Free calls to the US during the holidays with Yahoo! Voice

Users of yahoo! Voice can call any phone number in the US for free during this holiday season. The offer is valid from 31-12-06 to 01-01-07 and each call is limited to 30 minutes. This is part of yahoo! Voice special holiday rates which also include very low rates to UK, France, Spain, Italy, Germany ,Philippines, Vietnam, China, Australia and India . Visit the yahoo voice websiteyahoo voice website for more details.

Send Free “Happy New Year” SMS

If you use any of betamax products ( voipbuster, voipcheap, poicy etc) you can send new year greetings sms to your loved ones at midnight without you leaving the party. All you have to do is to click the sms tab on any of the betamax voip applications and enter your new year greetings and click send. Your sms will automatically be send at midnight of January 1 2007 and its totally free. This is a fun way to reach a lot of people simultaneously during new year celebrations.

Skype Unlimited Calling plan

The unlimited free calls to US and Canada for users in North America announced by Skype in May will be coming to an end by the end of this month but Skype has now announced an unlimited calling plan for both US and Canada. With the unlimited calling plan subscribers can make unlimited free SkypeOut calls to any landline and mobile in the US and Canada for just $29.95 per year. Even as a promotion any Skype user who sign up for the new plan before January 31, 2007 will receive a special discounted introductory rate of $14.95 per year – 50 percent off the regular price.
Skype to skype calls still remain free. Skype is doing this to keep the numerous skypeOut customers they acquired in north america during the free SkypeOut call promotion there. Skype is now responding to the price war going on in the voip market. Many service providers now have free or very low rates to call regular phones and this has lead to people using skype only for free skype to Skype calls and other cheaper applications to call regular phones.
It is believed this special offer will be extended to other parts of the world especially the popular destinations soon. A move that will immensely improve the usage of SkypeOut. So if you live in north america or own a business their this is a great offer for you as it is now about the cheapest unlimited calling plan for US and Canada.

Office Depot is now the exclusive retailer of the Packet8 Virtual Office system.

8x8, the voip and video service provider has struck a deal with Office Depot to market its Packet8 Virtual Office Business Phone System throughout the United States. With this deal Office Depot now has the exclusive right to sell Packet8 Virtual Office Business Phone System via its vast network of office supplies stores. They will now start carrying the service in their stors and web site priced at aboutn $80.
Part of a statement by 8x8's vice president of Sales and Marketing Huw Rees reads: "We are pleased to offer Office Depot's customers the most robust and affordable small business phone service available today. Any customer with an existing high-speed Internet connection can be up and running with Packet8 Virtual Office in minutes."
Particularly targeted at small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), the Packet8 Virtual Office phone service features complete PBX functionality, Key Systems or Centrex and provide unlimited local and long distance calling in the U.S and Canada for a flat-rate of $39.99 a month with lower rates for international calls. It is a very cost effective package for any bussiness wishing to take full advantage of cost efficiencies and performance advantages of VoIP.
Just few weeks ago 8x8 announced that its Packet8 Virtual Office phone service is now being used by more than 6,000 small and medium-sized businesses across the United States and Canada.

AudioCodes Partners BroadSoft on VoIP Access

Voice-over-packet-technologies provider AudioCodes and voice-over-Internet-protocol application-software provider BroadSoft will team up on pre-integrated access solutions for hosted VoIP applications.
The companies said AudioCodes will join BroadSoft and a consortium of other customer-premises-equipment and access-equipment vendors “to build solutions that integrate equipment with hosted applications to simplify the integration challenges service providers face when deploying new services.”
The two vendors will engage in joint product development, marketing, sales and support of BroadWorks’ VoIP application platform and AudioCodes’ media-gateway platforms, collaborating with each other to validate components with each new product release.

