A dime-a-dozen handheld calculator used to cost a hundred bucks. It’ll cost you $200-grand to take a personal-space vacation (until such galactic jaunts become the norm). And the cost of 3D-TV technology is widely expected to plummet as its adoption becomes widespread.

But sometimes it does. And it’s a good thing.

Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) has been on an upward climb over the last several years (economic downturn notwithstanding), and its continued ascent appears inevitable.

Surge in Mobile Tech Boosts VoIP Growth

There remain some niggling concerns about this technology’s performance on the security and reliability fronts, and the extent to which it can (and should) be regulated remains a conundrum.

Still, VoIP is on a course for certain continued success. That’s thanks to its undeniable positioning as a cheap alternative to all the stuff that came before and an anticipated surge in the mobile faction of this technology.

A couple of recent studies by market intelligence firm In-Stat back this up, predicting a robust VoIP market for the months to come. Mobile VoIP — a relatively recent innovation — is particularly poised for greatness, with pundits everywhere predicting its imminent hold of the industry.

Some Stats to Back the Predictions:

• The VoIP industry worldwide could exceed the $6-billion mark in 2015.




• Current industry reports predict that the mobile VoIP market will be worth $32.2 billion by 2013.




• The SOHO market, says In-Stat, will decrease its wired voice expenses by 6% over the next four years. Over the same period, overall VoIP spending is expected to jump to 52%.




• In-Stat predicts that application-based VoIP spending could increase over its current levels by nearly 60% by 2014.




• The most dramatic growth in VoIP spending derives from the professional services, healthcare and social services vertical markets.




• Japan, the United States and China are the three hottest markets for IP telephony, the technology upon which VoIP is based.




• The number of mobile broadband users is predicted to surpass one billion in the year 2011 and to hit 3.8 billion worldwide by 2015. That’s up from just 500 million in 2010.




• A recent Ericsson study of handheld devices revealed that the adoption level of tablet computers, connected laptops and smartphones will see mobile Internet subscriptions double in 2011. The increasing popularity of 4G technology among mobile networks too is expected to produce its own upswing in the use of mobile VoIP services.




• The majority of mobile broadband users, of which VoIP is expected to play a considerable role, will be found in Asia in the coming year. Some 400-million users will hail from there, with the U.S. and Europe each clocking half of that again.

VoIP on the Grow

Worldwide, more than 100-million people were subscribed to VoIP at the end of last year; and just the first six months of 2010 saw another 12-million lines sign on.

Over 22% of consumer broadband lines currently come with a VoIP service. In some markets — like the French, where VoIP penetrates 92.42% of broadband subscriptions and 70% of households have the protocol available to them — broadband subscriptions automatically include VoIP service.

At this rate, says Point Topic, the VoIP market should reach 200-million by 2015. Meanwhile, In-Stat research predicts we’ll crest 288-million VoIP users by 2013.

Broadband Expansion Makes Impact

The interest in mobile access to VoIP especially as we enter the 4G age, to say nothing of the expected growth from broadband expansion, suggests we could hit these bigger numbers even sooner.

It’s only been a short while since VoIP first appeared on the scene, skipping along on a piddly 128 kbps ISDN connection. In 2004, mass-market VoIP services running on existing broadband networks were introduced.

In turn, consumers flocked to embrace services such as Vonage and Skype that promised to lower telephone bills. Businesses exchanged their copper-wire telephone systems for the IP-enabled telephone upgrades and hosted PBX services that would reduce personnel, office space and overhead, while enhancing telephony capabilities and improving customer service.

Uneven Performance a Challenge

But we’re not there yet. VoIP continues to suffer an uneven reputation thanks to continued problems with quality, including dropped calls and distorted speech — functions, it bears noting, of the network on which the service runs and not VoIP itself.

A paucity of available bandwidth bears significant responsibility for this shortfall. Voice packets en route from one Internet point to another get waylaid or even dropped altogether by congested routers.

Initiatives to Boost Bandwidth

But news breaks everywhere these days about worldwide initiatives to increase bandwidth in a big way. In the UK, for example, Virgin Media is set to roll out its fibre-optic broadband network in December. It will expose select populations to the country’s first taste of 100Mbps upload speed. It’s “a significant milestone,” Virgin CEO Neil Berkett has said of the evolution of broadband technology in Britain.

Also up next for VoIP: continued usurping of older telco infrastructures and further innovation. Much hope is pinned on VoIP’s mobile future and the explosion of smartphone usage that’s helping to power it.

Mobile operators that don’t embrace VoIP, say those with an eye on the scene, will pay the price. Business research and consulting firm Frost & Sullivan envisions a day, just five years hence, when mobile VoIP will generate $29.57 billion. Telefonica Europe recently took a swing of the bat with a claim to have produced the first VoIP app for Facebook, launched initially as a mobile app for BlackBerries.

The VoIP race is on.

Go for it. Sharpening your pencil and calculating exactly what an investment in an Internet Protocol (Internet Protocol) PBX (private branch exchange) telephony system—a highly sophisticated business telephone system designed to deliver voice and/or video over a data network—amounts to, is an eminently worthwhile exercise.

