Linksys inks Verizon VoIP deal, intros products
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Cisco Systems Inc&#39;s Linksys home networking division yesterday said it has made a deal with Verizon Communications to have Linksys kit used in Verizon&#39;s VoiceWing voice over IP service.
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Internet phone service Vonage on Tuesday said it has struck a deal with Cisco Systems Inc. (CSCO.O) to sell Vonage-ready equipment at hundreds of retail stores in a bid to boost new subscriptions.
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SAN FRANCISCO--Verizon Communications, one of the largest local phone providers in the country, is the latest carrier to select Linksys to provide Internet telephony to consumers.
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(InfoWorld) - Large businesses in the United States looking for high-bandwidth networks that can handle several technologies have a new option available to them with the launch of a dedicated optical network service from Verizon Communications' Business unit. Verizon Business' Integrated Optical Service allows companies to integrate Ethernet service and optical technologies such as dense wave division multiplexingÂ and synchronous optical networkÂ into a single ring network, the company said. The service can support several applications, including time-division multiplexing, storage, video, and mainframe applications. "You can bring it all together under a single platform," said Mike Marcellin, vice president of product marketing at Verizon Business. "All the types of applications and protocols our customers are asking for are now are able to be delivered over a single architecture." The service, with total bandwidth capability of 440Gbps, is targeted at customers with high-bandwidth requirements, including the financial, health-care, government and education sectors. It's the first dedicated optical network service offered by a top-tier telecom provider, according to Verizon. "That's a lot of bandwidth," said Michael DiVecchia, Verizon Business' group manager for optical product management. The service may not generate broad interest among large businesses, but "to particular types of companies, they are critical," said Lisa Pierce, vice president at Forrester Research. Some customers in media and financial services "who need very large amounts of bandwidth" will be interested in the service, she said. Companies going through mergers that are trying to patch together different types of networks would also benefit, as would companies looking for ways to join legacy networks for other reasons, Pierce said. "Carrier consolidation forces this type of service," she said. "If you look at the types of optical services a Verizon or AT&T has at a local level, you'll see great variation based on legacy provider." The Integrated Optical Service uses an optical transport platform called reconfigurable optical add/drop multiplexer, or ROADM, that allows customers to converge voice, video, and data with a range of other applications on a high-speed network, Verizon Business said. The service is available immediately in 26 states and cities, including New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Washington, D.C., Dallas, Los Angeles, and Seattle. Pricing depends on the services customers want but generallyÂ ranges from about $60,000 to $150,000 per month, DiVecchia said. The product includes a service level agreement that includes around-the-clock monitoring and a guaranteed uptime of 99.999 percent, DiVecchia said.
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Starting in mid-October AT&amp;T, in partnership with industry-leader Linksys (a division of Cisco Systems (Quote, Chart)), will begin offering Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP) to home users across the country.
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With its eyes on the future of home entertainment and a relatively uncluttered band of radio spectrum, Cisco Systems Inc.'s Linksys division on Wednesday unveiled a line of IEEE 802.11g/a wireless LAN products.
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Verizon Communications Inc. yesterday launched a new $7.95-a-month messaging and call-forwarding service that lets people get many of the benefits of advanced
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Voice-over-Internet provider VoIP, Inc. says it is in talks with some 70 smaller cable companies to provide them with wholesale Internet or VoIP-based phone service plans.
