When competition is heating up, mergers and acquisitions are sometimes what it takes to give your company the numbers to be the top dog. It looks like Avaya has done just that according to analyst firm MZA.

In the latest review of the numbers, Avaya hold a 15 percent share of the global PBX market while Cisco holds 12 percent. Avaya's edge according to MZA is their recent acquisition of Nortel.

Cisco still has the lead in the IP extensions market, beating Avaya 33 percent to 21 percent.

For more:
- read the No Jitter post

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Jajah gets a quick and snappy review from the DownloadSquad. The feature mainly praises the offering for being its own innovative service. Blog

Sangoma Technologies Corp., which provides hardware and software for server-based voice and data communication applications, just released their new Sangoma NetBorder Express VoIP Gateway 3.0.

Designed to enable connections for software-based PBX systems, the NetBorder Express Gateway sits on the same server as the PBX offering tight integration of telecom applications. NetBorder Express offers a SIP to TDM VoIP Gateway. Version 3.0 now supports Microsoft's Office Communications Server Wave 14 so that users can integrate the NetBorder with the new OCS platform.

"Sangoma strives to keep a step ahead of the market as it continues to mature. We saw the need for a product that provides an enhanced level of functionality and integration with existing telephony functions, while remaining simple to manage," said Frederic Dickey, Director of Marketing and Product Management at Sangoma in a release.

For more:
- read the release

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The SIP Forum and the i3 Forum have announced a new testing program for Fax-over-Internet-Protocol (FoIP) services. The testing program is aimed at finding impairments and interoperability issues on networks using T.38 protocol which supports the use of IP networks for the transmission of real-time faxes.

Set to take place between September to December 2010, the FoIP testing program will bring together carriers from all over the world including North and South America, Europe, Asia and the Middle East with testing . During the tests, the SIP Forum FoIP Task Group will log fax calls between carriers and create a database of info about how IP fax calls are handled amongst the program participants.

"As an organization of international carriers, it is our primary interest to rely on reliable Fax-over-IP interconnection. Fax is an important service for our members' customers, and as a result, we are committed to solving the service reliability problems experienced while migrating international interconnect to IP. We are sure that, on the basis of the experience gained in this testing campaign with SIP Forum FoIP Task Group, we can improve the IP interconnection implementation time and save time and money presently devoted to troubleshooting and bug fixing," said Philippe Millet, Chairman of the i3 Forum in a release.

For more:
- read the release

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What's the best way to do respond to a new competitor's product launch? How about reminding them why you are still the top dog? Skype's latest beta of their Skype 5 release now sports the ability to video conference with ten of your colleagues.

The new capability comes to the Skype for Windows offering which in May tested the ability to conference with 5 people. Now the ten person party eclipses that earlier offer and also adds call recovery so that if a network interruption drops your call, Skype will automatically reconnect.

Additionally, the new beta rolls out Skype Home, a social-networky feature with profile pics, friend updates and mood notifications--a nice feature to be able to tell the best time to ask the boss for a raise.

For more:
- read the eWeek report

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This weekend will offer some of the last barbecue opportunities for the summer with the Labor Day holiday on Monday. As such, we won't be publishing on Monday like we normally do. Enjoy your long weekend! -Mike

Sean Buckley over at FierceTelecom sat down with 360Networks CTO Brady Adams to talk about wholesale services and migrating from legacy to next gen networks. Interview

Competition in the consumer VoIP market is heating up. With all the new players in the consumer VoIP market offering free/cheap calls, price wars are bound to happen. Truphone offers mobile VoIP calls from the iPhone, iPod, iPad, Nokia and Android phones has reduced the cost of if calling plans.

The mobile VoIP company has dropped its unlimited calling plan down to $12.95 per month. The TruUnlimited plan lets callers make unlimited mobile calls to landlines in 38 countries worldwide any time of the day, any day of the week. The service also allows unlimited calls to mobile phones in 9 countries including the USA and China.

For those not opting for the unlimited plan, calls to popular countries are now as low as 2.1 cents per minute. (They were around 5 cents before). The rate applies mainly to landlines with calls to mobiles being more expensive. Additionally there is a 4.8 cent connection fee per call.

Calls between Truphone customers over WiFi and 3G are still free (of course you have to pay for your own data service).

For more:
- read this article

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Unified communications as a service provider CallTower is teaming with Sprint to launch CallTower Mobility a fixed mobile convergence service for their UC offerings.

Companies using Sprint's mobile network can use CallTower Mobility to add UC solutions to their mobile and fixed corporate phones.  The solution adds another way companies can eliminate expensive hardware and infrastructure investments, long and complex deployments, and ongoing support and upgrade challenges.

The Sprint Mobile Integration service allows users to dial an extension number from a Sprint mobile phone and reach a corporate user regardless of their location as well as access to one central voicemail, free on-net calling and enhanced call management and messaging features. The CallTower UC Mobility service provides access to the other CallTower Unified Communications productivity applications such as unified messaging, presence, IM and collaboration.

For more:
- read the release

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Sure, we took the rumors of Cisco purchasing Skype with a grain of salt (remember when Cisco was buying Nokia?), but it's not that far fetched right? The aftermath of the rumor mill has some analysts showing how the deal would work.

Over at Connected Planet, Rich Karpinski deconstructs the rumor and finds the time is right for the deal. Skype would fit into Cisco's VoIP portfolio without confusing customers as its core enterprise VoIP offerings are already well established. Telecoms are willing to work with the Skype brand and Karpinski sees owning Skype as a way for Cisco to learn how to build better networks for deploying over-the-top software applications.

GigaOm sees the Skype opportunity as a way for Cisco to add a 'freemium' service to their arsenal. Small companies and startups like unified communications as much as anyone else, but they'd prefer to use Skype for free rather than invest in a big ticket system from Cisco. But as Matt Asay at GigaOm says, those small companies do sometimes grow up and when they do, they can be upsold into the Cisco enterprise world.

For more:
- read Connected Planet
- read GigaOm

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