VoIP revenue-sharing scheme enhanced by Timico

      Thanks to VoIP, Timico Ltd, a provider of converged communication services to business customers is actually realising more than double the revenue its business partners can get. The company can be found in Newark, Nottinghamshire.

            Right now, all the companies registered to the Timico's Business Partner programme are gaining a lot from a combination of connection bonus, hardware earnings and ongoing revenue share. In the first year of the contract, a Timico business partner can actually earn up to £185 from an average revenue customer on a mid-range tariff. This is quite much compared to the previous average revenue, which was £85.

            The new package form Timico is meant to position Timico's hosted VoIP solution as a lucrative proposition for dealers expanding into converged communications. It is their hope that the improved VoIP rewards will attract mobile and telecoms dealers, by demonstrating how much they can earn from selling VoIP services.

            With the help of Timico, its business partners can now expand their operations from a single service to providing a full suite of converged communications. This will enable them to gain both from higher earnings and reduced customer churn.

 

 

 

VoIP comes first in IBISWorld’s Top 10 List for 2008

            In a recent release by IBISWorld on the top ten industries with strong growth forecasts for 2008, VoIP topped the list.  According to the report too, VoIP is forecasted to grow by 24.3 percent this year.

            Those in corn farming, foam product manufacturing, web search portal, and biotechnology fields, are not left far behind. The Subscriber growth will drive revenue in the VoIP sector. It is expected that the figure will rise by 21.2 percent this year to 16.6 million. The number of establishments is also expected to jump by a significant 44.5 percent to 2,190 nationwide.

            In a statement release, the Senior analyst at IBISWorld, George Van Horn explained that, "The VoIP providers industry will easily outperform the wider telecommunications sector this year, given that it is an emerging service which continues to gain greater consumer and business acceptance. As household broadband penetration increases, it will facilitate greater use of digital services, helping to improve the call quality of industry services. In fact, by 2012, we expect revenue growth of 90.2 percent, bringing total revenue to $4.88 billion. By the same time, we predict that the U.S. will have approximately 25.4 million paying VoIP subscribers."

            In only this year, it is expected that the revenue will grow from an impressive 24.3 percent to $3.19 billion. IBISWorld forecasts that as the services improve and gain greater consumer acceptance, many more providers will begin to turn a profit especially with Vonage leading the way.  It is expected that the US's largest VoIP provider will become more profitable for the first time this quarter.

 

 

 

SMEs to benefit from VoIP, Thanks to BT and RingCentral

            In order to launch the latest in its range of web-based tools, BT RingCentral, BT Business has entered into a joint venture with RingCentral, a US-based online communications company. RingCentral helps manage the phone, mobile and communication services of SMEs in the UK. By doing this, they help these SMEs maintain a more professional image.

            The main reason for establishing BT RingCentral was to make it easy to set-up and maintain small and medium-sized businesses. It does not necessarily require any outlay on hardware, which can be quite expensive to maintain.

            With this new service, you get a lot. The professional phone system has a variety of high tech features such as advanced call management and PBX features, voicemail and internet fax capabilities.

            It costs just £15 to get RingCentral. This offer is exclusive of VAT and on a monthly basis. A company is supposed to get a non-geographic 0800 Freefone or an 0844 Contact call number with this. The number can be used for a lot of things. Talk about having multiple extensions with voicemail; automatic call screening and forwarding; a click-to-call button to use on web sites and e-mails; call logs for sales leads; fax capabilities; and for message alerts.

            How can I forget that it also have a provision for welcoming callers with a customised greeting, in-queue music or even a promotional announcement. Then finally, it allows customers to make, screen and answer calls online, through the "Desktop Call Controller". Isn't that something?

 

 

 

A New Set of features to be Added to Qwest’s OneFlex VoIP product suite

            Qwest is a company that provides voice, video and data services across the US and the world. In 2004, Qwest introduced OneFlex, a business VoIP service. It has just added a set of new features to its OneFlex VoIP product suite. Among the features is an application that will allow users compress their voice calls to free up more bandwidth for data transmissions.

