So What’s All This IP Stuff Anyway?

August 14, 2008 by Garrett Smith

3 part series by Anthony Cafaro
Part 1

Working in the IP industry on a daily basis whether it is in new technology, sales or marketing has been a privilege to explore the fast paced and industrial changes that make this field, so unique. I guess this privilege has also led me to believe that the world is the same inside and outside my box. Which in fact is; “NOT TRUE” at all!

So I decided to break down the three types of inbound call inquiries that frequent our queue on a day-to-day basis (of course not that many people are losing sheep and we have way more than just 1 sexy camera in stock)

1. “I’m looking for a security system”
2. “Someone is steeling my sheep and I want to find out who”
3. “I need the Sexy Samsung SCC-C9302F in my life, do you have any in Stock”

2 of these 3 types of questions reflect early adopters of the IP surveillance industry who know they need a solution, but do not know where to begin or even what this ‘so called’ IP buzz is all about. With this dilemma in mind, “So What’s All This IP Stuff Anyway” was born……

Jay Phillips and Mark Spencer Square Off Over Asterisk Critique

by Garrett Smith

Jay Phillips, the creator of Adhearsion, a RUBY development framework for Asterisk, recently called out Digiumfor failing to make Asterisk sufficiently accessible to developers. While it is clear that Phillips has his own entrepreneurial agenda, he asserts that Asterisk alienates would-be developers by presenting an often cryptic, non-intuitive interface.

Jay goes on in detail concerning a laundry list of issues that he believes are limiting the proliferation of Asterisk beyond first adopter types.
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Nortel Snags Pingtel

August 13, 2008 by Garrett Smith

Nortel today announced their acquisition of Pingtel, a commercial SIP telephony platform derived from the open source sipX Enterprise Communications Server. sipX began in 1999, but in 2004 Pingtel contributed the codebase to non-profit organization SIPfoundry and it was subsequently made available under the LGPL (GNU Lesser General Public License). Pingtel also continued to develop a commercially licensed version of sipX marketed under the name sipXchange.

The open source sipX project counted Asterisk as its main competitor, although sipX varies significantly from Asterisk in many ways. Unlike Asterisk, in sipX all call signaling is handled natively using the SIP protocol. sipX contributes call signalling and is not concerned with media and encodings, while calls are set up and packets routed point to point between endpoints. sipX also lends itself to a modular, distributed approach where individual hosts can be deployed to handle specific duties such as SIP proxy and media server.
Pingtel’s most noteworthy enterprise deployment was announced in 2006 for Amazon.com, and reportedly serves as many as 5000 users.

Today’s announcement actually marks the second sale of Pingtel, having been acquired in July 0f 2007 by Burlington, Mass based parent BlueSocket.

It will be interesting to see if Nortel’s competitors in the traditional enterprise telephony market will look to make similar purchases. Companies such as Adtran, Cisco, Avaya and Mitel could be eyeing the likes of Digium/Asterisk, Trixbox, FreeSwitch and others as Microsoft’s OCS initiative shifts into another gear.

Ask Mr. Andrews: What is ENUM?

August 12, 2008 by Garrett Smith

Dear Mr. Andrews,

What is ENUM, and why should I care about it?

ENUM is a protocol developed by the IETF (www.ietf.org) that uses the Internet DNS system to translate traditional telephone numbers into IP addressing schemes.

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Samsung IP Camera & DVR New Additions

August 11, 2008 by Garrett Smith

***Offering 1 week free ground shipping Aug 11^th – Aug 18^th 2008***

Announcing the newest additions to our IPCameraSupply.com inventory, Samsung IP Cameras and DVR’s! Our new affordable Samsung IP cameras cover a broad range of IP surveillance needs, from recording in low light environments to pan/tilt/zoom ability. Whatever your IP camera needs may be, Samsung’s versatile line will surely fit your surveillance requirements and budget.

