While carriers may fret about the impact of messaging apps like WhatsApp on SMS revenue, they should really be worried abvout the continued erosion of voice revenue as people talk less, message more and turn to IP services, even those within mobile apps. Read more »
There’s a lot of recent talk of mobile operators launching their own voice-over-IP services, but what may surprise you is which carrier is on the leading edge of that trend: MetroPCS. The regional carrier will start selling its first voice-over-LTE handset later this year. Read more »
Nine months after purchasing Skype for $8.5 billion, Microsoft Windows Phone handsets have a beta version of the audio and video chat service. There are some notable limitations in this first release, but as the software gets refined and integrated, Microsoft’s platform could gain more momentum. Read more »
Voice-over-Wi-Fi pioneer Kineto Wireless is trying to convince operators that if they can’t beat the over-the-top VoIP challengers, they might as well join them. Kineto is selling VoIP software to operators that would allow them to bypass their own voice networks and offer cheap VoIP calling. Read more »
It was only a matter of time before a major operator abandoned its territorial notions about mobile voice and adopted a true ‘softphone’ service, and that operator appears to be Rogers Communications. It’s severing the bond between the mobile phone number and the mobile phone. Read more »
Mobile VoIP provider Rebtel crossed key milestones on Friday, indicating that the VoIP market is growing. Rebtel, which offers low-cost and free calls over 3G and Wi-Fi, cracked the 15 million user mark and claims its average revenue per user is three times greater than Skype’s. Read more »
Qualcomm and Ericsson have successfully passed a voice call from an LTE network to a 3G one, paving the way for mobile carriers to begin migrating their voice traffic onto all-IP 4G networks. Once that happens, operators can start shutting down their 2G and 3G networks. Read more »
Sunnyvale-based IP phone service provider ShoreTel purchased M5 networks for $146.3 million. The deal is made up $84 million in cash and 9.5 million shares of ShoreTel stock. M5 will be operated as a ShoreTel business unit and will be led by M5 CEO Dan Hoffman. Read more »
Skype, which is now part of Microsoft has lost one of its key executives. Jonathan Christensen has left the company and has not disclosed his plans on what he will do next. Christensen till recently the vice president of emerging opportunities at Skype . Read more »
Skype is killing long-distance phone calls, minutes at a time. In fact, the growing popularity of the service has seen it steal minutes away from the phone companies. And for consumers that is good news. What’s more, the idea of free voice is only gaining traction. Read more »
Previously, we told you how you can use your iPad as a telephone. Using a Bluetooth headset with your iPad makes that idea even more practical. The Jawbone ERA is the one I happen to use, but others should work just as well. Read more »
Remember the early days of VoIP when Sprint went after Vonage with a patent lawsuit relating to how Vonage handled voice calls on a data network? Sprint is pulling those patents out again, aiming its quest for license fees at the cable companies. Read more »
Gogii, the maker of popular messaging app TextPlus, is launching a service called TextPlus Free Calls that enables a host of devices, even Wi-Fi-only devices, to make and receive phone calls for free or very cheaply. Free Calls joins a growing number of IP-based communications competitors. Read more »
This week was all about money. I used Google Wallet to buy gas — and got a video demo — found some 10-cent Android apps and worked out a way to get free calls over a data network thanks to Android’s SIP support for VoIP. Read more »
Twilio, a cloud communication platform powering a wide array of apps, is capping off a huge year of growth with $17 million in Series funding from existing investors Union Square Ventures and Bessemer Ventures. The new money will be used to continue Twilio’s worldwide expansion. Read more »
The spectrum deal that Verizon signed to buy the unused airwaves from the nation’s top cable providers signals the moment that the consumer benefits of the convergence of voice, video and data hit the wall. It’s a deal that’s great for Verizon and bad for consumers. Read more »
The FCC’s plan to take the funding program that provides telephone service to rural areas and upgrade it for the 21st century will soon become law, as universal service fund reform hits the Federal Register. Here’s what the plan means for consumers, telcos and innovation. Read more »
Consumers in Europe may be feeling the smarting bite of the economic winter settling in around us, but when it comes to internet and mobile… Read more at paidContent »
AT&T is launching a new mobile app that allows its smartphone users to make international calls via VoIP. The new AT&T Call International will allow users to make calls overseas at cheap rates like 4 cents a minute to China, Germany, France and the UK. Read more »
Just how will Microsoft make money off Skype? It’s too early to say since the deal closed just last week, said Microsoft CFO Peter Klein. But he gave some broad-brush hints about plans for the VoIP fan favorite on Microsoft’s first-quarter earnings call Thursday night. Read more »
