Voxbone, a wholesaler of transferrable VoIP phone numbers to service providers, announced that 8 out of 10 respondents wanted to have on phone number for life so as not to lose contact information after a move or service provider change, according to the results of a survey it commissioned. It said the traditional line-based way phone numbers are handled needs to shift to an individually focused strategy, and it aims to facilitate that transition through its iNum service, which lets consumers keep the same phone number, even if moving overseas.

Voxbone CEO Rod Ullens said the company buys bundles of numbers from the ITU, then sells them to service providers for resale to end-users. Voxbone maintains relationships with a large number of VoIP and next-gen network operators to let consumers keep their number where ever they might move, and Ullens said the company is seeking additional partnerships with incumbent telcos and mobile network operators to expand the iNum programs reach.

"As the world population becomes increasingly migratory, phone numbers need to evolve to reflect users' changing expectations," Ullens said in a release. "There's a new geography being created that's about local presence and global relationships rather than distance or national borders. People no longer consider themselves tied down to a single location and don't expect their phone number to be either." 

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Acme Packet has been selected by two European operators to provide them with IMS-based services.
Telefonica O2 Germany and Telnor Sweden are to use Acme Packet Net-Net 4000 series session border controllers (SBCs) at access and interconnect borders for IMS services.

JAJAH CEO Trevor Healy talks to voip.biz-news about the "sea change" currently taking place in the communications industry - and explains how that has resulted in JAJAH itself evolving from a consumer VoIP focus to become a global IP communications platform provider.

Billing can be a complicated process for VoIP service providers and calling card operators - especially if they want to diversify and offer more than one service.
In some cases customers end up receiving separate bills or a third system has to be used to generate them.

Operators O2 and Orange have reacted to plans by Nokia to embed Skype in handsets and may refuse to stock the N97.
Skype is linking up with Nokia to embed its calling software in the Finnish company's new handsets.

India's Parliament announced Thursday that it delayed a decision on whether or not to allow full VoIP services in the country. The government did not set a date on when it would reach a decision on unrestricted VoIP access, which has met with fierce opposition from incumbent telcos in the country.

Currently, VoIP services are allowed, but are fettered by regulations that undermine their value proposition.

The Association of Unified Service Providers of India (AUSPI) and Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) have voiced opposition to VoIP offerings, since it would threaten their traditional revenue streams. The Internet Service Providers Association of India, on the other hand, has lobbied for unrestricted VoIP access, saying it would bring prices down and increase Internet penetration in the country, both of which would benefit consumers. 

For more:
- see the Times of India article here 

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By Carl Ford

Here is an interesting question. If you wanted to get High Definition Voice out in the marketplace, where would you start?
My readers are probably too young to remember Candice Bergen and the Sprint Pin drop commercials, or the AT&T retaliation of Whitney Houston pumping up the base if not the volume.

Wireless calls have not been a better experience with voice. In fact, I would say it's made any sound troubles acceptable.
I remember the first time I heard the Global IP Sound ILBC codec (not a wideband codec but better voice quality) and thought to myself, "This is great!  Who is going to deploy it?"  The answer turned out to be Skype, at least until they rolled their own wideband solution.

In recent years the number of wideband codecs available has increased, and companies like Microsoft and Polycom have been advocates. But how does one start deploying?

Skype's self-contained strategy was a great starting point, and we get to hear the issues of being off-net and condensing the voice to fit the PSTN. I'm not sure I would advocate every network creating their own Skype-like service. While Peer-to-Peer friends would celebrate, more factional Internet apps seem to make Metcalfe's law moot.

Others would rather be advocates of Web 2.0 solutions that ignore the PSTN. While this is attractive, it loses something when facing the realities of reaching people anytime, anyplace and anywhere. Logically, wouldn't that suggest wireless is the place to deploy wideband codecs?

AudioCodes advocates building IP Islands and working with all wideband players in their High Definition strategy. It sees that Microsoft's RTA is going to be in the Enterprise, with G.722 in DECT phones sold by cable operators and AMR-WB the logical deployment by wireless operators. It also supports the Skype codecs.

All well and good, but the synergy comes in gathering the islands together, and here, the subject of federation comes in and the question is, who is going to do it?  I can make a case for a bunch of federating strategies, but traditionally the vision of federation breaks down and the companies become extended walled gardens.

In order for a federation to really work, it needs to be something less than a service and more of an addressing scheme.  A registry for like to find like and perhaps point to a transcoding solution along the way. I would love to say that I know of such an entity, but for today, solutions are on the drawing board, but not implemented, to my knowledge.

Another more likely example works like peer-to-peer among the islands, but I have not seen this strategy in the field. However, the quality is good enough that people may choose it for themselves and the network upgrades over time, just because of consumer demand.

Brick by brick by the castle is built.

An inquiry has been launched by the European Union into whether blocks on VoIP service by Europe's mobile phone operators are in breach of competition laws.
The EU's antitrust authority has written to every mobile phone operators how they deal with internet based voice calls.

Ditech Networks today announced that its Packet Voice Processor (PVP) is now available in a smaller size.
The move will give network operators and enterprises greater flexibility to support VoIP, 3G and Web 2.0 services.

VoIP provider, Vyke, has warned that mobile operators are poorly positioned to cope with latest industry developments.
Aaron Powers, head of business development at Vyke, said the operators are failing to spearhead new innovations – leaving them open to greater than ever competition from a new breed of rivals.