Voxbone Sees Continued VoIP Growth After Strong 2011

Voxbone announces that despite economic uncertainties in some parts of the world last year, its pattern of steady year-after-year growth in VoIP communications continued as demand from existing customers increased, coupled with new business wins from some of the fastest-rising operators in telecommunications.

The company is calling 2011 a breakthrough year because it enjoyed lift for the first time from customers such as Telefónica and iBasis, while most growth came from direct sales to its customers among providers of next-generation VoIP communications services. Overall, Voxbone said, revenue grew 19 percent, while minutes of use on its global network increased by 33 percent to 2.8 billion.

The company’s trajectory of growth over the past several years reflects the evolution toward Internet-based communications services in business and consumer applications, and away from older and longer-established legacy switched networks. For example, as a result of large corporations adopting cloud communications during 2011, Voxbone saw a significant upswing in business with global B2B network service providers.

Other indicators of growth for Voxbone in 2011, including:

* Gaining Deloitte “Technology Fast 50 Benelux” recognition as the fastest-growing technology company in Belgium;
* Expanding its global presence by having its United States subsidiary become incorporated, appointing regional business development executives in North America and Southeast Asia, opening an office in Mumbai, and extending services to Vietnam;
* Deploying its own network infrastructure in Germany, Luxemburg and Spain;
* Being selected by the United Nations to implement the UN’s own unique country code for disaster relief: +888;
* Moving to vibrantly colored new headquarters in central Brussels that nearly tripled the amount of occupied office space;
* Growing to 67 employees worldwide and truly embodying a multicultural global company by employing people representing 23 nationalities.

This year, Voxbone plans to launch a series of new product lines, enhance its existing services, and expand its network footprint from its current 51 countries to an additional five to seven countries in Asia and South America.

VoIP Charges are a case of ‘tail wagging dog’

The Federal Communications Committee (FCC) in America is letting the tail wag the dog, according to search giant Google.

Proposed plans to charge Voice over Internet Protocol(VoIP) on a per minute basis in the same way as regular telephony could be a huge blow to the industry says Google.

The have accused the USA telecoms regulator of trying to stifle what is a rapidly expanding industry with possible call termination charges.

Currently one of the factors which makes VoIP so appealing is that information can be routed over the internet free of charge (once the internet subscription has been set up).

Up until now an ESP exemption has meant that VoIP traffic is free of charge. While telecommunications companies have railed against this disadvantage, VoIP providers have claimed that information, and this is basically what is being sent over the VoIP lines, should be free on the internet.

The Google lawyer Donna N. Lampert wrote to the FCC to persuade them to see the bigger picture – VoIP traffic is a very small part of the overall IP traffic which Google deals with.

Yet VoIP services like Skype have long been trying to monetise what is essentially a free service. Although Skype has millions of users only a small fraction of them are paying subscribers.

The Google figures show that VoIP calls now account for 21,000 terabytes a month compared to the 36,000 terabytes used for conventional calls.

Regular telephone traffic is certainly declining and it is clear that there will have to be a shift in the way it is administered as a result.

Lightyear Network Solutions Offers VoIP in the Cloud

Hosted VoIP and cloud computing are the two standards which business service provider Lightyear Network Solutions has chosen to take it into the future.

The company is on the verge of rolling out VoIP in the cloud to small and medium sized businesses.

That will allow their customers to keep and integrate their existing traditional PBX (if preferred) with VoIP solutions for business.
Despite losing company founder Sherman Henderson recently the company is determined to plough on by increasing its portfolio and expanding its network services.

The new CEO Stephen M. Lochmueller told Fiercevoip: "We are pleased to announce the launch of our new product, which further enhances our extensive portfolio. Hosted VoIP is part of our strategic plan to make the cloud valuable and affordable for SMBs.”
Lightyear Network Solutions already has a strong customer base in the USA.
Hosted VoIP allows them to increasingly offer flexible and scalable solutions which can save companies costs and deliver fixed mobile convergence.

Service Options for Businesses

Most small businesses will want to choose a hosted VoIP service, where the equipment and maintenance are handled by the hosting service provider. This allows for extremely rapid installation of a new system in most cases, normally within weeks (“But it can take up to a month if the existing business number is to be ported to a VoIP service provider,’ notes Scarborough).

The number of providers offering hosted VoIP phone services is growing rapidly. Their competition for your business lets you find the best possible rates and features. VoIP makes sense for businesses that are exploring ways to reduce their telecommunications fees. The technology has gotten better; it’s cheaper, and can be implemented relatively rapidly. But beyond cost savings, it allows businesses to access a large number of features that are unavailable to them with traditional phone services.

“I believe that the greatest advantage of VoIP phone services is that it allows a business to ‘future proof’ its phone system,” says Scarborough. “All too often, a company will invest $30,000 (or more) into a traditional system that works for them for a few years, and then they discover they’ve outgrown it. You don’t outgrow your VoIP service, because it’s simple to add new lines and phones, and to align features to communication needs of the individual user. Businesses that use it know they have access to the latest features, since these are always being upgraded with the latest VoIP hosting software.”

For many businesses, the future will be leveraging VoIP services, with reduced costs and the ability to integrate voice with other data-based technologies. The bottom line is improved customer service and higher productivity, and VoIP service is proving that it delivers both to a greater degree than was possible before.

Faxing over VoIP

As far as VoIP has come in Voice telephone calls, faxing over VoIP still has a lot of room to improve.

Have you ever tried to fax on your residential VoIP line? I have, and it didn't go well. After doing some research on the subject I found out that the voice traffic and the Fax traffic are best run over two different codecs. This is why when most VoIP carriers sell you a business account they include a free additional fax line with the faxing specific codec to allow for faxing.

Faxing on a Voice VoIP line is possible but not recommended. You can fax a page or two over your Voice VoIP line but it may take you several attempts to accomplish. The reason is when the fax tone is digitized into packets, there is packet loss. Packet loss on a voice is not that critical because even with a little packet loss, you can still hear and understand what the person is saying. But, when there is packet loss on a fax, any little bit can really mess up the fax. The result can be a bad fax, error message, or even a dropped call. When faxing over a Fax Codec, the loss of packets is minimized and faxes generally make it to its destination, but in the case of a large fax (10+ pages) your chances of a successful fax diminish. It is recommended that a customer who is planning on faxing quite a bit get a fax machine that also doubles as a scanner and can convert potential faxes into a .PDF file so if the fax over VoIP does not work, the customer can email the fax.

Programmers are coming up with a better codec all the time, so it is only a matter of time before VoIP providers come up with a more reliable faxing VoIP codec. VoIP is here to stay and the VoIP providers are trying to overcome all of the objections from small businesses to gain their business, and faxing is a large issue for small businesses. I have the utmost confidence in VoIP providers to come up with a solution that is viable by the end of 2005 or earlier.

Faxing is only one of the things to consider before choosing a VoIP solution. In fact, there are many things to consider when choosing a VoIP provider.