Samsung IP cameras & their functionality

	High Resolution	Low Light Day/Night	Anti-Vandal		Pan/Tilt/Zoom	Dome Camera	Wide Dynamic Range	Zoom Lens	Color Digital Camera
SCC-641					x	x
SCC-931T	x			x	x	x
SCC-B2300		x							x
SCC-B2305		x					x		x
SCC-B2391	x	x							x
SCC-C4301		x						x
SCC-C4307		x					x	x
SCC-C6403		x			x	x
SCC-C6407		x			x	x	x
SCC-C9302		x		x		x
SCC-C9302F		x		x		x

Accompanying the IP camera additions are Samsung DVR’s, including 4, 8 and 16 channels. These standalone digital video recorders cover a broad range of function, including triplex operation (monitoring/playback/recording), PTZ control and loop through video to name a few. Click the link below for additional details on our new line of Samsung DVR’s.

Samsung Digital Video Recorders

	Triplex Operation	PTZ Control	Loop Through Video	Built in CD-RW	Motion Detection	4 Channels	8 Channels	16 Channels
SHR-2040	x	x	x			x
SHR-2042	x	x		x		x
SHR-2080	x		x		x		x
SHR-2082	x			x	x		x
SHR-2160	x		x		x			x
SHR-2162	x			x	x			x

Most Want Something Other Then a PBX

by Garrett Smith

The title of this blog post might be the most profound thing I have ever read about Asterisk.

Courtesy of Alec Saunders, I got wind of this post by Jay Phillips that goes into detail in regards to some of the current limitations of the platform as it looks to move from the innovator phase to the early adopter phase. While Jay makes some valid points about making Asterisk easier for the mainstream programmer to build off of, therefore growing their developer base and business, the most profound piece of his post, and what will be lost on most “fringe” telephony folks is Jay’s statement that when it comes to Asterisk,

“most want something other than a PBX”

If there is anything that our 101 things you can do with Asterisk contest proved, it is that Asterisk is being used for things other than it’s original intent – a phone system, due to the fact that you are free to do whatever you want with it. Many argue that Asterisk won’t don’t this or can’t do that, but at the end of the day Asterisk is about more then open source, telephony, developers and ease of use:

It is about the idea of creating something.

Asterisk is powerful because it evokes the thinker, the visionary, the entrepreneur in all of us. Asterisk challenges us to do things we never before thought were possible. It was a catalyst of a whole new way of thinking about telephony and gave down to an entire industry now filled with many projects that compete, work with and improve Asterisk. Asterisk will never satisfy everyone’s needs. It will never be the end all be all of open source telephony, but no project will ever achieve that because most people want something other than a PBX and in order to achieve that you need more than just a piece of open source software.

VoIP Supply Named to the CRN 100

by Garrett Smith

Late in July we got word that VoIP Supply had been named to Everything Channel’s CRN 100 list of fastest growing solutions providers in the US. The award is based off of two things:

Ability to deliver multi-vendor IT solutions, cutting-edge technologies, close customer relationships, demonstrate strong sales philosophies and business-oriented IT consulting.
Sales revenue growth from 2005 to 2007

We have won quite a few awards centered around our growth, but this one is especially nice since it points out a fact that is lost on many within the industry – that we provide solutions, not just boxes.

Since our inception in 2004, many have been confused as to who VoIP Supply is and what it is that we actually do. Over the last four years we have continually redefined our model and rather than latch on to a canned definition of who we are, we chose to continue to focus on one thing – delivering everything you need for VoIP, which has lead to our ability to deliver custom solutions to a variety of customer verticals.

This quote from our CEO, Benjamin P. Sayers, sums it up pretty well:

“There has always been a perception that VoIP Supply is just another ‘box pusher’ due to our web based go-to-market strategy. VoIP Supply is continuing to grow at an aggressive rate by providing our customers with a wide variety of VoIP solutions, not just ‘boxes.’ Hopefully this award, along with our continued commitment to developing custom VoIP solutions to meet the ever changing needs of our customers, will eliminate this perception.”

