AccessLine SmartVoice VoIP Service First to Offer U.S. Small Businesses Local Phone Numbers in Great Britain
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AccessLine Communications, a leading provider of hosted VoIP (Voice over  Internet Protocol) services, today announced that its SmartVoice Service  for business now offers U.S.-based customers the ability to utilize  local phone numbers in Great Britain.
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We're all going contactless As London starts the migration towards country-wide acceptance of contactless payments, vendors are starting to pitch the equipment UK retailers are going to need to get the technology up and running.â¦
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New service will feature SkypePlus voicemail and expanded conference calling, as well as let users get calls from the traditional phone network.
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SBC Communications announced Tuesday that it would offer residential Internet-based calling, joining what could be the future of home-phone service.
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A VoIP expert at a national voice and data carrier draws on his experience to help you smooth the transition.
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The beta VoIP service is easy to set up and works well--but how long will the company be able to give away long-distance phone service?
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By Daniel Connolly danielconnolly@commercialappealcom  Telecommunications firm AT&T is offering a new nationwide calling plan that charges customers a hefty monthly fee in exchange for a package of long-distance calls on land line telephones and cell phones.
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U.K. telecom company offers BT Business Builder, which bundles free management applications for small businesses.
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EarthLink is offering free VoIP calling as an incentive to sign up for its high-speed Internet service. The free service is available to the company&#39;s million-plus broadband customers.
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U.K. mobile phone operator Hutchison 3G UK on Monday rolled out the Skypephone, a handset designed to simplify use of the Skype VOIP (voice over Internet Protocol) application.Hutchison 3G, branded as &quot;3&quot; in the U.K., is offering free calls between Skype users through the 3G mobile phone, which goes on sale Friday in the U.K. The Skypephone will be released by the end of the year in Australia, Denmark, Hong Kong, Italy, Ireland, Macau, and Sweden.Some mobile phones already support Skype, but volume-based data usage charges typically make the service expensive to use. Skype recommends using its mobile application with unlimited 3G data plans or Wi-Fi.Hutchison 3 has been offering unlimited Skype calls on its pricier X-Series phones, but the Skypephone is simpler and aimed at the mass market, according to a company spokesman. The phone has a large button with Skype&#39;s logo that&#39;s used to launch calls and IMs.Hutchison 3 is not charging for the cost of Skype calls on its network, although it does limit the service to about 4,000 minutes per month. Hutchison 3 will then suspend outgoing Skype calls but allow incoming ones.If a user is outside of Hutchison 3&#39;s network, roaming charges apply, which can be pricey despite a rate drop from operators after warnings from the European Commission earlier this year. The Skypephone is dual-band and won&#39;t work in the U.S.Hutchison 3&#39;s Skypephone allows free calls between registered Skype users, but the SkypeOut service that allows PC users to call regular telephone numbers using Skype is not available. Those must be dialed as regular calls charged for by Hutchison 3.The candy-bar style handset , which comes in white and black, was developed by Huchison 3 and Qualcomm. It has a 2-megapixel camera, MPHutchison 3 player, Bluetooth connectivity, 16MB of internal memory that can be expanded to 1GB with a Micro SD memory card.In the U.K., the handset costs &#163;49.99 ($102) for customers who prepay their service. The phone is free for those on a contract with Huchison 3, which start around &#163;12 per month.Skype, which is owned by eBay, and Hutchison 3, agreed in 2006 to work on a mobile VOIP phone. Hutchison 3 is the smallest U.K. operator and has shown less aversion to shaking up the market, particularly with VOIP, which threatens operators&#39; revenue, wrote John Delaney, principal analyst at Ovum.&quot;The bigger operators, such as Vodafone, T-Mobile, and Orange, have all taken flak recently for alleged hostility towards customers using VOIP on their networks,&quot; Delaney wrote. &quot;Now here comes Hutchison 3, not only encouraging its customers to use VOIP, but bending over backwards to make it easy for them.&quot;&#160;
