Businesses still need fax machines but they haven’t evolved with your desktop.  Have you ever asked yourself why faxing can’t flow as easily as your online or computer-based applications?  FaxBack is here to provide the answer. 

The FaxBack Fax ATA (analog telephone adapter) will add new features to your ordinary fax machine just like VoIP added greater functionality to your phone. 

With a FaxBack fax ATA’s you can now receive fax notifications via email and manage your faxes through a control panel that allows fax tracking and archiving.  Even more, with FaxBack you can use any type of internet or data connection including satellite, Wi-Fi, and cellular data connections. FaxBack fax ATA’s are also HTTPS enabled making those faxes you send over satellite, Wi-Fi, or cell secure and reliable. 

“FaxBack is bringing faxing into the 21^st century,” said Garrett Smith, Chief Marketing Officer at VoIP Supply.  “The FaxBack Fax ATA provides great value by combining both voice and fax calls making it simple to integrate faxing into your existing networks.”

This information was originally posted on the VoIP Insider blog.

Need VoIP Phones or a VoIP Phone System? Checkout VoIPSupply.com!

VoIP Supply has added the new Sangoma Vega Gateways to increase connectivity options for your VoIP application. 

Sangoma is “not just a board company anymore.”  Realizing the popularity of gateway appliances and the need for different but equal solutions for varied VoIP application scenarios, the Sangoma Vega Gateway line was launched to provide greater flexibility for VoIP integrators. 

Sangoma Vega Gateways provide interconnectivity between the co-existing traditional, analog voice networks and VoIP networks.  Reducing customer’s outlay and preserving ROI on your existing infrastructure, Vega gateways are offered in three highly flexible configurations:

• Vega 50:  For low density analog or BRI connectivity.
• Vega 5000:  For high density analog connectivity up to 50 FXS ports.
• Vega 400:  For high density digital interfaces with multiple T1s or E1s.

“Sangoma is already a leader in providing VoIP connectivity solutions,” said Garrett Smith, Chief Marketing Officer at VoIP Supply.  “Customers now have even more trusted options in the new Vega Gateway line-up that provides great flexibility and cost savings for connecting VoIP service provider access.”

For more information about Sangoma Vega Gateways give us a call toll-free 1-800-398-8647 or check out the Sangoma Vega Gateways product page.

This information was originally posted on the VoIP Insider blog.

Need VoIP Phones or a VoIP Phone System? Checkout VoIPSupply.com!

In earlier posts we looked at several ways for you to use SIP with your device of choice inlcuding SIP softphones, SIP for Apple, and SIP for Android.

Wrapping up this series we can’t leave out the “As Seen on TV” juggernaut, magicJack.

A lot of you have heard of magicJack, a phone system that promises free local and long-distance calling in addition to free call waiting, free voicemail, free caller ID – basically, the whole works.

It sounds like a great offer, and certainly the type of offer a startup business would like to use to reduce overhead as much as possible.

But we live in a digital age, and the Internet makes phone calling via computer a top-flight convenience for businesses of any type. It’s hard to weigh which phone system to use.

The good news is that magicJack uses Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), which means you can use the Magic Jack service with a standard VoIP product. Given how cheap Magic Jack is to use – and how easy it is to use SIP and VoIP technology in today’s world – there should be no excuse for any startup to spend a lot of money on expensive phone systems.

Using magicJack SIP

For the same reason a lot of people use magicJack, they turn to other SIP solutions. Chances are they want to make unlimited calls anywhere in the country and not have to worry about exorbitant fees and charges that show up unexpectedly in their business’s expense account every month.

But the appeal of using the magicJack SIP system is that it combines much of the best of both worlds: the cheap, affordable service of magicJack with a simple, easy-to-use interface of SIP.

But how do you use it?

A simple online search will yield you plenty of results – some of which violate the terms of the magicJack TOS and some of which do not. We can only recommend that you use the ones that do not, and for further information on that front you’ll need to consult your magicJack TOS.

Using SIP for Your Business

We should warn you that magicJack, when compared to the power of SIP in a VoIP service, really isn’t all that different from what you can already do for your business. SIP for your company can include softphone technology that allows people to avoid the expenses of hardware altogether – this can be everyone from the CEO to the secretary.

These setups are easy to use and don’t require that you break any company’s terms of service. That’s an easy solution for your company’s overhead no matter how many employees you have.

Related Articles

• How to Obtain magicJack SIP Credentials
• VoIP POTS Emulation on FXO with magicJack
• More on magicJack
• magicJack Plus Review

This information was originally posted on the VoIP Insider blog.

