User:Voipservicenews

VoIP Service Highlights of 2011

Here?s a round-up of a number of the most intriguing, controversial, and thought-provoking VoIP service news and updates of 2011.

More crimes witnessed via video conferencing Last April 2011, Qian Liu, a university student in Canada was chatting with her friend in China through video conference. The conversation was cut brief when someone knocked on Liu?s door. The buddy, who could still view what was happening, watched in horror when a man lunged towards Liu. Later, the video link was cut off. A couple of hours later, a half-naked Liu was discovered dead in the grounds of York University. Brian Dickson, a 30-year old student who lived nearby, was charged with Liu?s murder.

This is but one incident witnessed through VoIP. However, while text chat records and eye-witness accounts could be valuable in investigating cases like these, no actual footage is accessible through the VoIP service used by the victims. Compared to conventional phones, VoIP is ?untappable?, a fact exploited by organized crime rings and other criminals. Although some countries argue for lawful intercept of VoIP for their anti-terror campaigns, we can count on members of civil society to strongly lobby against this for privacy reasons. In the future, Skype and their other VoIP competitors will most likely create record buttons on their products. For now though, users can just download recording software for VoIP.

Amazon Outage Amazon cloud-based web service experienced a rare and major outage April last year, taking down well-known online sites which include HootSuite, Foursquare, Quora and Reddit. Although the outage resulted to lots of criticism and commentary about how unreliable the cloud is, it also inspired industry authorities to write and think about planning for cloud backup and safety.

Google Voice announces number porting On January 2011, Google Voice added number porting or transfer on their well-known VoIP service Google Voice.

Sprint integrates with Google Voice In March, Sprint announced that subscribers can now use their Sprint wireless number as their Google Voice number. This means you?ll be able to use Google Voice for call routing, screening, blocking, recording, voicemail, and more.

FCC approves Connect America Fund CAF aims to bring broadband services to millions of Americans in the rural areas. The 4 megabit per second broadband speed requirement for service providers should have the ability to give VoIP service to users.

New VoIP Apps for smartphone users For the mobile professional, a smartphone with VoIP could be the most cost-effective way to communicate. 2011 saw the release of Android VoIP apps Viber, Skype (version 2), and Bobsled by T-mobile. Meanwhile, AT&T released an iPhone app for international calling via VoIP. Fring iPhone and Android updates also made group video for up to four people possible.

Microsoft buys Skype Corporate giant Microsoft paid $8.five billion for Skype, making it Microsoft?s biggest acquisition as of May of last year. The deal raised quite a number of eyebrows about how Microsoft will influence the VoIP service.

Facebook and Skype team up The tag team of Facebook and Skype now allows us to video chat via our favorite social network.

With the rising popularity of VoIP service(and getting it from a reputable VoIP provider), it wouldn?t be surprising if it finally replaces our old phone lines with virtual ones.