SonicWALL announces Patrick Sweeney, VP of Product Management and its resident expert on VoIP and video technologies, is available for comment about the threats associated with VoIP and video transmissions. He is also available to discuss the emerging requirements to control bandwidth and prioritize business critical applications as converged networks continue to grow. If interested, he can comment on the recent attempts by certain governments to control VoIP use.

Dash Carrier Services announces that it will be the exclusive E911 emergency service solutions provider for Gizmo5. Gizmo5 offers VoIP services to both consumers and businesses. Users can make and receive calls from any computer with browser access to the Internet, or use Gizmo5 to power IP phones. Also, Gizmo5 adds a host of features like call recording, IM, file sharing, and much more. Setting up a Gizmo5 account is free, as are inbound calls to a Gizmo client, with a small fee for outbound dialing.

8x8 announces that OfficeMax is offering the 8x8/Aastra co-branded 6755i IP business phone, bundled with the 8x8 Virtual Office suite of business phone services, at approximately 400 select OfficeMax retail locations in the United States and online.

The plug-and-play 8x8/Aastra 6755i IP phone serves as an endpoint for the 8x8 Virtual Office hosted IP PBX business phone service, currently in use by over 17,000 businesses. 8x8 Virtual Office provides businesses with a complete, enterprise class phone system at a fraction of the cost of a traditional PBX and roughly half the cost of traditional business phone service. The 8x8/Aastra IP phones plug into any broadband Internet connection to allow users to immediately make or receive calls without performing any network configuration or firewall manipulation. In addition, the 8x8/Aastra IP phones deliver enhanced features including corporate directory display and lookup, extension dialing and transfers, intercom paging, shared line appearance and an embedded XML browser.

Speakeasy announces a 24 percent year-over-year growth in its VoIP customer base, highlighting three small business customers as examples. By switching to Speakeasy Hosted Voice service, these companies are saving thousands of dollars over traditional phone service, and taking advantage of advanced VoIP features to power their business.

Nuvio Corporation is releasing an updated version of its popular hosted PBX system, nPBX. The year-long re-development effort is a complete rework of the previous system with increased stability, usability and features.

Along with the redesign of the system itself, the Web-based user interface for the nPBX system was also rebuilt with design focus revolving around usability. The new Web-portal features an intuitive way to interface with the new system for end-users, administrators as well as agents and wholesalers.

360networks has further expanded its wholesale VoIP footprint by adding 24 new rate centers in the Forth Worth, TX area. With this latest expansion 360networks can now provide its full suite of wholesale VoIP services to 1,315 rate centers with the ability to reach over 61 million people in the western US.

Make Smart Decisions in this Tough Environment

The industry is being shaken up — Consolidation means some companies will leave the field as new ones enter. There are emerging technologies and architectures.

The fate of a huge number of products and services is uncertain, and therefore so is the fate of the networks that rely on them.

VoiceCon San Francisco will deliver the insight you need to make the critical decisions that will shape your enterprise communications platform, systems, applications and services.

eBay has signed a definitive agreement to sell its Skype communications unit in a deal valuing the business at $2.75 billion. The buyer, who will control an approximately 65 percent stake, is an investor group led by Silver Lake and includes Index Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board. eBay is expected to receive approximately $1.9 billion in cash upon the completion of the sale and a note from the buyer in the principal amount of $125 million. The company will retain an approximately 35 percent equity investment in Skype. The transaction, which is not subject to a financing condition, is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2009.

VoIP Logic announces an agreement through which it will absorb Sundial Network Services, a VoIP engineering professional services firm. Sundial CEO, Ardeshir Ghanbarzadeh, will assume the role of Vice President of Operations for VoIP Logic.

This action combines two segment leaders into one company; more than a dozen former Sundial customers will now be served under the VoIP Logic umbrella by the same Sundial personnel. In addition, these service providers will enjoy access to VoIP Logic’s extensive technology and managed services portfolio, while VoIP Logic customers will enjoy immediate access to an expanded array of professional services.

Grandstream Networks announces the general availability of the GXV3140 IP Multimedia Phone, a new class of broadband IP multimedia phone that marries Web and social multimedia applications with free, real-time IP video and voice calling. The GXV3140 allows consumers and small to medium-size businesses to harness the power and cost-effectiveness of Voice-and-VoIP to make free video calls worldwide and to strengthen relationships with business colleagues/customers as well as family and friends. In addition, the always-on GXV3140 comes with an integrated web browser giving users one-touch access to personalized RSS feeds of real-time online information services (news updates, stock updates, weather forecasts, directory searches, etc.), thousands of Internet radio stations, social networking sites and popular streaming Internet entertainment sites like YouTube.

The SIP Forum proudly announces that membership in the association continues to be strong across all categories, including dues paying, corporate Full Membership; Academic Institutions; and individual, “Participant” membership. Currently, the SIP Forum has 48 Full Member companies, five Academic Members, and more than 6,500 individual members from around the world.

Companies that have joined the SIP Forum as Full Members since the association last reported membership details include Bell Canada; 8x8, Inc.; Optimum Lightpath, a division of Cablevision Systems Corporation; Cedar Point Communications; Comcast Cable; Cox Communications; Genband, Inc; NET; Nortel; PAETEC; Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.; ShoreTel Inc.; and XO Communications.

C2Call launches with FriendCaller 3 its iPhone OS 3.0 version of FriendCaller, the only iPhone app on iTunes that can establish a free Internet call with anyone on the Internet. This breaks with the convention of allowing free calls only between registered users of a service who had to have installed identical software first.

FriendCaller is an easy-to-use, browser based VoIP solution allowing users to make free calls from the website to anyone on the Internet, with no software installation for the “callee” or person being called. Additionally, the invited call participant is not even required to register. The peer-to-peer calls work with any browser on Windows, OS X and Linux, and now with FriendCaller 3 as an OS 3.0 app for the original iPhone, iPhone 3G, 3GS and the iPod touch (2nd Generation).

The main engines of growth in South Korea's telecom market from 2010 to 2014 will be services built around broadband technologies such as VoIP, IPTV, and mobile data, according to the latest report from Pyramid Research.

Communications Markets in South Korea offers a precise, incisive profile of the country's converged telecommunications, media, and technology sectors based on proprietary data from our research in the South Korean market. The 29-page report provides detailed competitive analysis of both the fixed and mobile sectors, tracks the market shares of technologies and services, and monitors the introduction and spread of new technologies such as WiMax, IPTV, and VoIP. This executive study provides a comprehensive view of the South Korea communications market by analyzing key trends, evaluating near-term opportunities and assessing upcoming risks factors.