            With the compression feature, users can double or triple the amount of paths they have that is solely for VoIP. The nice part about this, is that its cost free for OneFlex customers. It also allows for work in the sense that employees can set up dedicated VoIP lines in hotels and home offices that act as extensions to office lines. A lot of companies can now save money by putting voice services over the company's T1 line.

            Even though users can now compress their voice traffic to get more use out of their bandwidth, they still have to pay more if they want to buy additional phone lines. The only users that can take advantage of the compression features are those with up-to-date compression-capable equipment. Those who don't have compression-capable equipment will have to upgrade.

            Another distinct feature is an "escape to operator" feature. It allows inbound callers access to an operator from their voice mail. There are also Sub Office Administrator Portals that allows office administrators to outsource office management functions to employees at different office locations.

 

 

 

 

New iPhone SDK to allow VoIP

            In a recent announcement, Apple declared that it will let VoIP clients on the iPhone and iPod, by means of its new software development kit. The only thing is that any VoIP solution developed with this kit does not work through a cellular network. It only works over Wi-Fi. The real reason behind this might be due to bandwidth limitations on the cell network, which make it difficult to develop VoIP on that platform.

            According to the iPhone SDK agreement, "If an Application requires or will have access to the carrier network, then additionally such Application: … May not have Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) functionality."

            Anyway all hope is not lost. SightSpeed, a company has started some operations aimed at developing VoIP for the iPhone. Have they faced any obstacles? Off course. Right now they are having problems putting together their video chat service. The location of the camera on the iPhone is making it hard for them to fully develop the VoIP application. Aside from this, there are also some speculations that Skype and Gizmo projects will soon introduce a VoIP client. So watch out.

 

 

Tokiva Introduces a Wireless Variation to Its VoIP Theme

            With VoIP technology comes a lot of hybrids and variations. Presently, the wireless mobile virtual network operator (MVNO), Tokiva has added instant messaging on mobiles to the mix which is a way to initiate a packetized voice call

            A few days ago, the Toronto-based operator made it known that its IM-To-Call service will now be available with immediate effect on leading IM clients. This includes MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, AOL Messenger, and Google Talk. In a statement, Tokiva said its general availability follows a beta test that began in January.

            According to Tokiva, the users do not need to download any software in order to make any wireless VoIP call. What happens is that registered users receive an invitation to add Tokiva as a buddy on their IM lists. All they now need to do is to send an instant message to Tokiva to call them. Tokiva will definitely call back, with the user's landline or mobile phone. They will then connect the caller to the desired number immediately.

            The MVNO claims that, "using Tokiva can save up to 90% of normal call costs because the calls are carried by Tokiva's global VoIP network that has a footprint in over 185 countries."

            Tokiva observed that their customers tend to be heavy users of IM. Which means that the Tokiva IM-To-Call service is a natural extension to what they are already doing. According to Tong Li, the founder and chief executive of Tokiva, "Tokiva is connecting text-based IM systems with voice-based phone networks in a simple yet powerful way." 

            From the figures obtained from the ComScore Media, there are 90 million instant messaging users in the United States. Come second quarter of 2008, Tokiva said it plans to support QQ Messenger, the most popular IM systems in China, which counts 520 million users.

HD DVR, SureWest’s new VoIP phone service

            Before now, SureWest, a telecommunication company provided VoIP services for business customers. Now, they have moved on to a higher level. That is to say that in addition to providing VoIP services to their business customers, they are now going to involve residential customers.

            The new form of VoIP service for residential customers is a Digital Phone. It is a high-definition digital video recorder product. SureWest (Nasdaq: SURW) has since been testing the high-definition DVR. This development has been in affect since December last year.

            In a news release, Steve Oldham, the president and chief executive officer of SureWest said this, "customer response to the product far exceeded SureWest's expectations".

            SureWEst has also expanded to 50 high-definition channels, up from 17 a year ago.