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(InfoWorld) - Two members of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission called for the federal government to create a wide-ranging national broadband strategy to help small businesses compete on a global level. Too many U.S. small businesses have no access to broadband, and many others can't afford it, said Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein, Democratic members of the FCC. The cost of consumer-level broadband per megabit in the United States is about seven times the cost in Japan, Adelstein told the U.S. Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee. Small businesses "typically pay too much for a service that is too slow," Copps said. "It's not just a matter of national pride we're talking about -- it's a business issue." A survey in 2005 found that small businesses paid an average of $720 per month for a T1 line, added Ben Scott, policy director of Free Press, a media reform advocacy group. In Chicago, customers pay $80 to $90 a month for 1MbpsÂ of broadband, but in smaller Urbana, Ill., the cost is about $300, Scott said. In Greenup, Ill., a city with about 1,500 residents south of Chicago, the monthly cost of a 1Mbps connection is $1,300, Scott said. Small businesses in small towns and rural areas lack the same technological edge that many overseas competitors have, Scott said. "The head start we're giving our global competition is taking it just a bit too far," he said. Senators John Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat, and Olympia Snowe, a Maine Republican, complained that President George Bush set a policy goal in 2004 for all U.S. residents to have broadband available by this year, but didn't back it up with policies. "We had the goal but not the tactics," Snowe said. A national broadband policy should include better data about where broadband service is lacking, said the FCC's Adelstein. The FCC still says a postal zip code has broadband if one customer there does, he said. Congress should provide more money for broadband build-out in rural areas, and the Republican majority at the FCC should stop a deregulatory approach that has led to few broadband competitors, he said. Adelstein also called for a national summit on broadband that would bring together customers, providers, members of Congress and the Bush administration, and others to address broadband availability. "We should make broadband the dial tone of the 21st century," he said. Not everyone at the hearing complained about the state of broadband in the United States. There's little evidence of a broadband problem in the United States, said Scott Wallsten, director of communications policy studies at the Progress and Freedom Foundation, a conservative think tank. "Telephone, cable, and wireless companies are investing billions in new high-speed infrastructure, and consumers and businesses are adopting broadband at remarkable rates," Wallsten said. Verizon CommunicationsÂ alone is planning to spend $23 billion on its fiber-optic network by 2010, he said. People calling for government solutions "fail to provide solid analysis showing that their proposals would actually benefit consumers or small businesses," Wallsten added. Sen. Bob Corker, a Tennessee Republican, laid the problems back at the feet of Copps and Adelstein. The FCC has the power to encourage more broadband competition through anÂ upcoming auction of radio spectrum, he said. Several companies want to provide nationwide wireless broadband if the January auction is set up right, he said. "It seems like to me you have the tools at the FCC," he said.
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BEDMINSTER, NJ, Aug. 23 /PRNewswire/ -- AT&amp;T today announced that Best Buy will be among the first national retailers to offer AT&amp;T&#39;s residential Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) phone service, AT&amp;T CallVantage
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The largest Voice-over-IP business deployment revealed to date presents new opportunities for both the bank that&#39;s using it and the services provider that&#39;s implementing it.
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AOL LLC has said it would make available its AIM Phoneline VoIP service, which is part of its instant messaging client, to developers in a bid to spur new hardware and functionality for the service.
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The nation's biggest cable company said it plans to roll out phone service nationally within the next year and a half in its bid to become the primary alternative to local phone companies such as Verizon Communications. -The Washington Post
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VoIP app and 250MB of storage space VoIP telephony company Vonage has launched its V-Phone USB calling kit in the UK. It's the size of a Flash drive - there's 250MB of free storage space on there - but also includes all you need to use your Vonage account on any PC, anywhere.â¦
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SBC Communications this week entered the residential VoIP market by announcing plans to launch a service early next year for its DSL customers.