If you have ever done business with us you know that we do much more than push boxes – hopefully this award and continued productization of our service offerings will allow others to see this side of us.

Spectralink Bundle Additions

August 8, 2008 by Garrett Smith

***Offering free ground shipping Aug 8^th – Aug 18^th 2008***

Announcing the newest addition to our voip inventory, Spectralink Bundles!These bundles incorporate the e340, h340, i640 and 8000 series.The Spectralink phones included in these bundles occupy a broad range of features from international use, swivel clips, battery packs, dual or single chargers, integrated TFTP client, push to talk, four programmable softkeys and extended talk time of up to 4 hours.One of the Spectralink’s more interesting attributes is the phones coupling of rugged and ergonomic design while maintaining its light weight.

The table below identifies each bundle to its series:

	e340 Series	h340 Series	i640 Series	8020 Series		8030 Series
SpectraLink KPE211	x
SpectraLink KPE241	x
SpectraLink KPE251	x
SpectraLink KPE201	x
SpectraLink KPN241		x
SpectraLink KPN251		x
SpectraLink KPX211			x
SpectraLink KPX241			x
SpectraLink KPX251			x
SpectraLink CBS200				x
SpectraLink CBD200				x
SpectraLink CBS300					x
SpectraLink CBD300					x

Professor Plum in the Ballroom with the Rope: The Who, Where, and How of Mobile VoIP.

by Tom Costelloe

There has been a lot of debate lately regarding the new Speedo swimsuits worn by swimmers in the lead up to the Olympics. The suits have been designed to reduce drag, thus helping to increase speeds and reducing energy used by swimmers. As I write, at least forty world records have fallen and most likely more will fall in the weeks ahead. These broken records don’t mean much to me. If it wasn’t for a magazine at the mechanics during my oil change, I would never have been aware of the advances in swimsuit technology. In order for an advance in a technology to catch my attention it must make some positive effect on my life. I’d imagine most people are like this.

Mobile VoIP, as good as it may seem to you or me must offer something unique and groundbreaking to the general masses before it will become widely adopted. To increase consumer awareness, we have to look at the who, where and how of Mobile VoIP. Once we understand what sets Mobile VoIP, the potential for wider acceptance will increase. I am going to look at two examples; a residential or end user (myself) and a business (one of my customers).

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Vonage Pro Is Not Mobile VoIP

August 5, 2008 by Garrett Smith

A week or so ago Vonage launched a new set of pay for features called Vonage Pro. It was an interesting combination of “revolutionary” things such as a softphone client for a desktop or laptop, personalized ring tones, call recording and conference calling – you know all of the features business people have come to expect in a telecommunications solution. While I will save the rant on why this offering is less then awe inspiring, one thing that is really concerning is how people are touting VonagePro as some sort of mobile VoIP service when it isn’t.

Vonage Pro, while offering new features that are cutely packaged, foes enhance your ability to access Vonage service when on the go, but it is not Mobile VoIP as defined as the ability to access VoIP service via a cellular handset over a 3G or WiFi network. Vonage Pro is not Truphone, fring, EQO, or any of the dozen other Mobile VoIP services on the market. Vonage is a pretty smart marketing company – they love to leverage “buzz words” to drive an increase in subscribers, but unfortunately, they do a ton of damage through misinformation, even if it is indirect.

So What’s All This IP Stuff Anyway?

Jay Phillips and Mark Spencer Square Off Over Asterisk Critique

Nortel Snags Pingtel

Ask Mr. Andrews: What is ENUM?

Samsung IP Camera & DVR New Additions

Most Want Something Other Then a PBX

VoIP Supply Named to the CRN 100

Spectralink Bundle Additions

Professor Plum in the Ballroom with the Rope: The Who, Where, and How of Mobile VoIP.

Vonage Pro Is Not Mobile VoIP

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