Juniper Research of the U.K. released a report that shows that by 2016 nearly four-fifths of 640 million mobile VoIP users will be making calls through apps downloaded on their smartphones, while the rest of the calls could be over phone company networks. Read more »
T-Mobile expanded its Bobsled service on Tuesday, bringing free voice calls over the web to landlines and mobiles in the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico. Bobsled is available through a browser, Facebook, Android and iOS. Here’s why the carrier is looking beyond its own network borders. Read more »
T-Mobile announced Monday that it would begin to sell $30 monthly unlimited text and data plans in a partnership with Walmart, beginning on Oct. 16. The no-contract plan only offers 100 voice minutes, but consumers are slowly shifting from voice calls to data services. Read more »
Voice is in the process of transitioning from providing the bulk of phone companies’ profits to becoming just another part of a data service that can be provided by web players, explained execs from voice-focused startups at GigaOM’s Mobilize conference in San Francisco on Monday. Read more »
One of the better features of Google+ is Hangouts, in my opinion. Now VoIP and video chat service Fring is hoping users want to take that kind of experience one step further with Playgrounds, which allows you to chat with strangers about shared interests. Read more »
Cisco’s ongoing retrenchment in its core markets looks like it may need a boost when it comes to enterprise telephony systems. The communications giant has lost market share in the IP telephony market to Avaya in the last few quarters. Read more »
Analog Telephone Adapter (ATA) is a doohickey that allows you to use an old-fashioned phone handset to make Internet calls. Vonage was using low cost ATAs to lure customers, and now Skype has joined the party, making it easier to make calls from your home phone. Read more »
Skype has acquired group messaging startup GroupMe for a rumored $85 million. The deal, while a good move on paper, isn’t going to be enough, as Skype itself is going through an identity crisis — whether it wants to be a consumer or an enterprise communications company. Read more »
Twilio, which provides a service so companies and web services can add voice or SMS to their menu of options, now will offer developers the option to use all IP communications as well as the old-school phone and mobile networks. Read more »
On this new Alive Web, what we miss doesn’t matter. What matters is the connection and the interactions. And Google Hangouts, one of the features in Google+, is the killer app of the Alive Web. Read more »
Skype, the Internet telephony company that is in the process of being acquired by Microsoft has one ambition — get to a billion users – even if it risks the company losing control over its customers. And that just is fine for Facebook. Read more »
A report shows that by 2018, the traditional phone system is going to be reaching less than 6 percent of U.S. residents. It’s perhaps time to rethink the very notion of what a phone is and what defines the classic phone network. Read more »
Facebook’s Skype integration involved a lot of slimming down of Skype’s native client and making it work in a browser, creating the back-end integration between Facebook and Skype and scaling up Skype’s network to handle the expected flood of traffic. Read more »
If you are someone who is always on the move and spends a lot of time on the phone, then those phone bills stack up. In this age of mobile VoIP that shouldn’t be the case, but it does. This infographic will get you started. Read more »
Skype quietly added some XMPP support to its most recentbeta last week. Adopting the open protocol helps Sype to integrate with Facebook, but it could also be used for interoperability with other IM platforms. Just don’t expect to call your Gtalk friends any time soon. Read more »
After a leaked video accidentally spoiled the surprise, Skype has confirmed that it is preparing an iPad app for release. No firm date is yet known for when it will arrive; it is expected to be approved soon by Apple for the App Store. Read more »
It’s a wonder anyone still uses traditional cellular networking voice or text services at all, given all the alternatives that pop up. But each of these services faces a critical challenge, and in my opinion, they’re all just living on borrowed time. Read more »
Skype CEO Tony Bates — and not the company’s private equity investors — were behind company’s decision to part ways with many of their senior mangers, a company spokesperson told GigaOM. Skype Journal reported earlier that a whole gaggle of senior-level executives had been cut from the company. Read more »
Skype added deeper Facebook integration to its latest software for Windows, bringing instant messaging, the ability to “like” a Facebook status from Skype and improved contact integration. This is just the start for a stronger partnership between the two and it doesn’t end on the desktop. Read more »
Last week, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) gave the green light to Microsoft’s $8.5 billion acquisition of Skype, the Internet telephony company. Now there are reports that many key senior executives have left or have been asked to leave the company. Read more »
