VoIP Evolution Report Dispels SMB Video Conferencing Hype

Serious excitement surrounds the SMB (small to medium-size business) video conferencing space these days. In June and July alone, no fewer than eight companies – 8x8, Blue Jeans Network, BroadSoft, InFocus, LifeSize, Polycom, Telesphere and Vidtel – announced new hardware, services, tie-ups or some combination thereof. All of the announcements represented significant investments of time, effort and resources. And together, they indicated a widespread optimism that the market is about to take off.

Even in pre-takeoff mode, though, the market has already spawned a hefty body of conventional wisdom. Most of it takes the form of ardent convictions surrounding clouds and interoperability. One of these is the belief that cloud solutions are the ideal way to meet almost every SMB video conferencing need. A related one is faith that providing interoperability is the surest route to success for cloud providers. A new VoIP Evolution report, SMB Video Conferencing: Getting Beyond Clouds & Interoperability, both explains why it's necessary to get beyond such conventional wisdom, and provides a method for doing so.

Voxbone Provides iNums to Burning Man Attendees

Voxbone's iNum service gives subscribers a single number that can reach them no matter where in the world they or their callers are. INums use the recently created ITU country code +883, which means callers in any country can use the same number to reach the subscriber. Subscribers can likewise have calls to the number directed to them wherever they happen to be. They might even be in the middle of the Nevada desert – say, at the upcoming Burning Man festival.

GIPS Codec Now Powers Yahoo Video Calling

When it comes to real-time Internet communication, quality is always an issue. Internet connections are so inconsistent they can turn talk into gibberish. It takes sophisticated technology to make Internet conversations sound consistently good. The challenges are even greater with Internet video calling. The quality of both images and sound has to be good, and the two must also be in sync. That's why companies that can afford it pay lots of money for custom video equipment connected over private IP links.

Codecs are key to making Internet voice and video work. These pieces of software, embedded in physical phones or Internet calling applications, process the audio and video for delivery over IP connections. Among other things, codecs adjust for different levels of Internet bandwidth between callers, and compensate for delay, inconsistent delivery and loss of packets carrying the voice or video streams.