VoIP Supply Named to the 2007 Inc 500 List

August 23, 2007 by Garrett Smith

Leading Internet Retailer of VoIP Hardware Ranks No. 359 Based on Three Year Sales Growth.

BUFFALO, NY August 23, 2007 — VoIP Supply, LLC (www.voipsupply.com) a leading Internet retailer of Voice over IP (VoIP) hardware, software and services, today announced their selection to Inc. Magazine’s 26th annual list of America’s fastest growing private companies. Based on their tremendous sales growth over the past three years, VoIP Supply ranked No. 359 on the Inc. 500 list with a growth rate of 783%. In 2006 VoIP Supply was named the No. 45 fastest growing company in America by Entrepreneur Magazine and the No. 1 fastest growing company in Western New York by Business First.

““It is an incredible honor to be recognized as one of the fastest growing companies in America,” stated Benjamin P. Sayers President and CEO of VoIP Supply, LLC. “This award is a testament to the hard work, dedication and team effort put forth each day by the entire VoIP Supply staff. I could not be more proud of everyone who has played a part in the company’s success.”

The 2007 Inc. 500 list measures revenue growth from 2003 through 2006. To qualify, companies had to be U.S.-based, privately held independent – not subsidiaries or divisions of other companies – as of December 31, 2006, and have, and have at least $600,000 in net sales in the base year.

For more information about VoIP Supply, visit https://www.voipsupply.com.

About VoIP Supply

VoIP Supply, LLC (www.voipsupply.com), is a leading Internet Retailer of Voice over IP Hardware. In addition to a comprehensive catalog of IP Phones, Telephone Adaptors, VoIP Gateways, and Small Business IP PBX solutions, the company offers technical support, extended warranties, and logistical services for end-to-end customer solutions. VoIP Supply was recognized as number 45 on the 2006 Entrepreneur/ Pricewaterhouse Coopers HOT 100 fastest growing companies in the US. VoIP Supply has also been recognized as the fastest growing company in Western New York by Buffalo’s Business First newspaper. For additional information on VoIP Supply, LLC please contact Garrett Smith at 716.250.3408.

Egorcast mashes Jott / Twitter

August 15, 2007 by Garrett Smith

This post is slightly off the beaten path considering our traditional tight focus on VoIP, but it does have a telephony component via Jott so here we go.

For those of you not familiar with Jott, their service allows you to call a toll-free number that they assign, and record any type of message. Jott then uses a combination of manual transcription and machine translation (Speech Recognition) to transcribe your message to text. This text can then be sent to you as an email, or posted to a blog or webpage.

What the folks at EgorCast have done is hook Jott into Twitter, which is a popular application that allows you to send realtime text updates, typically via SMS. Users can also subscribe to your Twitter “feed” and receive your personal updates.

Egorcast was developed by Big in Japan.

Thoughts on Linksys -> Cisco Rebranding

August 14, 2007 by Garrett Smith

Cisco CEO John Chambers recently alluded to a planned rebranding of their consumer division Linksys, with Linksys products assuming the Cisco name.

Cisco is eager to transcend its roots from an industrial backbone routing and switching behemoth, to reach into the home, which is an increasingly sophisticated environment with residential consumers taking advantage of the myriad digital services available for delivery over common household broadband connections, including VoIP (Voice Over IP), Wireless Applications, IP Television, IP Home Automation & Security and other rapidly evolving technologies.

Back in 2005, Cisco acquired KiSS Technology, and more recently, Scientific Atlanta.

Cisco sees the “set top box” as a strategic gateway for products and services that will create the kind of growth to satisfy shareholders. The combined technological assets of these three (Linksys, KiSS Technologies and Scientific Atlanta) could produce some compelling product offerings.

Anyone who has viewed Cisco’s
Human Network branding and marketing initiative can feel the new vibe Cisco is trying to propagate as it attempts to transcend the data center and the telco closet.

Ooma public launch imminent…

August 9, 2007 by Garrett Smith

Michael Arrington over at TechCrunch reports that much hyped silicon valley VoIP startup Ooma is currently taking customer orders for their $399 “hub”, which enables free VoIP calling via their proprietary peer-to-peer mechanism.