Need VoIP Phones or a VoIP Phone System? Checkout VoIPSupply.com!

If you’ve been comparing hardware, are in the market for a resiliency solution, and in need of how-to resources for maintaining Asterisk based communications in the event of a hardware or software failure; you are now in luck.

Xorcom has taken has taken the time to offer a point-by-point comparison of their software and devices in an article of their own.

Xorcom TwinStar Comparison / Capabilities

Click here to read the Xorcom piece, Clarifications About Digium R-Series vs Xorcom TwinStar Comparison, that examines a Xorcom TwinStar plus Xorcom Astribank  solution that includes:

• Resiliency functionality across T1 Cards, Mixed Interfaces, and FXS Resiliency.
• Cost and effort to install the solution based on FXS and FXO port requirements.
• Relative cost and flexibility in the number of E1/T1 ports needed in a Xorcom solution.
• Hardware platform explanation.
• Functionality of TwinStar firmware.
• Digium R-Series compatibility issues.

Open Source Community

Xorcom, like VoIP Supply, supports building your own customized VoIP application and their article nicely sums up this hardware comparison and why they wanted to clarify Xorcom functionality:

Xorcom has always been a strong supporter of the Asterisk open source community and we believe it to be of the utmost importance to provide accurate information to the community.

Related Articles

• VoIP Failover with Xorcom TwinStar
• Digium R-Series Redundancy vs. Xorcom and RedFone
• Clarifications About Digium R-Series vs Xorcom TwinStar Comparison
• Xorcom Astribanks Explained
• A Guide to VoIP Gateways

This information was originally posted on the VoIP Insider blog.

Need VoIP Phones or a VoIP Phone System? Checkout VoIPSupply.com!

The newly released Digium R-Series redundancy appliances enable your network to recover from hardware or software failures and maintain communication with the outside world.  

Digium failover appliances work with their open source telephony platform Asterisk to ensure that you have an open line of communication even in demanding enviroments.

There are two models in the R-Series.  They work on Asterisk based open sourced PBX’s but do not work on Switchvox.  Both models are 1U rack mount devices:

• Digium R800:  Supports up to eight analog (POTS) circuits.
• Digium R850:  Handles up to eight digital (T1, E1, PRI or BRI) spans.

What’s The Difference?

So even in the event of a catastrophic failure, your communications system will stay up and running with the Digium R-Series.  That sounds great but, what makes these appliances different from other redundant systems that work with Asterisk?

With the help of Digium engineer Pete Engler, here’s how the R-Series stacks up agains other popular appliances from Xorcom and RedFone.

Digium vs. Xorcom

The combination of Xorcom Astribank (HW Channel Bank) and Xorcom TwinStar (Software for redundancy) is a similar application to the Digium R-Series. Below are the main differences between using the R-Series and Xorcom for redundancy:

Cost

• The Astribank hardware can run a customer up to four times the cost of R-Series appliances depending on the number of T1 interfaces that are populated in the Astribank. All eight T1 ports are included in the R-Series for $995 list price.
• The Xorcom TwinStar software is an additional cost. The open source tools used for the servers connected to the R-Series is downloadable and is free to use.

Hardware Platform

• The Xorcom Astribank channel bank has more parts, such as a power supply, that are prone to fail. Digium utilizes USB power from the servers to power the R-Series which is much less vulnerable.
• R-Series is 1U rack mountable and therefore takes up less space in the rack than the 2U Astribank.

Functionality

• The TwinStar/Astribank solution can only detect a hardware power failure if the Linux kernel has crashed. It cannot detect if Asterisk has stopped working but is with the R-Series solution (along with loss of power detection).
• If the R-Series were to lose power, the PSTN spans will continue to function through the same ports at the time of power failure. The Astribank will cease to operate at this point and communication with the PSTN is down.

Digium vs. RedFone

The RedFone gateways are another application where redundancy can be introduced to a customer location. By nature, gateways operate in a completely different manner than the R-Series for providing redundancy.

• A gateway is converting the PSTN TDM circuits to an IP format. RedFone uses TDMoE. Digium R-Series offers physical layer switching and does not convert the signal at all from one network to another.
• If the RedFone loses power, communications cease in their gateway.
• To deploy a redundant system, multiple gateways would need to be installed and therefore will be more expensive than the R-Series. Providing redundancy for up to eight T1’s will be at least four times the cost, just like the Xorcom solution, including several additional hardware pieces to manage in the datacenter.

This information was originally posted on the VoIP Insider blog.

Need VoIP Phones or a VoIP Phone System? Checkout VoIPSupply.com!

