AstriCon is quickly taking form, with speakers on a range of technical and business topics confirmed. Organizations of all sizes use Asterisk to create customized, feature-rich and scalable phone unified communications systems, VoIP gateways, conference servers and more. Digium the owner and corporate sponsor of Asterisk, hosts AstriCon, which is now in its seventh year. A few of this year’s speakers will include:

“Just How Vulnerable is Your Phone System?”

• Sandro Gauci—“Just How Vulnerable is Your Phone System?” Sandro is the author of “SIPVicious,” one of the most popular brute-force attack test kit systems for SIP platforms. He’ll talk about attack methods, vulnerabilities administrators should understand and how to mitigate these issues on Asterisk.
• Jim Kerr—“Orbitz and Asterisk: How We Did It.” Orbitz has implemented Asterisk to handle customer calls. Learn how this huge travel management agency integrated the platform with its legacy system, deployed it across call centers and achieved PCI security compliance.
• Simon Perreault—“IPv6 in Asterisk 1.8.” Asterisk will support IPv6 in 1.8, and Simon will talk about the changes, configuration requirements and fundamentals of IPv6 required to get Asterisk running. Then, as part of a double-long session, he will walk through configuration of an entire platform on a purely IPv6 network.
• more after the jump.

Freebinar.com announces the release of its latest feature, VoIP audio broadcasting. This new feature allows presenters to use their computer microphone or headset to deliver the audio portion of their webinars, eliminating the need for phone conferencing. Webinar attendees simply log on to the webinar through their web browsers and can hear the presenter through their computer speakers. In addition to the new VoIP audio broadcasting capabilities that have been introduced, Freebinar also offers a free conference call number to all users of the service to facilitate highly interactive, smaller online meetings.

Cellcrypt has launched a secure conference service that provides both device authentication and voice call encryption to participants using popular mobile phones like BlackBerry and Nokia smartphones.

Organisations depend on conference calls to run their daily operations and often discuss confidential and highly sensitive information on calls such as sales, supplier and executive management meetings, intellectual property discussions, high value business deal talks, crisis management calls or even discussions concerning disaster scenarios and national security.

InnoMedia has reached an agreement with Clearcable Networks to distribute InnoMedia ESBC products. This distribution agreement will allow Clearcable to deliver products anywhere in Canada. Clearcable is strategically located in Ontario and, with its focus on mid-market MSOs, it will be able to facilitate the adoption of Smart-DQoS technology as the premier solution to voice system bandwidth prioritization using InnoMedia's ESBC 8528-4B. The InnoMedia ESBC with Smart-DQoS is based on InnoMedia's exclusive Device-initiated DQoS technology.

Despite lingering questions about overall quality of service, enterprises are becoming more comfortable with the use of SIP trunking as a low-cost alternative to legacy telecom services, a change that will result in a growth in deployment from 8.5 million SIP trunks in 2009 to 24.3 million trunks in 2013, according to the latest report published by Heavy Reading IP Services Insider, a subscription research service from TechWeb's Heavy Reading.

VoIP Innovations will be introducing Canadian origination this week, giving customers the ability to receive calls, purchase DIDs, and port telephone numbers in Canada.

VoIP Innovations now offers an origination footprint covering most of the United States and Canada, cementing their position as the top domestic VoIP wholesaler in North America.

VoIP Innovations plans further growth with Canadian termination coverage, with service in Puerto Rico and Hawaii to follow later this quarter, making for a complete North American service package. Customers will be able to enjoy a full array of domestic VoIP services from a single wholesale provider, including origination, termination, local and toll-free number porting, and features such as CNAM and T.38 faxing.

Skype announces it has expanded its pay-for-call offerings for advertisers. Click & Call Advertising with Skype supported by Marchex, is an advertising program which provides an efficient and measureable way to acquire new customers by using Skype to drive inbound calls. Skype is launching this offering for the first time in the U.S., Canada and Western Europe through a partnership with Marchex Inc., a leading call advertising company, which will help manage, operate and sell Click & Call Advertising with Skype.

XO Communication announces the availability of a new Savings Estimator tool that gives enterprises the ability to calculate an approximate cost-savings benefit of utilizing XO Enterprise SIP. Designed specifically for multi-location enterprises, the award-winning XO Enterprise SIP enables customers to simplify, streamline and achieve better cost savings by transforming their distributed voice network architecture to a more centralized and cost-effective VoIP solution.

The XO Enterprise SIP Savings Estimator tool provides a snapshot of potential savings by factoring in the number of employees, network locations and intra-company long distance calls. The tool also takes into consideration the multiple cost-savings benefits of XO Enterprise SIP, including increased network management efficiency and lowered operating costs as a result of reducing equipment, local voice trunks, long distance and multiple voice and data network charges.