To start, the savings you’ll enjoy on equipment purchases and ongoing telecom costs will be apparent from your next bill. Less obvious are those fuzzy benefits a sharp new telecom system lends a firm, such as the breathless decline in frustration experienced by those customers charged with navigating your particular telephony path.

Working that pencil is worth the effort.

Herewith, five hard-number reasons a new phone system is a sound investment.

1. Establishing a corporate IP network and running all your lines through it will translate into immediate savings on your phone bill, particularly if your folks journey back and forth a lot between branches, or engage in any kind of long distance. Also, if your employees are on the road at all, working their mobile phone keypads and racking up charges on hotel bills, this kind of investment will bear fruit right away.
2. You’ll appreciate a material cost cut in equipment purchases, too, if you choose wisely. A country-hick phone system can actually have a steeper price tag than its IP city-slicker cousin. It certainly has fewer features. What’s more, once you’ve got the IP system in place, you can ditch those old-fashioned phone contraptions altogether and install company-wide software that will transform your corporate computers into high-functioning tools of telephony.
3. Bypass the infrastructure costs for this new arrival by doubling up on your preexisting data network. Doing so represents a cost-savings that could amount to more than $100 per desktop. And if you ever add another user, or move office, you can enjoy the ease of self-administered setup (versus calling in an expensive “expert”) that this more sophisticated system offers.
4. One of the neatest features a snazzy new IP system brings to bear is how it, married to a broadband Internet connection, means anyone can get on the line from anywhere. Remote and telecommuting employees are suddenly a real possibility for a company so equipped.

In February, Therm-Omega-Tech, Inc., a leading manufacturer of reliable Tempered Water Systems and Automatic Temperature Control Valves for Fluid Management since 1983, found themselves in the middle of the record setting blizzards in Warminster, Pennsylvania. Like most businesses in the area, Therm-Omega-Tech employees were stranded at home for days at a time due to major roadways being shut down during a Pennsylvania state of emergency. Just days before the snowstorms hit, Bardissi Enterprises, a certified partner of AltiGen Communications, deployed the MaxMobile solution for key sales executives at Therm-Omega-Tech as a part of a beta test for the revolutionary new MaxMobile software. When the storms hit, contrary to most business in the area, sales resumed as usual for Therm-Omega-Tech as both national and international calls continued to roll in via the employee’s iPhones, which were running MaxMobile.  Inbound callers were unaware of any disruptions in service as the iPhones functioned as normal business extensions with full PBX features.

“Paul Driscoll, Sales Manager for Therm-Omega-Tech, informed me that he received his usual sales calls throughout the day on his iPhone due to the MaxMobile install, which allowed him to quote and close three new deals — even one prospective customer who called in from out of the country,” stated George Bardissi, President of Bardissi Enterprises. “Therm-Omega-Tech is now going to deploy the iPhone MaxMobile Solution for the rest of the company staff. The AltiGen MaxMobile iPhone solution combined with Microsoft SBS 2008 and Exchange 2007 brings all the company resources directly to the palm of your hands, allowing companies to conduct business remotely regardless of storm disasters or any other factors preventing travel to the office.”

“Our latest version of Max Communications Server brings advanced, enterprise class mobile PBX features to the Apple iPhone,” stated Jerry Fleming, AltiGen’s President & COO.  “MaxMobile allows smart phones to act as the primary business PBX extension and dynamically redirect all PBX extension calls to the mobile phone – completely transparent to the calling party.  With critical business-class PBX functionality, integrated with advanced smart phone features, MaxMobile offers true mobile communications on a single smart phone platform.”

In the very first minute after the earthquake, 106 people filed status updates with the word “earth” in them. In the first three minutes, that number jumped to over 700. Since then, updates with the word “Haiti” have been coming at the rate of 1,500 a minute, according to the Mobile Giving Foundation.

But not only are texting, Tweeting survivors alerting the world to their plight, many of us on the receiving end are responding with our keypads, too. Springing from text-giving inroads dug after the South Asian tsunami in 2004, the cellphone is rapidly becoming the most popular means of pledging financial help to charitable initiatives.

Texting Your Donation

The Mobile Giving Foundation, the company that pioneered the technology behind “text-to-give” campaigns, reported this week that Haitian donations are arriving at a rate of US$50,000 an hour.

On January 20, the Canadian Red Cross set up a text-messaging campaign that lets cellphone users donate $5 to the Haiti Earthquake Fund by texting “redcross” to 30333. After users respond to a confirmation message, a $5 charge is tacked on their phone bill.

In the U.S., the American Red Cross has raised more than US$22 million in cellphone-administered donations since the January 12 quake.
But there’s more in store for this modest instrument of interaction.

The phone is gaining new prominence as the unwitting central character in an unfolding drama that will ultimately send up an across-the-board revised definition for this critical instrument of modern life.

Unified Communications Infrastructure

It’s why, more than ever, managers need to be mindful of the communications infrastructure inside which they organize their companies, and with the corporate partners with whom they align themselves in pursuit of same.