TMCnet’s Susan Campbell reports on Sangoma’s new direction unveiled at the recent ITExpo:

• Cloud adoption is driving Sangoma reinvention.
• In the next year Sangoma will be releasing media processing products, media gateway appliances, and more.
• Customer requested External VoIP Gateway Appliances are now on the horizon.

Sangoma Purchases VegaStream

Aimed at billing themselves as “Not Just a Board Company Anymore” Sangoma purchesed VegaStream, a VoIP gateways manufacturer, to become a more comprehensive VoIP hardware provider:

For years, Sangoma has provided the industry’s leading portfolio of TDM to IP cards for use inside servers, and we will continue to dominate that space. However, external gateways which provide much of the same functionality but reside outside the server as their own appliance, are becoming increasingly popular, and we want to offer our customers both options. External gateways expand our addressable market, can be easily integrated into Virtualized and Cloud based solutions, and so we hope to capture additional opportunities in this space as well as in our traditional segment.

The all cash purchase of VegaStream is just the start to more growth, organic growth or acquisitions, by Sangoma in the coming year to complete their strategy of offering the choice of internal cards or external gateways for IP networking solutions.

This information was originally posted on the VoIP Insider blog.

Need VoIP Phones or a VoIP Phone System? Checkout VoIPSupply.com!

His preoccupation lately with spring cleaning all his chicken coops has me concerned that he’s no spring chicken himself anymore.

Thanks to its popularity last month, Crazy Tom is extending Free Ground Shipping on AudioCodes MediaPack 1XX Series analog VoIP Gateways for the entire month of June.

To stay up to date on all future offers, subscribe to his weekly VoIP Deals Newsletter!

This information was originally posted on the VoIP Insider blog.

Need VoIP Phones or a VoIP Phone System? Checkout VoIPSupply.com!

By Integrating AudioCodes Mediant line of gateways with Blackberry’s Mobile Voice System 5 (MVS), businesses can extend their IP PBX phone systems to Blackberry smartphones.

For further details about BlackBerry MVS 5 integration with phone systems via AudioCodes, click here.

This information was originally posted on the VoIP Insider blog.

Need VoIP Phones or a VoIP Phone System? Checkout VoIPSupply.com!

• AudioCodes VoIP Gateways
• AudioCodes IP Phones 
• AudioCodes Enterprise Mobility solutions

MediaMinda, a global provider of digital advertising solutions that optimize the use of media, creative and data for enhanced campaign performance has selected AudioCodes because:

“As we service the largest advertisers globally, our choice of a Unified Communications system was taken very seriously,” said Efi Cohen, Vice President Technology, MediaMind. “We evaluated a number of potential suppliers, and learned that the combination of Microsoft and AudioCodes offers us the best match for our needs.

AudioCodes products enable us to make the best out of the Microsoft UC environment, by integrating it seamlessly with the PSTN, desktop IP Phones and mobile devices…All of our employees will be using an AudioCodes 320HD IP Phone.”

If AudioCodes is the best fit for a corporate network servicing global customers, what can it do for you?  Call us today to find out more.

This information was originally posted on the VoIP Insider blog.

Need VoIP Phones or a VoIP Phone System? Checkout VoIPSupply.com!

On top of that, AudioCodes is now able to connect to Skype and leverage existing TDM PBXs and Key Systems.  Interoperability with Skype for SIP means that,

“Small businesses can take advantage of the cost savings provided by Skype’s low-cost global calling rates when their employees call landlines and mobile phones around the world.”

Receive Inbound Skype Calls

A company can also receive inbound voice calls from,

“Any of the more than 521 million registered Skype users around the world via a global click-to-call button on its Web site. By certifying the AudioCodes Multi-Service Business Gateways with Skype for SIP, customers can benefit from interoperability with hundreds of TDM PBXs, Key Systems, and IP-PBXs that have not been able to connect to Skype so far.”

In addition, if a company buys and associates an online Skype number with their AudioCodes Mediant 1000 Multi-Service Business Gateway solution, it can then receive inbound calls via Skype from business contacts and customers calling from landline and mobile phones.

Leverage Existing Phone System

Needless to say, this is a huge win for customers that are trying to leverage their existing phone system and add the value of VoIP without a complete overhaul. To learn more about AudioCodes, please contact me directly:

Ramon Perez

rperez@voipsupply.com

Toll Free Direct (866) 675-8455

This information was originally posted on the VoIP Insider blog.

Need VoIP Phones or a VoIP Phone System? Checkout VoIPSupply.com!