from Vendor C?
Good luck.
Yes, they will (or should!) all work together for basic call functions, but if you want to do more than just the very basics, you rapidly wind up in the realm of incompatible SIP implementations. Different vendors support different RFCs… or interpret RFCs differently. It’s a challenge to go beyond basic functionality.
Enter “BLISS“, one of the latest working groups coming out of the IETF. It stands for “Basic Level of Interoperability for SIP Services” and, as noted in its charter, the intent is to define a basic set of functionality (“minimum interoperability requirements”) to allow SIP endpoints to interoperate on 4 specific telephony services:
- Bridged/Shared Line Appearance (BLA/SLA)
- Call Park/Pickup
- Do Not Disturb (DND)
- Call Completion to Busy Signal/Call Completion on No Reply
More details are on the charter page. These are just the initial four issues chosen to be addressed and Internet-Draft documents are already circulating on…
-
/
Shawn Merdinger – The Top 11 VoIP security issues you need to discuss with your vendor
Continue Reading: Shawn Merdinger – The Top 11 VoIP security issues you need to discuss with your vendorOver on the Voice of VOIPSA weblog, security researcher Shawn Merdinger is 2/3 of the way through a series of posts on the “top 11 VoIP security issues you need to discuss with potential vendors”. His posts are:
- Pucker Up – Intimate VoIP Phone Security Questions, Part 1 of 3 (1-5)
- Pucker Up – Intimate VoIP Phone Security Questions, Part 2 of 3 (6-8)
with the third post coming at some point soon to cover points 9-11. Shawn’s posts are definitely “required reading” for anyone working on or concerned about issues around VoIP security. He’s done a great job bringing into one place the many questions that you should be asking VoIP/IP telephony/IP communications vendors about the security of the systems you are considering (or have already deployed).
Technorati tags: voipsa, voip security, security, voip -
/
So who will be first vendor to implement VoIP over RFC4824?
Continue Reading: So who will be first vendor to implement VoIP over RFC4824?So with the release yesterday of RFC4824, The Transmission of IP Datagrams over the Semaphore Flag Signaling System (SFSS), one has to wonder… which of the vendors will be the first to attempt to implement VoIP transmission in this medium? I think it would make for a rather slower conversation, but it would certainly be intriguing. Hmmm… I wonder which would be faster – this method? Or the avian method defined in RFC2549. Probably this one, methinks.
Oh, you have to love a standards body with a sense of humor…
Technorati tags: ietf, rfc4824, semaphore, voip -
/
Skype for Cows 3.2 – giving new meaning to the new slogan "Take a deep breath"
Continue Reading: Skype for Cows 3.2 – giving new meaning to the new slogan "Take a deep breath"Phil Wolff over at Skype Journal was obviously having way too much fun with graphic-editing programs, but the results are hilarious (at least to me). A very mooving piece titled “First Look: Skype for Cows 3.2“.
Given today’s date, it’s definitely well worth a read…. 😉
Technorati tags: skype, skype journal, phil wolff, humor -
/
Skype 3.2 beta greatly enhances sound quality with new audio codecs
Continue Reading: Skype 3.2 beta greatly enhances sound quality with new audio codecsIn my previous post about the Skype 3.2 beta out today, I said this:
I’m sure there will be some other things found in the release, too,
but I had no idea how right that statement was… Jim Courtney over at Skype Journal just posted this “Skype 3.2 Sets New Standard for Sound Quality” and he’s not kidding. I just called Jim using Skype 3.2 and spoke to him first using just my laptop mic and speakers and then with my normal mic/headphone setup. In both cases he said the audio quality was excellent (obviously even better with the mic/headphone setup I have). He spoke to me with the setup he describes in his article… sitting back away from his computer a bit and with his microphone situated between speakers. I do have to say that the sound quality was impressive given that Jim is trying to create echoes (I heard none). Definitely an interesting move on Skype’s part… obviously only of use between 3.2 beta users, but it will be interesting as this rolls out into their production software.
In the meantime, if you are a 3.2 beta user and want to give me a call to test it…
-
/
Skype 3.2 beta released with ability to send money via PayPal, video snapshots, etc.
Continue Reading: Skype 3.2 beta released with ability to send money via PayPal, video snapshots, etc.The fruits of the eBay purchase of Skype continue to start appearing… today Skype released a 3.2 beta for Windows (sorry Mac & Linux fans) which has as it’s main feature the ability to send money to another user via PayPal (provided both users have PayPal accounts).
Rather than write more here about the feature, I’ll just point you over to Skype Journal where Phil Wolff has already provided a walk-through of the Send Money feature (as well as the nice graphic I used in this post).
It’s an interesting addition… as we briefly chatted about in Skype Journal’s public chat today, this has a bit of a potential to take some money away from Skype Prime, although probably not much. If you were in a call and wanted to charge someone for the call, you could ask them to send you money via PayPal. In contrast to Skype Prime, you could ask them to send you any amount you wanted… and you would get the money immediately (versus the 4-month hold of Skype Prime). I don’t think it will impact Skype Prime too much, though, because the process to send money via PayPal is more involved… Skype Prime…
Disruptive Telephony
Dan York on how Voice over IP is rewriting (almost) everything you thought you understood about telephony…
