If you’re trying to choose between VoIP providers, whichvoip.com is an excellent place to find comparative reviews of providers and a directory of venders.
The site also offers lots of basic VoIP information for those just learning about the technology.
Market research firm Infonetics Research today released excerpts from its annual EMEA Business VoIP Services Leadership Scorecard, which analyzes and ranks the top service providers in the IP Centrex market in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.
“In all parts of EMEA, including Africa and the Middle East, we continue to see strong deployments of IP Centrex services,” said Diane Myers, directing analyst for VoIP and IMS at Infonetics Research.
“In evaluating the top 10 IP Centrex providers across the region, little has changed in the mix of our list of leaders from 2010. All but three of the providers in our top 10 are incumbent operators, which is reflective of the EMEA landscape, where most providers compete nationally rather than regionally,” Myers continued.
“Mobility continues to be a critical capability as businesses look towards flexibility and integration of services into a single mobile device. Those providers that are focused on FMC (fixed-mobile convergence) capabilities are true stand-outs,” she added.
REPORT SYNOPSIS
Service providers ranked in the EMEA Business VoIP Services Leadership Scorecard include Bezeq, BT, Orange, Netia, SFR, TDC, Telefonica O2, Telekom Slovenia, T-Systems, and Vodafone. The Scorecard, which is included in Infonetics’ VoIP and Unified Communication Services and Subscribers market share and forecast report, identifies the top IP Centrex (business VoIP services) providers in EMEA based on criteria critical to determining market leadership, including number of IP Centrex subscriber installed base, financial stability, market strategy, service development, and support options.
The leadership matrix determines which service providers currently lead the market and are best positioned to succeed long-term.
LEVEL 3 Communications has announced a new E-911 solution for Microsoft Lync.
Problems with 911 caller location identification prompted the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to issue a ruling in 2005 that all VoIP service providers support E-911. Accordingly, all providers created systems that supported static E-911, but few effectively addressed the issue presented by VoIP mobility.
Microsoft Lync addresses both static and mobile E-911. Essentially, Lync Server 2010 with E-911 support identifies location information via a wireless access point (WAP), Basic Service Set Identifier (BSSID), MAC address, IPv4 subnet, and/or Link Layer Discovery Protocol (LLDP) switch or LLDP switch port, then maps to a physical location. Lync then passes on a Presence Information Data Format – Location Object (PDIF-LO) containing the physical location of the caller making an emergency call to a network provider. This capability is especially important for nomadic workers (those who frequently change workstations/locations) because of the near impossible task of maintaining up-to-date employee location databases.
LEVEL 3 network is able to receive E-911 information from Lync server 2010 via its SIP Trunking service, determine the appropriate local public safety answering point (PSAP), and route the call, and specific location address information, to an emergency operator. Because LEVEL 3 network is IP end-to-end they are able to provide direct E-911 integration between their SIP trunking and the VoIP Positioning Center (VPC) database. This capability also enables a more seamless updating of the Automatic Location Identification (ALI) databases maintained by local governments to support their PSAPs. Thus, emergency operators are able to receive current and much more specific location information for the person making the call.
LEVEL 3’s E-911 solution does not require any additional server hardware or the end-user terminal devices as long as they are Lync compliant. The company includes its E-911 capabilities for Lync with their SIP Trunking service at no additional cost.