HelloSoft announces its VoIP technology is ready for Passive Optical Network. The PON, which can carry all three types of traffic natively in packet form over a single fiber connection from the central office to the customer premises, is a perfect platform for launching packet-based VoIP service. VoPON is based on the universal standards-based SIP signaling protocol. It is the only protocol that can scale for multimedia services and future integration with IMS wireless networks. Carriers that deploy HelloSoft VoIP therefore gain a range of options for leveraging their investment and generating new revenue streams. HelloSoft is keeping up the pace by launching its VoIP for PON initiative.

Pantel and IPextreme jointly announce the establishment of a strategic development initiative addressing the problem of automatic location of 911 emergency calls within an Internet protocol telephone network built on a ColdFire microprocessor platform. This initiative will enable emergency calls placed using VOIP telephone services to be properly located based on the geographic location of the call.

Currently, emergency calls placed using VOIP services are not automatically dispatched to the physical location of the call, but rather to the address listed on the caller’s account. The ELI is an innovative IP appliance that will enable the dispatch center to immediately identify the physical location of the call correctly, thus ensuring that first responders are directed to the proper location.

Research and Markets announces the addition of "SIP Enabled Servers and IP PBX Market Shares, Strategies, and Forecasts, 2008 to 2014" to their offering.

SIP based IP PBX markets are poised for significant growth as people move to purchase IP based servers for communications. Significant pent up demand will be converted to sales as systems are put on the market that permit implementation of voice over IP that works. Voice over IP systems purchases have been postponed for ten years or more, waiting for technology that works. VoIP technology finally works.

AltiGen Communications has entered into a master distribution agreement with Boport Tele-Communication BV, a leading distributor of communications products and services in the Benelux countries -- Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg.

Boport will offer AltiGen's complete line of VoIP business phone systems, including branch office, enterprise and call center solutions, to its own reseller channel via sub-distributors for telecommunications and IT. In addition, Boport will offer its channel partners specialized sales, marketing and technical training in order to quickly ramp-up and support new AltiGen resellers.

An industry summit in London will provide a unique forum to discuss some of the critical issues facing media companies and network operators as a result of new online and mobile broadband services.

The focus of the second annual Broadband Connect Summit is "Enabling fixed and wireless networks for broadband media services". The conference will include senior speakers and representatives from global brands including BT, BBC Worldwide, Virgin Media, Alcatel-Lucent, Admob and Disney.

Existing online and mobile network infrastructure is being stretched by the increasing demand for rich media services. Next generation networks promise to bring new entertainment services to the home and the handset but will require significant investment by operators.

Edgewater Networks announce that its EdgeMarc VoIP VPN Network Services Gateways are compliant with key Internet protocol telephony solutions from Avaya. The EdgeMarc VoIP VPN Network Services Gateway successfully completed compliance testing with Avaya Communication Manager release 4.0 and Avaya IP Office release 4.1.9.

The EdgeMarc VoIP VPN solution helps businesses simplify office connectivity, enable secure, high-quality voice and reduce problem resolution times through remote monitoring and troubleshooting capabilities. The VoIP VPN appliance includes an all-in-one access gateway with T1 CSU/DSU or Ethernet WAN, IPSec VPNs, stateful packet inspection firewall, VoIP prioritization, traffic shaping, passive call quality monitoring and managed Ethernet switch.

Nimbuzz announces the UK launch of an application to provide mobile users and online communities with "free calls, chat and more." Nimbuzz offers an all-in-one solution for free mobile VoIP calling, conference calling, instant messaging, chat and group chat, and photo and file sending across multiple IM communities, including Skype, MSN, Google Talk, Yahoo!, AIM, Jabber and ICQ, plus 23 social networks, including Facebook and Myspace.

Once users download the Nimbuzz application for the mobile and register as a new user, contacts from their selected IM communities are aggregated into a single contact list with icons indicating real-time "presence" - which contacts are online or offline and from which communities.

Challenger Mobile has observed a consistent and marked change in attitudes toward Mobile VoIP service deployments throughout the mobile ecosystem. Both in the company's ongoing dialog with operators and service providers, and in mVoIP deployment announcements by major providers, Challenger sees the industry adopting a much more receptive stance toward Mobile VoIP service offerings since the third quarter of 2007.

Last October, Hutchison 3 (branded as 3) and Skype announced a partnership in which Skype users could sign-up for 3G mobile service on 3's network and subsequently place free Skype Mobile VoIP calls. Since that time, several major operators have announced Internet telephony service plans and strategies, including Vodafone in Germany, Samsung in Korea, FarEasTone in Taiwan and others. Others have moved more aggressively with full production service deployments, such as Singtel's Mio Mobile service in Singapore and Star Hub's Pfingo Talk. What's more, other carriers such as Sprint and DoCoMo have announced mobile VoIP-based push-to-talk applications, setting the stage for future pure-play mVoIP services.

Texas Instruments announces the newest members of its VoIP gateway silicon and software solutions that will enable equipment manufacturers to achieve higher channel densities with improved voice quality. TI's newest gateway solutions are powered by its TMS320C64x+ digital signal processor that significantly increases performance for VoIP and video encode, decode and transcode applications. The flexible architecture of TI's new solutions allows equipment manufacturers to transition to a common hardware and software architecture that scales from eight to several hundreds of channels while supporting advanced voice and video features.

Digium and Integrics have partnered around the sales and marketing of Integrics’ Enswitch to carriers worldwide. The agreement provides a route for closer technical, sales and marketing collaboration between the companies and expands Digium’s involvement in the carrier market.

Digium is the creator and driving force behind Asterisk, the open source telephony software deployed by more than 4 million servers worldwide to manage VoIP calls for businesses and individuals. More resellers, telecom professionals and software developers choose Digium’s products than those of any other open source telephony company because only Digium delivers the technical superiority, security and flexibility associated with Asterisk. Asterisk powers Digium’s family of software and hardware appliances, including Switchvox, Asterisk Business Edition and AsteriskNOW.