This week, the VoIP Minute Watch brought you news from Verizon, VoX, GIPS, Broadcom (News - Alert) and Yahoo!

 

Verizon Business has made available its VoIP suite for the international market. The telecom announced on Monday that it also enhanced the suite to now include a Managed IP PBX service, extended European availability, local language interfaces, local ringtones and additional access methods. The move will now allow Verizon (News - Alert) Business to enable international customers to easily migrate their voice and data services to IP technology.

 

Verizon Business has now made available its suite to six European countries by adding Belgium and Luxembourg to the U.K., France, Germany and the Netherlands. The telecom's customers will now be also supported by local-language customer Web-based interfaces and local ringtones.

 

Also on Monday, VoIP retailer VoX Communications announced that it is now offering Puerto Rico virtual telephone numbers to subscribers in the United States. The company says is the first VoIP provider to offer customers in the 50 U.S. states the ability to add a Puerto Rico telephone number to any of its telephony service plans for an extra $4.95 per month. The move will allow VoX subscribers' contacts living in Puerto Rico to call them on a local number rather than a long distance number.

 

Voice processing technology provider Global IP Sound (GIPS) introduced on Tuesday the VoiceEngine Mobile Lite platform for the developers. The software platform is comprised of integration code for the simple and quick creation of mobile VoIP applications.

 

The new platform is based on the company's VoiceEngine Mobile Lite, which includes some components of the core GIPS technology currently utilized by various VoIP service and technology providers including Skype (News - Alert), Tencent, and Inter-tel. The application allows developers to implement GIPS codecs as well as NetEQ, a jitter buffer and packet loss concealment module, without having to license the system. GIPS VoiceEngine Mobile Lite currently supports Windows Mobile 2003, Windows Mobile 5.0 and 5.0 Smartphone devices with real-time performance WiFi.

 

Also on Tuesday, Broadcom announced that its WiFi (News - Alert) phone platform now supports Skype software and will be available to consumers in new WiFi phone handsets from Buffalo. The Buffalo WiFi phone for Skype allows Skypers to conduct free Internet-based calling to others, while supporting traditional calling to and from the public switched telephone network (PSTN) through the SkypeIn and SkypeOut offerings. The partnership between Broadcom and Skype will ultimately free Skypers from their PCs while they talk on the phone via a Skype -enabled connection powered by VoIP technology.

 

The Buffalo WiFi phone for Skype uses IEEE (News - Alert) 802.11b/g wireless LAN connectivity and a high-speed Internet connection. The device features a high-resolution color display, speakerphone and Buffalo's AOSS easy configuration protocol. The Buffalo WiFi phone will be Skype-Certified and available for the Japanese market in this month.

 

Yahoo! announced this week that it has teamed up with technology manufacturer Linksys in order to introduce the Linksys Dual-Mode Cordless Phone for Yahoo! Messenger with Voice (CIT310), a cordless, dual-mode telephone. The new device combines lower-cost VoIP calling with Yahoo! Messenger with Voice, as well as traditional landline/PSTN calling.

 

The dual-mode cordless phone will enable users to place free Internet-based calls to their Yahoo! Messenger Contacts. Subscribers to Yahoo! Phone Out can also use the cordless phone to make Internet-based calls to any traditional or mobile phone at lower rates. The device's USB base station allows users to take their Yahoo! Messenger with Voice's calls away from the PCs and roam into other rooms. The phone also has a button that enables the user to easily switch their call from VoIP to a traditional landline with just a click.

 

Users will also be able to search for local business info from their phone with Yahoo! Local Search. They will be able to program the phone with a local ZIP code to search for a local business and call the establishment with one click. The phone can also be used to access weather forecasts through a weather search setting.

 

There you have it folks, another exciting week in the VoIP industry! Stay tuned and read the VoIP Minute Watch for the latest news…

 

Johanne Torres is contributing editor for TMCnet and Internet Telephony magazine. To see more articles by Johanne Torres, please visit Johanne's columnist page.