But there are limitations to these sharp new methods of communication, especially when messages are too wordy or complex for such bite-sized dissemination. It’s why attaching voice integration to data-based devices is more important than ever.

Indeed, this concept of “unified communication” is gaining ground for its usefulness in corporate environments where workers increasingly recognize the value of the marriage between computer and phone, and its promise of speedy and reliable communication.

Devices that can accommodate the dual demands of voice and data, business and personal, media consumption and individual interaction, are the current darlings of the buzzing telecommunications world.

Managers considering a commitment to a new communications system in 2010 need to select one that addresses all of their requirements—old school and new age alike.

I’m not looking to ride the ink trails of Charles Dickens here, but it’s awfully hard to resist when he laid down so apt an all-purpose summary of a year. Because it is always the best of times—and the worst. A little of this, a little of that. Some highs, some lows. One day you’re an American journalist getting an escort from North Korea by Bill Clinton, the next you’re Taylor Swift and your stage is being stormed by Kanye.

Certainly if you were Miss California or Roman Polanski in 2009, you’ve had better revolutions through the lunar cycle. But if you were Susan Boyle or the guy who won that dream job on that Pacific Island, well, you had yourself a bit of a party over the last 12 months, didn’t you?

As for us here at 360 and our journey through the latest calendar pages, we feel confident laying claim to Dickens’ more positive category of assessment. Prominent among those best-of times was our growth. In spite of the so-called “recession,” we managed to pass another year in expansion mode.

Our growth rate over the last six months? 46 percent.

More than that, we hired six new people in the last four months of 2009 and, in December, moved offices to a spot that is almost triple the size our original space.

Rising above negative ambient circumstances seems to be our thing: we launched the company during the last recession.

As for the folks we served over 2009, I will say they are grateful and better off for their encounter with us. Smart companies did not hold onto their cash when the pace slowed; they upgraded their systems!! Imagine that, and some of the best deals are made during a recession. And today these folks purring with efficient operating structures that are poised to capture business from a recovering economy.

And what of the rest? Well, they’re kind of preoccupied right now with the matter of enacting a system upgrade of their own. Still running Windows Server 2000, 2003 or perhaps Windows XP or better yet Exchange 2000, 2003, 2007? Have a look at your daybook, fella: It’s 2010 and the latest technology is Win2008, Window7, Exchange2010.

Hmmm, what else of this past year? In April, the Standish Report released its latest survey: an increase challenge and failures of in ERP and CRM implementations, 44% and 24% respectively. No surprise there, eh. I’ve been doing this for 15+ years and the scene was ever thus. Hence, why 360 Visibility was established with its innovative Solution Centre of ERP/CRM implementation methodology.  Try it, nobody likes to be burnt twice.

Certainly server virtualization continued to grab the attention of companies wanting to do more with less. Plasma and LCD are dead; LED TV is here to stay. And the results finally came in for the Beta-vs-VHS debate – Blu-ray won. So why does your IT disaster recovery plan still include “Tapes” – please shelve them along with those 8Tracks. Resistance is futile – Remote Online Backup is taking over.

Traditional phone system vendors that have been around since the mastodons continued to play catch-up while true voice-over IP systems like those that hail from AltiGen, Cisco and Microsoft Unified Communications laid the true pavement for 2010.

2010, a new decade! Set your goals, because “Vision without Execution is Hallucination” This year will be the best of times.

The testing focus of the program is designed to ensure that vendors providing interoperability with Microsoft Unified Communications solutions do so in a consistent and supportable manner, including SIP and signaling support used with the Mediation Server role of Office Communications Server 2007 and the Unified Messaging role of Exchange Server 2007. Only products that meet rigorous and extensive testing requirements and conform to the specifications and test plans receive qualification.

AltiGen’s OIP certified solution, Max Communications Server, is an integrated intelligent gateway and application server for Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 providing an all-inclusive real-time, multi-role business communications solution consisting of:

vFeature-Rich Call Center Server with native integration to Office Communications Server 2007

• Call Recording
• PSTN Connectivity for OCS 2007 R2 with Advanced Call Routing Capabilities
• Branch/Remote office gateway with full remote survivability

“AltiGen is the first vendor to be certified as both an integrated call center solution and intelligent gateway solution with direct SIP integration to Microsoft’s Office Communications Server 2007,” said Niel Levonius, AltiGen Director of Business Strategy.  “With a rich set of UC application functionality natively integrated to OCS 2007, AltiGen is able to uniquely offer Microsoft customers a powerful alternative to other Unified Communications technologies. Finally, customers are able to deploy a complete end-to-end 100% Microsoft-based Unified Communications solution.”

Eddie Martinie, Information Technology Manager of Gibson Guitar said, “As an early adopter of Microsoft’s Office Communications Server 2007, Gibson Guitar was looking to deploy a complete unified communications solution with call center capabilities.  AltiGen was recommended by Microsoft to seamlessly add the intelligent call routing, supervision and call recording we required to OCS 2007. AltiGen’s native integration to OCS 2007 enabled us to deploy a complete Microsoft-based UC solution enterprise-wide including VoIP, IM, Unified Messaging and Call Center in an easy to manage environment.