Internet voice over ip

Just when you thought its legal troubles were over, Vonage gets involved in another legal squabble with telecommunications equipment maker Nortel Networks. On Friday, Nortel filed a lawsuit against Vonage claiming that the voice provider has violated nine patents related to its Internet phone service, including features such as 911 and 411 calling and click to call. The lawsuit, which was filed in U.S. District Court in Delaware, comes in response to a suit Vonage is pursuing against Nortel. In 2004, a company called Digital Packet Licensing sued Nortel for infringing on three of its patents. Vonage acquired Digital Packet Licensing last year and is continuing the lawsuit. For more than a year, Vonage has been caught up in one patent lawsuit after another. AT&T, Sprint Nextel, and Verizon Communications have all ***

Internet phone company Net2Phone has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against rival Skype Technologies and its parent company, eBay. Net2Phone, which filed its lawsuit last week in U.S. District Court in New Jersey, alleges that Skype infringed on its patent, No. 6,108,704. The Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) patent was issued to Net2Phone in August 2000. Net2Phone's lawsuit comes as the VoIP industry has seen a ***

Internet telephony products bundled with broadband services have become more popular than third-party products, according to a report published by Sandvine, a broadband network-monitoring company. Sandvine said Skype's voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP, service was overtaken in Europe by broadband subscription packages sold by vendors such as BT, Wanadoo and America Online during the fourth quarter of last year. In Europe, branded VoIP represented 51.2 percent of all VoIP calls in the last quarter of 2005, while Skype accounted for 45 percent of VoIP minutes. Vonage took less than one percent of the market while other third-party VoIP providers represented 3.5 percent of all VoIP traffic, the report said. "Twelve months ago, Skype represented 90 percent of all VoIP minutes. ***

The Financial Times reported on Thursday that Vonage, the scrappy start-up that offers voice over IP service, is up for sale. Previously, it was reported that the company was getting ready to raise $600 million in the public market. According to the article, "UBS and Deutsche Bank, the investment banks chosen by Vonage to underwrite its stock market listing, have been suggesting that the company pursue a 'parallel process', according to people familiar with the matter. " Selling the company could be a good idea, especially on the heels of the Ebay's $2.6 billion purchase of Skype, the company that makes software to enable free telephone calls over the Internet. Acquisitions tend to happen in multiples, and VoIP is clearly hot right now. Some analysts say that Ebay paid too much for Skype. This is likely. It's still too early to tell. But it's clear that the acquisition has created a buzz. ***

Qwest Communications, the fourth-largest phone company in the United States, this week began selling a $30-a-month home Internet phone service, quietly reentering a market it once led but in which it since has lost significant competitive ground. The service, marketed as OneFlex Premier, uses voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP, software, which allows Internet connections to double as inexpensive local phone lines. By waiting until now to deliver OneFlex Premier, Qwest must play catch up to cable operators and third-party vendors, such as Vonage, that are signing up tens of thousands of U.S. households a week to VoIP service. It's an ironic twist. Qwest was the first major telephone operator to sell VoIP, debuting a trial in Minnesota in August 2003. ***

A company called Sandvine, which sells bandwidth management gear to Internet service providers, claims that more than 1,100 voice over Internet protocol service providers are operating worldwide as of April 5th. The majority of these players are small "mom and pop" operators, as well as free services like Skype. The proliferation of VoIP providers goes to show the beauty of the Internet protocol. Because voice simply becomes another application running on top of IP, it's easy for new players to enter the market without actually owning the underlying infrastructure. But just because it may be easy to become a VoIP provider, it doesn't mean these companies will all survive. As the big phone companies and cable companies start offering their own VoIP services, it will be interesting to see how many of the smaller guys will survive. One big question is whether or not phone and cable companies will begin blocking VoIP traffic from other providers on their networks. ***

The head of information security for the United Kingdom's Royal Mail has warned that Internet telephone applications will expose companies to hackers and malicious code if not implemented correctly. Speaking at the annual Business Continuity Expo in London's Docklands, David Lacey, director of information security for the Royal Mail Group, said that he expects a widespread IT security incident to occur in the next two years, possibly as a result of companies hastily moving to voice over Internet Protocol technology without carrying out the necessary due diligence. "An electronic Pearl Harbor-type event will happen in 2006 or 2007. I do stand by that," he said. "New technologies such as VoIP risk driving a horse and cart through the security in our networks." Lacey, one of the founders of the Jericho Forum security user group, said that ***

Peer-to-peer phone company Skype has updated its Internet telephony software, patching a critical flaw in its client for Microsoft Windows-based systems. The vulnerability could allow attackers to take control of a Skype user's PC after the victim clicks on a specially created URL, security information provider Secunia said Monday. By including a long string of characters in the link, the attacker could trigger a memory error known as a buffer overflow that could then be exploited to run a program. "Successful exploitation may allow execution of arbitrary code," Secunia said. It has ranked the flaw as "highly critical"--its second-highest rating. Skype acknowledged the security hole in ***

The Federal Communications Commission handed Internet calling an early Christmas present today, saying that the technology will not be subject to state regulation. That's already making companies like Vonage breathe a deep sigh of (regulatory) relief, since it means they won't have to face the proverbial patchwork quilt of different state rules. From the point of view of efficiency for VoIP itself, this has to be a good thing. Tech folks are fond of saying that regulations stunt the growth of new technologies, and this one certainly has promise. But there's another thing tech folks often say: Government shouldn't pick technologies through regulation. ***

Some broadband customers who use the Internet for phone conversations are complaining that their incoming calls are being blocked. The problem, which surfaced about two weeks ago, apparently prevents some Net phone users who are also broadband customers of Adelphia Communications, Citizens Communications' Frontier and various rural cable providers from receiving calls, according to sources familiar with the situation. A handful of AT&T's CallVantage Net phone subscribers are among those affected. "We are seeing, sporadically, some instances of blocking by some cable company networks," AT&T spokesman Gary Morgenstern said. AT&T plans to release a patch to fix the problem in the next few weeks. It will be part of a previously scheduled software upgrade for its customers, according to Morgenstern. ***

Conventional wisdom has it that the telephone network will evolve away from old-fashioned circuit switching and be replaced by voice over IP. Investors have ponied up to the bar to fund VoIP companies; most major telecom manufacturers have largely abandoned development of new circuit-switching and time division multiplexing (TDM) products. But before we nail the coffin shut on the legacy of the digital telephone technology that was so widely hailed two decades ago, let's examine the strengths and weaknesses of VoIP. In looking at VoIP as a technology, it's important to distinguish between the cost of building or running a network and the price a service provider charges. VoIP benefits from the Internet's pricing model. There is rarely a charge for usage or for distance. The incremental price of a call thus seems to be free. ***