For complete details on Ooma’s service and features, peep their website here. Their strategy seems to be to create a peer network of Ooma hubs, deployed with residential users across north america. Ooma beta users and first adopters are encouraged to maintain an analog POTS line from their traditional provider (AT&T, Verizon, etc), and go ahead and plug said analog line right into their Ooma device.

Ooma is banking on leveraging these PSTN connections to terminate user phone calls from their peer-to-peer IP network onto the PSTN. In the meantime, until their network is “seeded” with PSTN connected peer devices, they’ll have to terminate those users calls the old (new-old) fashioned way, by using a commercial VoIP termination provider.

I came across Walt Mossberg’s article on Ooma back in mid-July, and the title of his piece “Ooma Puts Out a Call to Ditch Landlines for Web-Based Service”, seems a bit ironic…. as Ooma will, in reality, rely upon those very same landlines for free call termination in order to sustain their business model and bring their CPE devices down to a realistic price for mass consumption.

However, their product packaging and mini-PR machine have taken some queues from Apple by creating a bit of mystique around the product. The $399 cost (reportedly jumping to $599 at the end of 2007) of the Ooma device will go a ways toward offsetting their termination costs until their network is fully built out with sufficient PSTN connected users that the majority of user calls can be terminated within their peer group.

That’s the gameplan at least. Finding consumers willing to pony up $399 up front in the wake of recent high profile industry flame-outs like SunRocket, may prove challenging.

TalkCrunch has a podcast interview with founders Andrew Frame and Ashton Kutcher (yes that Ashton Kutcher)

VoIP POTS Emulation on FXO with MagicJack

July 25, 2007 by Garrett Smith

MagicJack was founded by telecom veteran Dan Borislow of Tel-Save (TalkAmerica) fame. MagicJack provides VoIP service based upon a proprietary USB device which retails for $40 and includes a free year of domestic calling service. After the initial year of service, 1-year renewals are $20.

MagicJack has been shipping their device for a few months, and recently announced a promotion for SunRocket refugees, but it is unclear the number of subscribers MagicJack has.

MagicJack requires a PC, and their simple device plugs directly into a USB port. From there, you connect a traditional analog phone into the RJ11 jack on the USB device. MagicJack assigns you a DID number, and you are ready to make and receive calls. MagicJack also offers free calling features including voicemail and call waiting.

I purchased one of their devices about a week ago, and I have not gotten around to testing it, but it got me thinking. I intend to pair the MagicJack device with an Asterisk based open source PBX, running an RJ11 patch cable between their USB device and an integrated FXO (Analog POTS Line In) port on the PBX. It seems logical that you could use the MagicJack device to emulate traditional POTS service, and create a Zaptel trunk on the Asterisk PBX (Which is, in reality, a VoIP trunk).

If this works, it seems to me that it would be an inexpensive and easy way to incorporate VoIP trunks into an IP PBX for a small to midsized business customer, and could be “self-provisioned”

I’ll report back on this in a week or two with the results of my testing.

Providers fight over Sunrocket carcass

July 24, 2007 by Garrett Smith

In the wake of Sunrocket shutting down operations and orphaning thousands of customers, there has been a mad scramble amongst independent VoIP providers to gobble up Sunrocket’s customer base. Below is a summary of a few current offerings targeting ex-Sunrocket subs:

TeleBlend, a recently launched service provider, reportedly headquartered in Singapore, offering free activation and number porting for Sunrocket subs.

VoIP.com

Vonage 2 Months free service and waived activation fee for Sunrocket subs

With a reported 200,000+ customers at the moment of their untimely demise, many of these smaller providers could see a nice uptick in subscribers if they are successful in wooing jaded ex-Sunrocket users, many of whom likely signed up for Sunrocket’s multi-year prepaid VoIP phone service offering.