Qwest improves VoIP product suite

            Qwest first opened up OneFlex, a business VoIP service in the year 2004. According to Jeff Randolph, the president of the Illinois-based engineering consulting firm Randolph & Associates, his company has subscribed to Qwest's OneFlex service for about a year. It has provided his company with the ability to work more flexibly by allowing employees to set up dedicated VoIP lines in hotels and home offices that act as extensions to office lines. He further added that the service has helped his company save money by putting voice services over the company's T1 line.

            In a recent development, Qwest has revealed a number of new features for its OneFlex VoIP product suite. It also includes an application that allows users to compress their voice calls so as to free up more bandwidth for data transmissions.

            According to Thuy Ha, the director of product management for Qwest, "the compression feature can let users double or even triple the number of paths they have dedicated to VoIP." She added that Oneflex customers do not have to pay more for the compression feature.

            "While users will be able to compress their voice traffic to get more use out of their bandwidth," Ha adds, "they will still have to pay additional money if they want to purchase additional phone lines. Customers will only be able to take advantage of the compression feature if they have up-to-date compression-capable equipment. Customers who don't have compression-capable equipment will have to upgrade."

            Another feature has been added. It is known as the "escape to operator" feature. It allows inbound callers to have access to an operator from their voice mail in addition to Sub Office Administrator Portals that allow office administrators to outsource office management functions to employees at different office locations.

Adphone given away 30 minutes of free calls per day !

I wrote about this service about a year ago and they have really improved since then. Their voip client has been redesigned and their business model changed a little bit. Adphone is now a ad based voip service but calls are not totally free because they recognize the fact that ad revenue just cannot finance the cost of call termination to all destination. Therefore the free calls are available for some 50 countries, the list of which are available HERE.
One good thing about Adphone is that they display visual ads on the voip client that does not interfere whit your calls in anyway. You are not even required to click on the ads before your calls get connected. So you only need to click on the ads if you are really interested in it.
To use adphone you have to download the adphone client from their website. It is very easy to install and use. When you call a number the first two minutes of the call are free and you can call the same number up to ten times in a day. The only down side of adphone is the fact that it is only available for PC-to-phone calls but i believe they will add phone-to-phone funtionality in no distance future. Call connection is really fast and the audio quality is excellent
To try out Adphone download it Here now.

Ad-based Free Calling Service Voixio to go live Soon. Promise Free Worldwide Calls

A new advertisement based free calling service nicknamed voixio was launched recently and will be going live from the 1st of April. It has been generating some excitement in the blogsphere recently. They promise to let their users call any number in the world for free just by viewing a video commercial. Users will be able to make free worldwide voice and video calls, at least that is what they are saying. When you visit their website www.voixio.com, you will be asked to register and if you try to place a call, a small video commercial will play after which you will be informed that the service will only be live by April 1st
I have seen several ad-based voip service come and go without much success. One of the major problem with them is that they promise free worldwide calls but in reality they only provide free calls to popular destinations that are already free from other services. This normally turn off users because they have to watch a commercial or listen to an ad before they can have free calls to destinations they can get from other services or voip applications for free and without any ad.
Most ad-based voip service can not deliver on their promise of free worldwide calls because it is just not possible for them to offset their termination cost to non western countries by whatever to earn from advertisements. Imaging the cost of terminating 1 million calls to a place like India or Senegal for example.
But Voixio is saying they can do this, at least that what I am reading on some blogs. I guess we have to wait till April 1st to find out, just hope this will not be another April fool.

Nonoh verification process creating problem for users in North America

Many users of nonoh in north america particularly in the US and canada are having problem with the nonoh user verification process. Most users in this area are unable to purchase credit for their nonoh account thereby unable to make phone calls with it. The problem is due to the fact the verification code which nonoh send to their mobile through an sms did not arrive. User are not getting this sms and therefore cant complete the verification process.
I have this same problem with my nonoh account and i have received lot of e-mails from my readers telling me they are having thesame problem. I have contacted betamax, the owner of nonoh but i am yet to get a reply from them.
I hope betamax resolve this problem as soon as possible so that users can continue to use their service.