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Troubled VoIP service provider Vonage is rolling out new products and services at the Consumer Electronics Show in a bid to reverse its downward spiral.Intellectual property lawsuits brought by Nortel, Verizon, Sprint, and AT&amp;T have distracted Vonage for the past year. During that time, customer acquisition slowed, and defections grew to 3 percent in the third quarter last year.But Vonage says it is ready to turn a corner. The suits were a weapon that the phone companies used to defend their businesses in the face of competition from Vonage, said Jeffrey Citron, chairman, chief strategist and interim CEO at Vonage. &quot;It was a successful strategy. It distracted us and slowed us down,&quot; he said. &quot;Instead of rolling out MyVonage six months ago, we were dealing with workarounds.&quot; MyVonage is the name of a new campaign at the company to introduce a host of services geared toward customer lifestyles.While the lawsuits were ongoing, the company was developing workaround technology that would allow its business to move forward without infringing on the relevant patents. Vonage has now settled all four major lawsuits against it.That has left Vonage free to spend more time focusing on its business, said Citron. It hired new engineers who designed a router, the first time Vonage will sell its own router rather than one from Cisco or Motorola.The router has an unusual feature: a screen. It displays information about problems that the modem might have in plain language. For instance, rather than showing a flashing light like most routers, this one displays words telling users that the Ethernet cable is unplugged.New customers will be able to buy the V-Portal router online starting Wednesday for $9.99 after rebates.In addition to the new router, Vonage is beginning to roll out many new features that it is showcasing at alpha.vonage.com. For instance, customers can now use voice-activated dialing, simply speaking a name to place a call. Customers can also send a voice message to anyone via e-mail. The message arrives as an attached audio file.Call blast is a new feature that lets customers send out a voice mail simultaneously to a group of people. Citron anticipates that will be useful when he&#39;s in charge of calling 15 kids who go to school with his kids to tell them there is a snow day.&quot;We expect to roll out a new capability every month or two,&quot; Citron said.Vonage also plans to offer another service that lets users access the voice recognition system from any phone to make a call through Vonage. The company is also testing software that would let customers make Vonage calls via software on their laptops.Many of these services are free to Vonage customers.Citron said that the future for Vonage will be brighter. Despite continued high churn, last quarter it had a gain of 77,000 customers, which he says isn&#39;t as good as it should be. The company has worked to cut costs, and improvements in customer service should help decrease customer losses, he said.In the meantime, speculation continues to circle that the payouts Vonage made to settle the lawsuits will cripple it. But Citron was confident that the company&#39;s troubles are behind it.
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By Steve Bonser, Santa Barbara News-Press, Calif.  Jan. 31--In a deal that will combine two vendors of Internet-based voice  processing, or VoIP, technologies, CrystalVoice Communications Inc.
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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.
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Cisco&#39;s Irvine-based Linksys division has announced new relationships with a number of other companies. Linksys said that it has signed an agreement with Verizon to include the company&#39;s VoIP phones in its services.
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Verizon Communications Inc. VZ.N  said on Tuesday it signed a multiyear deal with Westell  Technologies WSTL.O to sell a phone that integrates a  high-speed Internet modem and wireless networking.
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Cisco subsidiary Linksys is launching a raft of new SMB products and services under the Linksys Connected Office platform.
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BellSouth today announced it will use the routers that Cisco launched today to allow small and medium businesses and enterprise branches to receive cost-effective access to VoIP, call and content management, security and other applications previously
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Cisco Systems introduced a rebate program on Friday to encourage owners of its Linksys home networking gear to trade up to higher-end products.
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(InfoWorld) - The iPhone has arrived, but not from Apple Computer. Linksys, a division of Cisco Systems, introduced two VOIP (voice over Internet Protocol) handsets adding to five others the company already offers. The group of phones is now part of a Linksys family of products called iPhone. The Linksys iPhones aren't quite what some people may have been expecting.Â Apple is rumored to be working onÂ a combined cell phone and digital music player and the mythical device has been dubbed the iPhone, after the popular iPod digital music player, by Apple enthusiasts. Linksys' newest iPhones include the CIT400, a cordless phone with a base station that attaches directly via Ethernet to a network and comes preloaded with VOIP software from eBay's Skype Internet telephony service. The phone allows users to make and receive Skype calls without having to turn on and use their computers. The WIP320 also comes loaded with Skype software and is compatible with Wi-Fi so that users can make and receive calls on the phone from anywhere they can connect to a wireless access point. Users can check their Skype contact list on the phones to see if someone they want to call is available. The devices support SkypeOut and SkypeIn, the services that allow users to make and receive calls with landline phones for a fee. The WIP320 costs $199.99 and the CIT400 retails for $179.99. Both are available in North America and are expected to become available in Europe, Asia and Latin America during the first quarter next year. If Apple is indeed developing a combined mobile phone and music player, fans will have to adjust their expectations that the device will likely not be called an iPhone. According to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Cisco holds the registration for the "iPhone" trademark.