In more detail, COO David Cuthbert has moved to become the CEO of Altevia.  Cuthbert joined Altevia in 2006 as COO and has “developed scalable processes” through automation and employee development. 

The new Alteva CEO also lists [...]]]>

Alteva (www.altevatel.com) has shuffled executives, moving its CEO to Chief Innovation Officer, and moving the COO to CEO.

In more detail, COO David Cuthbert has moved to become the CEO of Altevia.  Cuthbert joined Altevia in 2006 as COO and has “developed scalable processes” through automation and employee development. 

The new Alteva CEO also lists on his resume graduating from the U.S. Naval Academy and Naval Special Operations Officer – i.e. explosive ordinance disposal.  In 2003, he was the officer leading the Navy’s nuclear weapons casualty response detachment; probably an interesting assignment in the wake of 9/11.

New CIO/former CEO Bill Bumbernick will “focus on the innovative direction of the company.” 

Be interesting to see if the exec shuffle comes with/is a part of Alteva getting outside investment.

More specifically, you need a Gmail account and calls through your computer to American and Canadian numbers are free through “at least” January 2011.  [...]]]>

Making free phone calls just got easier through Google(www.google.com) (so long we all remember that “free” is not really free, but subsidized through someone else’s money) via “Voice Calls from Gmail.” 

More specifically, you need a Gmail account and calls through your computer to American and Canadian numbers are free through “at least” January 2011.  As is typical in the Great VoIP shell game, calls to other countries start at around 2 cents a minute to landlines, 15 cents a minute to cell phones.

One can get inbound calls through Gmail if you have  (free) Google Voice account.

Timing on this offer is everything, but when you pull up the comparison between Google’s rates and “Leading internet telephony provider,” The Goog’s per minute rates are equal to or better than “Leading.” 

If the folks at Skype haven’t already figured it out, Google is NOT their friend.

“Rich Calling” integrates data from CRM and IVR tools for SMBs, giving customers “call [...]]]>

Ringio (www.ringio.com) has completed its public beta (It doeth beg the question as to what that means, but it’s nicer than how Google handles its beta process, regardless) and has added more than a dozen new features to its “Rich Calling” service.

“Rich Calling” integrates data from CRM and IVR tools for SMBs, giving customers “call center style” screen pops, visibility into coworker availability and “sophisticated” call routing.

New features include a “Bring Your Own PBX” function, allowing pre-existing PBXes to work with Ringio, enabling calls and CRM displays to be routed directly to those on PBX extensions as well as (of course) on direct-inward-dial numbers without having to change recorded greetings or prompts; Ringio can also do the whole “virtual extension” PBX trick, adding/creating a PBX out of home and mobile numbers.

Caller-centric router sounds cool, by being able to automatically great callers by name (OK, it’s a cheap caller ID trick, but long overdue) and automatically routing them to the person they spoke with last. Calls can be routed to a predefined list of employees or evenly distributed to all employees to handle particular heavy call volume.

Starting cost for Ringio is $99 a month for four (4) users, with additional users added at $25 per month.

The SEC prospectus can be found here on www.sec.gov. Be interesting to see what skeletons come out.

One [...]]]>

In the usual terse manner that all companies end up with, Skype (www.skype.com) has announced it has filed a S-1 registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for a proposed IPO of its “ordinary” shares.  

The SEC prospectus can be found here on www.sec.gov. Be interesting to see what skeletons come out.

One thing that jumps out from a quick scan of the prospectus is while the company says it is 560 registered users, it only has 8.1 million average monthly paying users annnd 124 million “average monthly connected users.”

Not to be rude, but I’ve always thought the “registered users” number that the company has continually touted is, well, crap; reading between the lines on the number of “average monthly” connected and paid users and the math is pretty clear.

And seriously, hasn’t Skype run its “viral” course a la AOL and the bombardment of CDs? Everyone knows who Skype is and that’s why the Nimbuzz-es and other ankle biters are out there….

Number of shares and price ranges for the offering have not yet been determined – no big surprise there.  Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan and Morgan Stanley are the “Joint global coordinators” and running the books for the offering and there’s a lot of other joint and co-involved; BofAMerrill Lynch, Barclays Capital, Citigroup Global, Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank Securities will also be acting as joint book-running managers while Lazard Capital, RBC Capital and UBS Securities will be acting as joint lead co-managers; Allen and Company and Evercore Group will be acting as co-managers.

