Who’s Ready for Polycom’s 3.2.0 SIP Firmware Release?

August 28, 2009 by Garrett Smith

New Polycom SIP firmware 3.2.0

Polycomā€™s 3.2.0 SIP Firmware is set to be released very soon. Some of you may not be too inclined as 3.2.0 brings some drastic changes for certain Soundpoint IP Phones, leaving some in the dust while enhancing and adding new features to others.

If you donā€™t know already, Polycom has or will be discontinuing the following and very popular models from their SoundPoint IP family: (more…)

First Look: Panasonic KX-NT700 Wideband IP Conference Phone

August 27, 2009 by Garrett Smith

Panasonic KX-NT700

Panasonic has given consumers the ability to connect to both IP / SIP networks as well as the traditional PSTN with their new Panasonic KX-NT700 Wideband IP Conference Phone. The slick-looking KX-NT700 supports G.722 wideband audio codec to deliver high definition sound quality.

The KX-NT700 also sports an SD card slot allowing for easy, on-the-fly recording of your conferences which can be archived or played back on a PC at your convenience. A 2GB SD card will record up to 67 hours of conference calls! (more…)

VoIP Faxing with the Sangoma Fax Sync Cable

August 24, 2009 by Garrett Smith

Looking for a reliable VoIP Fax Solution?

Wait no longer. The Sangoma Fax Sync Cable can help.

All of you VoIP engineers, installers and end users have heard it, ā€œKeep your faxing off of your VoIP system

And for good reasons. Fax over IP historically works about 50% of the time, leaving most users scratching their heads as to why.

Letā€™s put it this way, when someone sends an email and the packets are interrupted, say one or two drop out, the email recipient simply sends a request to the sender, asking for the lost packets, the sender sends those packets again, the recipient re-arranges them and you have your email.

With VoIP on a SIP call, if packet loss occurs, the users may hear a bit of broken silence on the line for short periods of time, simply because voice traffic is considered ā€œreal timeā€. With faxing, if packet loss occurs, since fax machines are considered ā€œdumb terminalsā€ in the VoIP world, many times the fax never even makes it to the fax machine with no alert or notification, or the fax machine displays an error instead of the fax.

For companies conducting their main portion of their business over faxing, this is unacceptable. For health care applications where faxes may be considered ā€œmission criticalā€, this may be detrimental to a patientā€™s health.

(more…)

Look out Skype, Vonage goes worldwide unlimited

August 20, 2009 by Garrett Smith

Late last night VoIP service pioneer Vonage announced a new unlimited calling plan that smells like their answer to Skype’s ever growing foothold in the international calling space.

Named “Vonage World”, this new service offering from Vonage offers unlimited flat rate ($24.99 per month) calling to more than 60 countries, including India, Mexico and China. Previously Vonage offered unlimited calling plans for the U.S. and Canada, with international calling billed on a per minute basis.

At $24.99 the Vonage World plan is solid option for those in need of unlimited international calling.

For example, the current SkypeOut rate for calls from the U.S. to Mexico is $0.114 per minute. Under the Vonage World plan one would need to use over 220 minute before the plan made more final sense than a per minute Skype plan.

But if you’ve got a mother like mine, an obsessive girlfriend or a large network of friends, spending three and a half to four hours a month on the phone is nothing.

Get the Aastra Advantage at VoIP Supply

If you’re like most people just getting started with VoIP you’re probably finding the enormous amount of choice in desktop VoIP phones a bit overwhemling.

Sure choice is great. But with over 300 different options currently available making a decision isn’t always easy.

Heck, I’ve been using and reviewing desktop VoIP phones for the last six years and often find my own brain spinning from all of the different options.

(more…)

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