Sonus Networks has introduced a new solution for cable operators to add value to their existing home line services. Dubbed "Fixed – Smartphone Convergence," cable operators can use new capabilities in the company’s ASX Telephony Application Server to allow cable subscribers with home phone service to combine their existing phone line with up to five additional SIP-enabled devices including 3G/Wi-Fi enabled smartphones.

Global IP Solutions announced that it has been selected by LG Mobile to provide HD voice for its Fixed Mobile Convergence solution. FMC allows telecom operators to combine fixed telephony, cellular telephony and Broadband into unified end-user services.

Siemens Enterprise and Sybase announced a partnership to develop jointly new fixed-mobile convergence solutions that will fully integrate in-office data and voice features with workers' mobile devices, according to the companies. Sybase's mobile device management technology will be coupled with Siemens Enterprise's fixed-mobile convergence solution to enable support for multiple mobile devices.

The companies said this partnership will yield a product that simplifies inventory and logistics for the organizations that deploy it. According to Siemens Enterprise, it chose Sybase because of its "rich expertise and proven leadership" in enterprise mobility. Sybase's Afaria simplifies the management of the various mobile endpoints that employees may have, and it will be integrated into the Siemens Enterprise MobileConnect v2.3 product.

For more:
- see the FierceMobileIT article here
- see the companies' press release here 

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IMS may no longer be an over-hyped telecom acronym, but an Infonetics survey reveals service providers are making progress with their IMS deployment plans. In its IMS Plans: Global Service Provider Survey, Infonetics revealed that 80 percent of the service providers it polled are running fixed voice over IMS right now or will by 2011, making fixed-line VoIP service the mainstay of IMS rollouts. During the same period, Infonetics found that more than half of the service provider respondents are planning on deploying video telephony and converged mobile/fixed-line services. Mobile services will be a big focus for IMS deployments. Over the next two years, service providers will deploy three types of IMS-based mobile services: FMC, mobile presence and mobile messaging.  

"Our 2009 IMS service provider survey indicates that the IMS market is advancing from early-stage services to the next phase," said Diane Myers, Infonetics Research's directing analyst for service provider VoIP and IMS. "The two most important indicators are the higher number of service providers planning to offer services beyond fixed-line voice--such as video and mobile services--by 2011, and the shift in IMS deployment drivers, which include the opportunity to offer converged services, deploy new applications and services, and consolidate networks."

For more:
- here's the Infonetics release

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Natural Convergence president Bill Crank said his company acquired NewStep Networks this week in large part because of the potential to integrate NewStep's fixed-mobile convergence and SIP trunking technology. Crank said Natural Convergence plans to keep all NewStep employees on board and will support all current NewStep customers, which he said were mainly large accounts "numbering in the teens."

Natural Convergence also is discussing product roadmaps with its existing customers to see if any can benefit from the additional offerings now available. Crank said the NewStep acquisition gives Natural Convergence a stronger presence in the APAC region, where the company hopes to expand in the near future. He said he sees a lot of opportunity in the market now for further acquisitions and that Natural Convergence could buy another voice company in the next six to nine months if it fits the company's expansion strategy.

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Natural Convergence, a hosted VoIP supplier based in Ottawa, Ontario, announced it purchased NewStep Networks, a fixed-mobile convergence company. Natural Convergence said the acquisition would add fixed-mobile convergence technology to its hosted VoIP product, called "silhouette." The product is resold by carriers to small- and medium-sized businesses to replace legacy switching equipment with a hosted softswitch.

Natural Convergence said the acquisition of NewStep is part of a long-term strategy to increase growth through partnering and "leveraging adjacent markets." Could another acquisition be in Natural Convergence's immediate future?

For more:
- see the press release here 

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More than 600 telco leaders are due to attend East Africa's premier learning and networking event which gets underway on Wednesday.
East Africa Com is a two-day, multi-streamed conference with a 40+ stand networking exhibition.
The conference is the only event to represent the East African region and evolved from the highly successful GSM>3G World Series.

After many, many moons of silence, Google Voice has been rolled out as a "preview."  The born-again GrandCentral service first will be available to existing GrandCentral users, with others being able to sign up "soon."

Google bought GrandCentral back in July 2007, where upon the hosted mobile UC solution fell into a black hole, with an "in beta" logo stuck on the site more than a year after being bought. A trickle of sporadic blog postings from GrandCentral's founders appeared after the purchase, with the last, dated April 22, 2008, promising "a ton of cool new features."  In October 2008, the division was no longer taking subscribers, and Google was supplying cryptic answers as to its fate.

Among the features Google Voice adds to the baseline GrandCentral load are transcripts of one's voicemail, and archive and search of all SMS text messages you send and receive, plus easy access to Goog-400 directory assistance and (hmm, where have we heard this before?) the ability to make low-priced international calls. GrandCentral's core was a single-number ring to multiple numbers, centralized voice mailbox accessible to the web, and the smooth feature to screen calls by listening live as callers left voice mail.

After publishing our fall special report deeming GrandCentral as one of the "VoIP Fallen," we received information from a reliable source that The Goog had been stockpiling lots of phone numbers for an advanced telephony service. Apparently, GoogleVoice is that service.

Now speculation turns to how this announcement affects Skype and the phone companies, with an emphasis that calls over the Internet will gnaw away at revenues from other players in the space. And privacy advocates worry that consumers feeding yet more data into the Google trough could be a Bad Thing.

For more:
- Read Goog's terse blog about Google Voice.

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After a drought of news this winter, the floodgates have opened wide for the latest on VoIP and Phone 2.0 applications.  It's a big dessert cart, and I can't decide what I like best.

Supreme kudos to Lee S. Dryburgh for organizing eComm 2009. There are a lot of next-generation network/Phone 2.0 thought leaders at Lee's conference this week with companies such as Ditech Networks and Skype discussing the latest cool technology. It is a tradition that the classic (1997-2007, R.I.P) and now-gone VON created, and I'm happy to see that he has orchestrated a successful event that can lay claim to that heritage and role for the next-generation-network community.

However, Jeff Pulver is off the sidelines and calling for speakers for a HD VoIP Summit in New York City in May. I'm very interested to see who shows up. You have to think that the Big Boys (AT&T and Verizon) as well as the cable companies are trying to figure out how to one-up each other over vanilla-VoIP offerings that are simply providing PSTN replacement. I bet someone at Verizon has done some forward thinking on this issue, but the marketing weenies want a demonstrable market before moving out of their comfort zone.

There's also plenty of buzz coming from the Voice 2.0/mashup arena. Thomas Howe will be commuting to Texas as CEO of Jaduka.  Twilio wins the daily double, picking up VC money from Mitch Kapor and highlighting a bunch of clients using their cloud telephony service. (HA! Cloud telephony service! Who would have thought of such a thing 18 months ago?)

Look at Avaya! It announces a relationship with DiVitas Networks for FMC and rolls out a media phone. DiVitas has a lot of interesting things going on behind the scenes, so expect to hear more about them as the year goes on.  And who would have thought that the media phone was going to be a business play so soon? 

The tagline under the FierceVoIP logo has always been "What's next in IP communications." If you've been following FierceVoIP for a while, you will have noticed that our coverage goes beyond simply "voice" and touches upon areas such as FMC, UC, mobile UC, videoconferencing, as well as IP-based applications which just happen to incorporate voice into the picture.

Over the coming weeks, you'll see us continue to broaden our coverage (where appropriate) into more of "What's next" in IP communications, but we're not kicking VoIP to the curb, either.

- Doug