BroadSoft announces customer growth of BroadSoft PacketSmart. Responding to increased global demand for end-to-end VoIP network monitoring, PacketSmart has been selected by InTechnology and Alteva to ensure high quality of service and minimize the challenges encountered in the delivery of real-time communication services.

Both InTechnology and Alteva have already seen PacketSmart help to significantly improve QoS for their customers. BroadSoft PacketSmart is designed to enable service providers and enterprises, to deliver "carrier-grade" service quality all the way into the customer local area network, even when they do not control the end-to-end network.

360networks announces expansion of coverage in Sacramento, California. With this expansion 360networks can now provide wholesale VoIP services in 47 rate centers, covering more than 1.4 million people in the greater Sacramento area.

This expansion increases availability of 360networks wholesale IP Origination and IP Termination services to 1,488 rate centers and 70 million people in 17 states across the western U.S., leveraging 360networks’ wholly-owned 17,200 route miles of fiber optic backbone.

VoxOx announces the immediate availability of virtual phone numbers. This new offering enables consumers to create multiple customized telephone numbers that route to their VoxOx account, and can also be routed to other phones (work, home, mobile, etc.). Consumers can select their virtual phone numbers from more than 100 area codes in the U.S. and Canada. They also have the ability to do a “vanity” search for memorable digits and word spellings.

VoxOx virtual numbers are being offered in addition to the free phone numbers that every VoxOx user receives upon sign-up. Each virtual number costs $1.95 per month or $19.95 per year – one third of the cost of Skype’s online numbers. Differentiators of VoxOx virtual numbers include support for inbound SMS and fax.

ooVoo announces the results of a blind study conducted by a third party research firm to demonstrate how its product stacks up against category leader Skype.

The study results show that ooVoo is preferred by 8 out of 10 Skype users, who cited superior sound and video quality as some of the reasons why they favored ooVoo for a better video communication experience delivered anywhere, anytime.

In addition to quality, a number of factors contribute to users’ overall preference of ooVoo over Skype. For example, ooVoo offers 6-way multi-point chat, versus Skype which offers only 5-way, a feature that’s currently in a beta testing phase and has experienced a number of bugs1. ooVoo hosts video chat on dedicated servers that keep quality more consistent. Skype’s technology relies on users’ individual processors making service less reliable in situations with uncertain bandwidth.

VocalTec and YMAX Corp., the creator of magicJack and other products and services have successfully merged and will be traded on the Nasdaq under the symbol: CALL. VocalTec stock will seize to be trading using the symbol (NasdaqCM:VOCL) after close of business today July, 16th 2010. It will commence trading using the symbol (Nasdaq: CALL) on Monday, July 19th, 2010. The parties believe that the combined company has an enterprise value of $245 million and a per share value at least $17.50. The previous holders of VocalTec will have 1,173,294 shares of common stock following the merger. VocalTec expects to have revenues ranging from $110 million to $125 million this year. With over $40 million cash/securities on hand and no debt, VocalTec expects to show a profit in the current quarter. For additional information on this announcement we recommend that investors read the entire press release and the VocalTec press release describing the stock split and review the form 6-K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that we expect to be filed on or before Monday, July 19th, 2010, described below.

So far, keeping in touch with friends and family has been a costly affair when being away on holiday. However, with a Vopium software application downloaded directly to your mobile phone, cheap calls can be made to e.g. Thailand, Spain or Turkey. Moreover, you get the first 15 minutes free of charge.

Receiving a high mobile phone bill is always an unpleasant experience, and especially sky-high prices on international mobile calls can make a quick ending to a conversation. A call from a mobile phone in the UK to e.g. a hotel in Turkey costs about £1 per minute. But a new software application for mobile phones called Vopium makes it easy to make cheap international calls. A phone call from the UK to a fixed line or mobile phone in Thailand only costs 2 pence plus the local UK mobile rate – that is roughly the same price as calling from London to Birmingham.

Telefónica Europe announces the roll-out of IP-based international calling services, built on the JAJAH IP Communications Platform, across its O2 businesses in Europe.

The first of these services -- O2 Global Friends -- gives O2 customers in Germany the ability to make international calls by dialing a local number. It is the first time a top tier operator has launched IP-based mobile services to its customers, and comes just six months after its acquisition of JAJAH.

The JAJAH IP Communications Platform gives Telefónica the ability to bring a wide range of innovative new calling solutions and enhanced voice services to more than 54 million O2 customers across Europe, dramatically cutting the cost of long distance calling from mobile phones.