Philips VoIP 321 Review

Like the linksys CIT 200 skype phone the Philips VoIP 321 is a skype phone that still requires that you have your PC on whenever you make a skype call but it has the added advantage that it can be used also for your regular phone (PSTN) calls. It has a base station that plugs into your phone socket and also into a USB port on your PC. The Philips VoIP 321 automatically connects to Skype installed on your PC as soon as you switch it on enabling you to make your skype calls up to 50 meters away from your computer. Also on the plus side it supports SkypeOut and SkypeIn which means that you can call regular phone lines at skypeout low rates and it will ring whenever a call comes on your skypeIn line.
The Philips VoIP 321 has an impressive four days standby time, which means that the handset can be away from the base station for that long and its DECT communication system gives really good audio quality. It also has useful features such as speakerphone, Caller ID and Contact management system. By pressing the Skype button on the handset you can call your Skype contacts directly as long as your computer is on. It has ring profiles that can tell you whether the incoming call is skype of PSTN.
On the down side Skype always pop up on your PC whenever you make a skype call from the phone and this could be quite annoying to anyone using the PC. Also its audio quality can be degraded in an environment with inteference but its easy of use and the fact that it suppots both skype and PSTN make it potentially worth the investment.

BSNL to Slash Call rates from India to the US and UK

The Indian internet service provider, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) has indicated that it wants to reduce the call rates to the US and UK to as low as Rs 1.25. It plan to do this by introducing VoIP on its broadband network for long distance traffic. This is good news for lot of Indians calling friends and families in the US and UK but this makes more economic sense for the company itself than any other thing else. Revenue from traditional International Long Distance (ILD) calling has diwindled in recent years as more and more Indians now use VoIP technology for their international calls through services such as Skype, Jajah, Voipbuster, Gizmo etc. This seems to be the major reason why this company which also offer international long distance carrier services has decided to join the VoIP band wagon. The Economic Times reports:
On the equipment front, BSNL is likely to bundle IP phones with its broadband connections. It will have to partner with an equipment provider like You Telecom (formerly Iqara Telecom), which has announced plans to launch an IP phone India in the next two months. IP phone converts voice into data and sends it through broadband.

Glofish X500 - The Smart Phone with VoIP and GPS from E-Ten

Taiwan based E-Ten Information Systems has launched a new Windows Mobile based smart phone with GPS, computing and VoIP capabilities. It has Skype which is about the most popular voip software preinstalled on it so that users can bypass their mobile phone company and use skype whenever there is wi-fi hotspot.
This smart phone is called the Glofish X500 and has a very slim design with just 15.5 millimeters, a feature the company is pushing as a big selling point. The Glofish X500 handset is like a PDA with voice functions. It offers a quad-band GSM, EDGE, GPRS and EGPRS. Users of Glofish have full e-mail access based on the Windows 5.0 OS push e-mail. It also has a built-in 2.0 MP camera for still shots and video. It is believed that this smart phone can successfully compete with the BlackBerry devices.

Sparq to Launch first E.164 VoIP Service in Taiwan

Sparq a Taiwanese fixed-line telecommunications network operator has been approved by the Taiwan's National Communications Commission to offer E. 164 format VoIP service in Taiwan. In November 2005 the Taiwanese NCC announced its plan to release E.164 VoIP numbers and related policies and regulations. Sparq and Chunghwa Telecom applied for licenses to operate an E. 164 VoIP services by June this year. The difference between E. 164 VoIP and traditional VoIP services like PC to PC, PC to Phone or broadband to phone is that E. 164 VoIP services allow mutual communication of voice, data and images with local fixed-line telephone and mobile phone numbers. E.164 VoIP operators therefore have to negotiate interconnection with operators of fixed-line and mobile communication networks, which may be complicated because of the competition pressure that VoIP services brings. Sparq is to begin rolling out the services by the first half of 2007 and its at the moment setting up all the required infrastructure.

Windows Live Messenger 8.1 Beta

The latest version of Windows Live Messenger launched in Beta not long ago came with a host of new features which are changes to the earlier version. This new features include Roaming Identity, Contact Card, SMS Phone Book, New Contact Emotion, Abuse reporting, Vista Presentation Mode etc. This latest version is available at Verizon for promotion. Users can check out this new features by registering for Verizon Web Calling and also be able to make two free three minutes calls anywhere to test it.