If everyone is a “co-", who is in charge?

The move allows Optimum to connect/reach more than 10 million Ethernet service locations worldwide, enabling Optimum’s customers to establish Ethernet-based low-latency and high-bandwidth connections between the New York metro area and key locations around the world.

Needless to say, Optimum has a lot of financial [...]]]>

Optimum Lightpath (www.optimumlightpath.com) has connected to CENX’s New York exchange. 

The move allows Optimum to connect/reach more than 10 million Ethernet service locations worldwide, enabling Optimum’s customers to establish Ethernet-based low-latency and high-bandwidth connections between the New York metro area and key locations around the world.

Needless to say, Optimum has a lot of financial service customers it wants to give love, er good connectivity.

OnSIP customers will now be able to sign up for PhoneTag V2T (voicemail-to-text) service to get the whole, well, voicemail-to-text thing directly to their email inbox; a .WAV file is attached for listening as well. 

The first week is free. After that, PhoneTag is [...]]]>

Junction Networks (www.junctionnetworks.com) has partnered with DiTech Network’s PhoneTag voicemail-to-text service. 

OnSIP customers will now be able to sign up for PhoneTag V2T (voicemail-to-text) service to get the whole, well, voicemail-to-text thing directly to their email inbox; a .WAV file is attached for listening as well. 

The first week is free. After that, PhoneTag is offering three different pricing plans – a per message rate of thirty-five cents, a 40 message per month plan for $9.95 (I get more spam than that in a day), and an unlimited plan for $29.95 per month.

Specifically, the two published specs define ENUM server provisioning and how the ENUM server resolves an IP address and CableLabs describes the IP Internet package as enabling [...]]]>

CableLabs (www.cablelabs.com), the technology standards group for the cable industry, has published the PacketCable IP Interconnect specifications.  The specifications open up the ability for cable companies to interconnect directly.

Specifically, the two published specs define ENUM server provisioning and how the ENUM server resolves an IP address and CableLabs describes the IP Internet package as enabling “cable operators to consolidate session establishment data used by PacketCable™ network elements to route SIP sessions to the target destinations which may be served by the cable operator’s own internal network or by a session peering partner.”

Session peering partner should translate to “When cable companies peer directly and stop touching the PSTN.”

IntelePeer is providing the SIP Trunking service, a voice peering network, and “SuperRegistry” while WorkSpace is providing a patent-pending Microsoft OCS environment that interoperates with  any previously installed Microsoft Exchange Solution.

Together, the two enable service providers to [...]]]>

IntelePeer and WorkSpace Communications have teamed up to deliver a hosted UC offering based on Microsoft Office Communications Server.

IntelePeer is providing the SIP Trunking service, a voice peering network, and “SuperRegistry” while WorkSpace is providing a patent-pending Microsoft OCS environment that interoperates with  any previously installed Microsoft Exchange Solution.

Together, the two enable service providers to provide a hosted UC and on-demand communications services that can deployed “almost instantly” without requiring extensive changes to related apps.

WorkSpace says its hosted environment makes it much easer and cost-effective for service providers to offer Microsoft OCS-based unified communications services.

"Digium is evaluating the public response and usage of the iPhone and BlackBerry Apps, and based on these results we’ll determine if and when we should [...]]]>

I hate to take Digium (www.digium.com) out to the woodshed, but this is the response I got when I asked about the potential for a Switchvox mobile client for Android.

"Digium is evaluating the public response and usage of the iPhone and BlackBerry Apps, and based on these results we’ll determine if and when we should develop a version for Android or any other platforms and if the current functionality should be refined or changed."

*sigh* Serious corporate-speak and not the sort of thing I would have expected to see out of them.

The company has installed 155 Mbps circuits to all 30  Major League Baseball ballparks around the country and a whopping 2.5 Gbps circuit in New York to enable the MLB.com site to [...]]]>

Global Crossing (www.globalcrossing) has installed some heavy duty bandwidth at baseball stadiums around the country as a part of its deal with MLB.com. 

The company has installed 155 Mbps circuits to all 30  Major League Baseball ballparks around the country and a whopping 2.5 Gbps circuit in New York to enable the MLB.com site to deliver HD-quality video for 2,430 live games, as well as real time access to baseball news, stats, in-game video highlights and other information – with an assist from MPLS.