Quick HD voice stats from IT EXPO East 2012

Miami, FL and Washington DC – At the “HD Voice: Improving Voice Quality to Meet Demands of U.S. Customers” panel at IT EXPO East 2012, representatives from Polycom and Neutral Tandem revealed some numbers worth repeating.

Jeff Rodman, CTO and co-founder of Polycom, estimated that his company has shipped all total about three (3) million HD voice [...]

Heard at IT EXPO East 2012 – Canadian phone companies hurry to eNum registry

Miami, FL – Canadian phone companies are taking efforts to interop very seriously after a January 19 regulatory ruling. The service providers are engaging in discussions on how to set up a national eNum registry as quickly as possible.

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) wants phone companies “to rapidly adopt Internet Protocol (IP) throughout [...]

Polycom announces cloud strategy for video-as-a-service

Like everyone else on the planet, Polycom (www.polycom.com) has announced it is adding a service/cloud model rather than simply sticking to a hardware/software sales strategy.  In this case, Polycom will be providing RealPresence Cloud, a wholesale, carry-ready offering to enable service providers to bring Video-as-a-service (VaaS) offerings quickly to market.

RealPresence Cloud solutions are designed to deliver [...]

XConnect sets up IP federation hub in Germany with DE-CIX

XConnect (www.xconnect.com) has set up a partnership with Germany’s DE-CIX to establish the first NGN/VoIP federation in the country.  Service providers will now be able to use the federation to directly exchange IP voice and multimedia traffic.

As a part of the partnership, a “secure and scalable” federation hub and central carrier ENUM-based routing and numbers management [...]

Microsoft Lync does standards-based HD voice in Polycom interop

Polycom’s new Microsoft’s Lync solutions don’t speak Microsoft RTA.  Instead, the SIP standard devices and phones will all talk through Lync using G.722 and G.722.1 (Siren) for HD voice support.

Polycom announced “the broadest ranges of UC solutions” interoperable with Microsoft’s UC platform last week, citing over 40 systems, including a “custom-built” video collaboration solution, the [...]

Italtel announces NetMatch network appliances with HD voice support

Italtel has rolled out the Netmatch series of interconnection products.  The new network appliances are designed to provide guaranteed QoS network interconnection between traditional TDM and all-IP networks – wired and wireless – with support for HD voice and video.

Specific scenarios cited include network migration from TDM to IP, migration of mobile networks to LTE and [...]

Verizon expands VoIP to Asia; finally enables “select” HD voice and video interop via VIPER

Verizon Business has expanded its VoIP solution to the Asia-Pacific region through its global network. The company has also finally added inter-company HD voice and video (i.e. SIP interop) for “select” VoIP customers that use Verizon’s opt-in VIPER IP-to-IP routing feature to skip out on per minute domestic and international charges on calls.

“Verizon is also adding [...]

CableLabs announces PeerConnect Registry–2 years after going into operation

Two years after starting operations, CableLabs has officially announced the PeerConnect registry, a service to facility end-to-end IP communications.  The service provides a telephony number translation service for IP, enabling cable companies to distribute numbers and other IP session routing information to enable direct IP voice, video, SMS, and other SIP-based communications forms. Comcast, Cablevision, Cox, [...]

Editorial–The uphill battle on HD voice interconnection

One of the two panels I moderated in Austin, TX last week was on migrating interconnections between TDM and IP to IMS (peering), but the real eye opener was talking to some of the hosted VoIP service providers on the show floor.  Most of them didn’t know who Neutral Tandem or XConnect were and one… well… [...]

XConnect announces AudioCodes G.722/AMR-WB transcoding for its customers

XConnect (www.xconnect.net) is touting an AudioCodes HD voice transcoding solution between wireline and wireless networks for its HD Alliance customers.  The Alliance is an IP-based federation with 11 service providers.

The new capability uses XConnect’s carrier-ENUM registry and IP interconnection services along with AudioCodes’ Mediant 3000 transcoding solution.  XConnect says the solution has been “tested” and “certified” [...]