Covad has certified IP PBXs from TalkSwitch, Grandstream, Vertical and Epygi for its new Covad Integrated Access service.

IP PBXs certified by Covad include:

• TalkSwitch IP PBX equipped for VoIP (models 244/248vs, 284/288vs, 484/488vs and 844/848vs)
• Grandstream GXE502X ALL-IN-ONE IPPBX
• Vertical Xcelerator IP
• Epygi Quadro 2x and Quadro 4x IP PBX

i2Telecom's MyGlobalTalk was included in a special report highlighting the advantages of VoIP that was distributed in USA Today, the largest circulation daily newspaper in the nation, on Friday, December 5, 2008. The extensive review of the overall benefits of VoIP, including the specific benefits of VoIP for long distance and mobile calling purposes, was included in issues of the paper distributed in five major metropolitan cities, including New York, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Baltimore/Washington and Chicago. The insert was available in over 750,000 papers, which have a pass-along readership of approximately 1.8 million readers, and was designed to provide business-oriented readers with a broader understanding of VoIP and the current and future applications for the technology.

Several years ago, VoIP was one of the hottest and most hyped technologies in the communications industry. Today, with approximately 30 percent of all international voice traffic occurring over VoIP, people are wondering what's next? What does the future of VoIP look like?

Nortel knows one thing is for sure - the future of VoIP is more than just voice. VoIP is a building block for next-generation networks that include both voice and multimedia to enable innovative communications applications. Nortel has deployed more than 100 million VoIP ports around the world and believes that the future of VoIP is all about changing our lives, homes and businesses in interesting new ways.

Nortel has selected Verizon IP Trunking service with Burstable Enterprise Shared Trunks, which will enable Nortel to consolidate its U.S. corporate voice infrastructure. Under a new three-year agreement, Nortel will evolve its traditional voice system to Verizon IP Trunking VoIP service, which is based on SIP. In addition, Verizon Business will manage Nortel's existing Verizon Private IP network, enabling Nortel to benefit from expanded managed network service capabilities and industry-leading service level agreements.

D-Link and New Global Telecom agree to co-market phones and services for small business users using Microsoft Response Point. The pairing of NGT Digital Voice phone services that connect directly to the D-Link VoiceCenter phone system will provide the small business with an affordable solution to seamlessly merge traditional phone systems with feature-rich, affordable VoIP services without needing telephony expertise. By creating an all-in-one phone solution, small businesses can realize an increased value proposition, saving up to 50% in costs.

Allin is pleased to announce that they have earned the third Unified Communications competency specialization in Voice through the Microsoft Partner Program. Earning the Voice specialization requires the completion of competency testing and a rigorous technical readiness program that includes specific staffing requirements and an internal deployment of the complete Microsoft Unified Communications offering. Microsoft partners who achieve the Microsoft Unified Communications competency Voice specialization are qualified by Microsoft to deploy Microsoft unified communications technologies such as Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 Unified Messaging and Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007, including VoIP and audio, video, and Web conferencing.

We receive a number of requests for ways one can receive detailed research and analysis of top vendors who provide complete PBX systems and IP-PBX packages for large, medium, or small businesses. There's no easier way than signing up to receive your own free PBX Guide from PBX-Guide.com. The free guide includes the benefits a PBX system should bring to your company and exactly what you need to know before committing to a specific vendor and solution. Let PBX-Guide.com do the research work for you and give step-by-step directions to important decision-making considerations to PBX and VoIP solution providers for companies of all sizes.

Simply visit PBX-Guide and fill out their short form and get your FREE step-by-step PBX Guide today.

SunPorch has reduced its annual advertising spend by $100,000 because of its deployment of PBXtra Call Center from Fonality. Fonality’s call center system, which was chosen over more costly and less flexible solutions from Avaya, Cisco and 3Com, enabled SunPorch to revitalize its marketing programs. With PBXtra Call Center, SunPorch is able to track the success of individual advertisements to eliminate unnecessary ad spending and gather enhanced business intelligence to better define and measure new revenue-generating marketing campaigns.

TalkSwitch ships its 35,000th phone system. That’s more phone systems than any other company that has entered this segment since the launch of the company’s first product. With 35,000 units shipped in the USA, Canada, Mexico, Australia and the UK, TalkSwitch leads the market, well ahead of later entrants like Digium, Allworx, Fonality and Microsoft.

Ribbit announces general availability of the Ribbit developer platform, opening the doors to software developers, integrators, and carriers around the globe that are looking for ways to develop and deploy the next-generation of telecommunications services. Ribbit launched the platform today, just 4 months after their acquisition by BT, at the Adobe MAX conference. Adobe MAX is the premier venue for the next-generation Web developers that populate Ribbit's 7,500-plus community.

How the world crisis affects telecoms? What tricks can you expect and how is it possible to protect yourself from them? We decided to talk about it with Daniel, executive manager of www.voipfraud.net – so far the most reliable anti-fraud web-portal concerning VoIP business. He noted that during the last month the number of publications about cases of fraud on www.voipfraud.net increased by about 20 percent against the previous month. “We had 5 companies added only during the last two days” – he says, - “the number of registered users on our portal has essentially increased as well. We believe, it shows that people are concerned about the situation on telecommunications’ market and they are trying to get as much information, as they can, to protect themselves.”

Nortel is showcasing IPTV and Video solutions that are blurring the boundaries across TV, Internet, consumer devices and mobile phones by integrating services like text messaging, VoIP, media sharing, and interactive applications into the entertainment experience. Nortel is demonstrating these capabilities at TelcoTV 2008 from November 11 to 13.

Nimbuzz announces its first key revenue sharing partnership with a social network, formalising its push to provide online communities with real time web and mobile communication. StudiVZ, the biggest German speaking social networking site, becomes the first in a series of international networking sites to integrate the Nimbuzz technology into its community, bringing real-time web and mobile communication capabilities to members for the first time.

VoIP Supply announces the addition of the Microsoft Response Point family of small business VoIP phone systems to its product catalog. VoIP Supply will offer the complete line of Microsoft Response Point small business VoIP phone systems from Microsoft’s OEM partners, Aastra, D-Link and Quanta. The addition of the Response Point product lines will allow VoIP Supply to continue to exceed the expectations of what small businesses are looking for in a VoIP phone system.

SimpleSignal has entered into a partnership with Ribbit. SimpleSignal will add the Ribbit for Salesforce CRM application to its portfolio of carrier-grade hosted VoIP solutions. The announcement was made at Dreamforce '08, salesforce.com's user and developer conference.

Ribbit for Salesforce CRM seamlessly links voice communications and instant messaging with Salesforce CRM. Ribbit's state of the art voice-to-text capabilities and innovative features increase productivity throughout the sales process. It is built on Ribbit's open voice integration platform to power a new generation of voice applications and services for businesses and consumers.