Snom 370 IP Phone Now Available!

by Garrett Smith

Latest Snom IP Phone is Their Most Robust Offering to Date

The Snom 370 has recent reached VoIP Supply’s docks and all indications are that it will in fact live up to the all of the hype as the best Snom IP phone to date. The 370 features a large graphical, high-definition display offering an improved and extended presentation of call lists, address books and caller information. The phone is sturdy to the touch and not too bad on the eyes either, making the phone perfect for upper level executives. The SIP-based Snom 370 offers with its expanded memory capacity in addition to all necessary office functionality such as choice of trunk line, status indicator, group lines, transfer, call-pickup or conferencing (3-way conference bridge) more scope for individual functions and applications. The expanded memory capacity also enables the depiction of graphics and high resolution pictures to show the status of contacts (e.g., busy, on-line, off-line) similar to Instant Messenger. It is also possible to play music and media files.

(more…)

The Apple IP Phone

June 27, 2007 by Garrett Smith

What If Apple Made an IP Phone?

With the release of the Apple iPhone just two days away, I thought it would be interesting to take a look at the next great Apple product; the Apple IP Phone. The Apple IP Phone combines the style, simplicity, and usability that Apple is known for with the next generation of business class features and functionality that tomorrow’s business person will demand. Let’s take a closer look at the Apple IP Phone.

An IP Phone + an iPhone

apple-ip-phone-front

The first thing that you might notice about the Apple IP Phone is that it integrates with the Apple iPhone; acting as a docking station for the cellular phone, which will allow for all of your mobile calls to be managed through the main IP Phone console while you are sitting at your desk. The Apple IP Phone does not have a handset, as those are old school. It features a full duplex HD speakerphone, and supports Bluetooth headsets, as the business person of tomorrow need the flexibility hands-free calling provides.

(more…)

VoIP Supply Named One Of WNY’s Fastest Growing Companies

June 15, 2007 by Garrett Smith

Company named sixth fastest growing company in Western New York by Buffalo’s Business First newspaper.

BUFFALO, NY June 15, 2007 — VoIP Supply, LLC (www.voipsupply.com) a leading provider of Voice over IP hardware, software and services, today announced their selection by Buffalo’s Business First newspaper as the sixth fastest growing company in Western New York. In 2006, the company took the number one spot, as Western New York’s fastest growing company, based on their growth in total sales and number of U.S. employees over the previous three years.

“It is a tremendous honor to be recognized as one of the fastest growing companies in our area,” stated Benjamin P. Sayers President and CEO of VoIP Supply, LLC. “We are proud of our hard work and this award is a testament of the consistent team effort put forth each day by the entire VoIP Supply staff.”

(more…)

Sangoma A500 BRI Card

June 11, 2007 by Garrett Smith

Sangoma A500 BRI Card For Global Open Source Telephony

Leading provider of connectivity hardware and software products including VoIP, TDM voice, WANs and Internet infrastructure, Sangoma, has released their new A500 BRI Card. The Sangoma A500 BRI card fully supports the ISDN S/T bus as either an NT or TE device using a reversed module design that avoids jumpers. The A500 supports the same digital processing and highly-compatible PCI/PCI Express interfaces as the AFT series. It provides the benefits of hardware-based echo cancellation and voice enhancement for scalability for various installations.

Sangoma A500 Additional Features

The Sangoma A500 has the following distinctive features:

Expandable from 2 to 24 ports of 2B+D interfaces for a total of 48 ISDN channels
PCI or PCI Express bus support
Optional carrier-grade echo cancellation
Support for all open source telephony projects

The Sangoma A500 will be available this July.

VoIP Supply Named to the 2007 Inc 500 List

Egorcast mashes Jott / Twitter

Thoughts on Linksys -> Cisco Rebranding

Ooma public launch imminent…

VoIP POTS Emulation on FXO with MagicJack

Providers fight over Sunrocket carcass

Snom 370 IP Phone Now Available!

Latest Snom IP Phone is Their Most Robust Offering to Date

The Apple IP Phone

What If Apple Made an IP Phone?

An IP Phone + an iPhone

VoIP Supply Named One Of WNY’s Fastest Growing Companies

Sangoma A500 BRI Card

Sangoma A500 BRI Card For Global Open Source Telephony

Sangoma A500 Additional Features

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