TMCnet News
VoIP Week in Review from TMCnet: iPhone Debuts!TMCnet Contributing Editor This week, the VoIP Minute Watch covers iPhone's debut and news from Alcatel-Lucent, AT&T and Skype (News - Alert).
The much anticipated iPhone hit the market Monday, leaving most of us scratching our heads. Expecting a launch from Apple, I'm sure many were surprised to see it released from Linksys (News - Alert)!
The Cisco division unveiled its iPhone suite of VoIP handheld devices which integrates services from Yahoo! Messenger with Voice, to help enable real-time presence features that can allow consumers to see when their friends and family are actually online and ready to talk; Local Search and weather forecasts; and access to music, photos, and streaming video. Included in the suite are two new products: the iPhone Dual-Mode Internet Telephony Kit for Skype and the iPhone Wireless-G Phone for Skype.
The iPhone suite also features the iPhone Cordless Internet Telephony Kit CIT200; the iPhone Dual-Mode Internet Telephony Kit CIT300; the iPhone Wireless-G IP
 Phone WIP300; the iPhone Wireless-G IP Phone with Web Browser WIP330; and the iPhone Dual-Mode Cordless Phone for Yahoo! Messenger with Voice.Alcatel (News - Alert)-Lucent introduced also on Monday the OmniSwitch 9800, a suite of 10-Gigabit Ethernet
core switches with chassis said to feature twice the capacity of the Alcatel-Lucent OmniSwitch 9700. The newly formed Alcatel-Lucent conglomerate also made available a new high-density 10-Gigabit Ethernet module and a new power-over-Ethernet (PoE) Gigabit Ethernet module. Alcatel-Lucent introduced the new suite wanting to target enterprise network administrators needing switches in their network core and aggregation layer to support large amounts of user data being consolidated for 10 Gigabit connections. The new release delivers wire-rate processing for IPv6/IPv4 and supports multicast applications.
AT&T (News - Alert) announced Thursday that it extended its current OneNet contract with DIRECTV for an extra year, at a reported value of $33 million. The move will enable DIRECTV to employ VoIP in its call center via AT&T's Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS
) services.The contract also calls for AT&T to continue providing DIRECTV with toll-free 800, Advanced Features and Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) and Frame Relay services that support 18 call centers and about 60 corporate WAN
points of presence.Skype announced a new pricing structure for its SkypeOut calling plan worldwide, which will include a connection fee for users. Skype's new pricing structure will now include a connection fee of 0–0.039 euros per call (exclusive of VAT) effective from 13.00 CET, January 18th 2007.
The move comes after the VoIP
service provider introduced a new annual, paid subscription Unlimited VoIP Calling plan last week. This was a first for Skype, since the VoIP provider had never given its users the opportunity to sign up for a whole year of unlimited SkypeOut calling to any phone within the U.S. and Canada for less than $15.There you have it folks, another exciting week in the VoIP industry! Stay tuned and read the VoIP Minute Watch for the latest news…
Want to learn more about VoIP? Then be sure to check out TMCnet’s Whitepaper Library, which provides a selection of in-depth information on relevant topics affecting the IP Communications industry. The library offers white papers, case studies and other documents which are free to registered users.
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Johanne Torres is contributing editor for TMCnet and Internet Telephony magazine. To see more articles by Johanne Torres, please visit her columnist page.
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