Vonage has utilized VoIP technology to drastically reduce the amount of overhead small companies and regular consumers are required to pay for basic communication. Now is the time to get in at the ground level, when prices are low and companies like Vonage-Promotions.com are offering attractive cash-back incentives.

Axvoice now offers a discount in shape of a monthly rebate to the subscribers who sign up for its Residential Unlimited USA/Canada Plan. Just make a one-time payment of $99 and get one whole year of service. Want to make Unlimited Calls in the United States and Canada? Axvoice’s Residential USA/Canada plan is the right choice. Subscribe for this package for $99 / year. That’s only $8.25 per month and it’s a saving of over 80% when compared to landline service provider. If you do not want to pay upfront we offer the same plan at $11.99 / month with monthly payment option. It’s really an interesting offer that certainly attracts the users.

TalkFree has launched PickRoute, an A-to-Z VoIP termination service for small and medium-sized businesses and resellers already utilizing a VoIP switch or IP PBX. By employing SIP Trunking, customers connect to the service and access TalkFree’s advanced intelligent network and routing technologies and over 60 leading telecom carriers managed by the company’s patent-pending Global Intelligent Routing software.

Acme Packet announces the launch of the Acme Packet enterprise seminar series, Deploying SIP Services Successfully, kicking off in San Francisco on May 20, continuing on to New York, May 25, Chicago, May 26 and ending in Washington, D.C., on June 2. The goal of this series is to educate enterprises, contact centers and government agencies about the significant challenges of integrating SIP trunking, video conferencing, unified communications, contact centers and hosted cloud communication services, and the role of session border control in ensuring interoperability, security, quality, availability, and regulatory compliance.

Cellcrypt launches Cellcrypt Enterprise Gateway which enables business executives to securely call office desk phones from their cell phone. The solution is aimed at senior executives travelling to hostile countries where phone interception is widespread.

In addition, mobile executives can securely access standard office telephony features – such as voicemail, conference calls and calling out to the public telephone network – allowing them to seamlessly continue their normal business routine when abroad assured that confidential corporate and personal information is kept private.

Research In Motion announces BlackBerry Mobile Voice System 5 with voice over Wi-Fi calling. BlackBerry MVS 5 works with Cisco Unified Communications Manager to provide a business user with the ability to use their regular desk phone number and extension from their BlackBerry smartphone. With the new version 5, an employee will be able to use a single work phone number shared between their desk phone and BlackBerry smartphone and make and receive enterprise calls on their BlackBerry smartphone over a Wi-Fi connection, adding to the existing capability available over cellular networks.

CenturyLink and Qwest announce that their boards of directors have approved a definitive agreement under which CenturyLink will acquire Qwest in a tax-free, stock-for-stock transaction. Under the terms of the agreement, Qwest shareholders will receive 0.1664 CenturyLink shares for each share of Qwest common stock they own at closing. Upon closing of the transaction, CenturyLink shareholders are expected to own approximately 50.5 percent and Qwest shareholders are expected to own approximately 49.5 percent of the combined company.

gateProtect released a security patch for its Unified Threat Management appliances that allows companies to block the use of Skype. This gives them a reliable way of stopping dangerous malware from entering the network via a potential security vulnerability, while preventing unwanted messaging and chatting during working hours. The patch, called HU-01050, is available immediately and will be installed automatically on all gateProtect firewall systems from Version 8.6 via the update server.

Voxbone announces that incumbent telecommunications carriers have begun routing calls to its geographically-independent iNum numbers – previously used solely by VoIP providers.

iNum numbers, which Voxbone introduced more than a year ago, use a global “country code” (883) and can ring phones anywhere in the world. They offer customers of participating service providers a globally portable number for life.

Carrier adoption is key to widespread iNum usage and, Voxbone said, points to the future primacy of IP communications.

Broadvox and UM Labs announce interoperability certification between Broadvox GO! SIP Trunking and UM Labs’ family of enhanced SIP security controllers.

“Interoperability certification provides resellers and customers with confidence that Broadvox’s growing ecosystem of technology partners can support their specific PBX environment and provide enhanced cost effective connectivity and security solutions”, said Isaac Parampottil, Director of Product Management at Broadvox. “We welcome UM Labs as a technology interop partner.”

XConnect announces a strong representation of the U.S. VoIP service providers offering HD voice service are participating in a trial of the world’s first IP-peering federation created for exchanging HD voice traffic.

Alteva, Broadvox, Ooma, Phone.com, SimpleSignal, Stage 2 Networks, Telesphere, TurboBridge and ZipDX are taking part in XConnect’s trial, launched April 1.

The trial is designed for the exchange of high-definition calls between networks using XConnect’s secure and scalable carrier ENUM-based interconnection services.

Global IP Solutions announces the availability of HD and Super-wideband Voice as well as one-way Video Conferencing/Chat capabilities for iPad developers, powered by GIPS VideoEngine Mobile.

GIPS VideoEngine Mobile supplies iPad developers with a simple to integrate, high-level software API that contains the complex video conferencing/video chat capabilities into applications running on Apple's iPad operating system. As video access becomes available from Apple, GIPS VideoEngine will support two-way video chat/conferencing.

Cordia launches a new global long distance calling plan in the United States. With this product, Cordia has combined the power and reach of its global communications network with its U.S. landline services to provide the lowest possible price to its customers with the highest possible quality.

The global calling plan provides access from up to three lines, including cell phones, with unlimited calls to the U.S. and over 50 countries for only $19.95 a month. Customers can make calls from their home or office landline with the added convenience of using their cell phone to make calls anytime of the day. The global calling plan is a direct dial product and unlike a prepaid calling card does not require a lengthy authorization code to be used in placing calls. It also does not require a computer connection or internet access to complete the call. These calls are all accessed through the local telephone network and then utilize Cordia’s global switching network to provide the highest quality connections.

CounterPath announces the launch of NomadicPBX a turnkey platform for enabling converged mobile and broadband SIP voice, messaging and presence services. Available immediately, NomadicPBX gives wireless carriers and mobile virtual network operators a cost-effective way to launch enterprise fixed-mobile convergence services.

The NomadicPBX application is a presence-based, fixed and mobile voice, and instant messaging/short message service technology mashup with a select set of enterprise-ready features. Based on CounterPath’s Network Convergence Gateway platform and leveraging the company’s patented technology, NomadicPBX enables wireless operators and other service providers to extend their feature sets into small and medium enterprises, which currently account for one-third of all hosted VoIP deployments, according to a recent Infonetics Research survey.

Ooma announces the availability of Ooma PureVoice technology, designed to ensure excellent voice quality under the most demanding broadband conditions.

Ooma PureVoice technology is comprised of four key components:

Advanced voice compression

Ooma uses an advanced voice compression algorithm that reduces bandwidth consumption by 60% over standard VoIP technology and is more capable of withstanding packet loss without degradation. This leaves you with more bandwidth for all other online activities and increases the likelihood that your voice traffic will be delivered properly by your ISP.