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September 06, 2023

• Digium Why Should Businesses Deploy a Unified Communications Strategy Today?

  Unified Communications (UC) has revolutionized businesses by consolidating multiple communication technologies and tools into a user-friendly platform. This integration has made collaboration and communication among employees more efficient and effective.

  UC enables employees to connect seamlessly, irrespective of their physical location. This seamless connectivity increases productivity, reduces costs, and improves customer service. Additionally, with all communication channels consolidated in one place, keeping track of conversations and ensuring everyone is on the same page has become effortless.

  Don’t wait to streamline your business communication. Invest in UC today and take your business to the next level!

  Why should businesses deploy a unified communications strategy today?

  Studies have shown that companies using UC solutions can boost productivity by an average of 52%. Moreover, research indicates that, on average, businesses make between 35,000 decisions per day.

  Additionally, businesses that have adopted UC solutions have a faster decision-making process and a 25% revenue increase compared to those that haven’t. A UC strategy can offer businesses several benefits, including the following:

  Increased Efficiency with AI
  Businesses can automate several tasks by deploying a Unified Communications strategy integrating AI, allowing employees to focus on more valuable work. For instance, AI-powered chatbots can help businesses handle customer inquiries more efficiently, freeing customer service teams to handle more complex issues.

  Improve Customer Service
  A Unified Communications strategy helps businesses provide better customer service by allowing employees to access customer information quickly and easily. For instance, when a customer calls, the employee can instantly access the customer’s order history, preferences, and other relevant information to provide personalized service.

  Connect Remote Employees
  A Unified Communications strategy allows remote employees to stay connected and collaborate with their colleagues. For instance, video conferencing can help conduct meetings, and virtual collaboration tools to enable workflow management.

  Streamline IT Operations
  A Unified Communications strategy can simplify IT operations by centralizing communication channels and reducing the need for multiple systems. It can reduce IT costs and make it easier for IT teams to manage and maintain communication systems.

  Increase Employee Productivity
  A Unified Communications strategy can help employees work more efficiently by streamlining communication channels and automating routine tasks. It can increase productivity and allow employees to focus on more valuable work. For instance, a salesperson can spend more time selling and less on administrative tasks.

  Conclusion

  A Unified Communications strategy is necessary for today’s digital-age businesses. UC solutions offer a range of benefits, from increased productivity to cost savings and improved customer satisfaction. By deploying a UC strategy, businesses can stay ahead of the curve and maintain a competitive edge in the market.

  The post Why Should Businesses Deploy a Unified Communications Strategy Today? appeared first on Sangoma Technologies.

August 31, 2023

• Enable Security August 2023: Join OpenSIPit, learn about Zoom, Skype vulnerabilities, and more
  Hope you had some lovely holidays in August! And if not, what are you waiting for? This month we’re keeping the short news section and inviting people to participate in the upcoming edition of OpenSIPit! In this edition, we cover: our latest news and how to keep us in business Android security - 2G and VoLTE Zoom and AudioCodes vulnerabilities revealed at Blackhat Skype IP leak and how this is more common in RTC than assumed Memory corruption in Qualcomm chipsets handling VoLTE EVS audio (CVE-2022-40510) RTCSec newsletter is a free periodic newsletter bringing you commentary and news around VoIP and WebRTC security.

August 30, 2023

• Digium Next-generation Enterprises Powered by Unified Communications

  Communication is everything in this fast-paced business world. As a result, enterprises seek tools to enhance real-time communication with their customers, suppliers, and employees across multiple channels and devices. That’s where unified communications comes in.

  Next-generation enterprises can streamline their communication processes and improve efficiency, productivity, and customer satisfaction by integrating voice, video, messaging, and collaboration tools into a single platform.

  Additionally, a report predicts that 74% of new unified communications licenses purchased by companies will be cloud-based by 2024. Furthermore, Microsoft’s 2021 hybrid work report found that Team users had a 148% increase in weekly meeting time between February 2020 and February 2021. This means that there will be a higher demand for cloud technologies, leading to increased investment in Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS).

  In this blog, we’ll look closer at the benefits of unified communications for modern enterprises and explore some key trends and technologies shaping the future of business communication.

  Key Features and Benefits of Using UC for Next-Generation Enterprises

  Here are some benefits and key features of using UC for next-generation enterprises. The benefits are enlisted below.

  • Integration of multiple communication channels
  • Real-time communication and collaboration
  • Mobility and flexibility
  • Improved productivity and efficiency
  • Enhanced customer experience
  • Cost savings and scalability
  • Increased security and compliance
  • Analytics and reporting capabilities

  Now, the key features of UC are enlisted below:

  • Real-time communication
  • Presence management
  • Instant messaging
  • Voice and video conferencing
  • Screen sharing and remote access
  • Mobility and remote work capabilities

  Next-Generation Enterprises Leveraging Unified Communications

  For small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), Sangoma emerges as the ultimate one-stop solution for all their unified communications (UC) requirements. With a comprehensive suite of features and a user-friendly interface, Sangoma empowers SMEs to streamline their communication processes and enhance collaboration effortlessly.

  Sangoma’s UC solutions seamlessly integrate multiple communication channels, such as voice, video, messaging, and collaboration tools, into a single platform. This integration enables real-time communication and collaboration, boosting productivity and efficiency for SMEs.

  With Sangoma, SMEs can enjoy the benefits of mobility and flexibility, allowing employees to stay connected and productive from anywhere, at any time. Moreover, Sangoma’s UC solutions provide enhanced customer experiences, ensuring seamless interactions and satisfaction.

  Cost savings and scalability are another advantage of Sangoma for SMEs. By leveraging cloud-based UCaaS, SMEs can eliminate the need for expensive on-premises hardware, maintenance, and upgrades. The pay-as-you-go model allows for flexibility and scalability as the business grows.

  Sangoma prioritizes security and compliance, offering robust measures to protect sensitive data and ensure regulatory adherence. Additionally, the analytics and reporting capabilities provide valuable insights for businesses to optimize their communication strategies.

  In the realm of next-generation enterprises, Sangoma stands as the all-in-one solution, catering to the unique UC requirements of small to medium-sized businesses. Experience the power of Sangoma and revolutionize your communication infrastructure, taking your SME to new heights of success.

  Conclusion

  The next generation of enterprises rapidly adopts unified communications technologies to enhance productivity and streamline operations. With the increasing need for seamless collaboration across teams, unified communications solutions are becoming increasingly essential for businesses of all sizes.

  As companies embrace digital transformation, adopting unified communications technologies will only continue to grow, paving the way for a more connected and efficient future.

  The post Next-generation Enterprises Powered by Unified Communications appeared first on Sangoma Technologies.

August 29, 2023

• Digium The Benefits of Using Managed Communication Services

  If you are a UC user, you are likely on a UCaaS platform today. Depending on which analyst report you read, the number of installed and “being used” UC prem seats compared to the number of cloud UC seats has shifted towards UCaaS. And the revenue turned towards UCaaS many years ago. The shift to managed UC via UCaaS has happened because the benefits of UCaaS outweighed the benefits of UC. In a nutshell, the benefits are:

  1. Lower upfront fees
  2. Regulatory compliance is taken care of by the UCaaS vendor
  3. Security updates/patches are taken care of by the UCaaS vendor
  4. Other functionality updates are taken care of by the UCaaS vendor
  5. Deployment velocity (adding users, scaling) is faster
  6. Items 2-5 add up to reduced IT effort because this is a “Managed Service.”

  These benefits also apply to any cloud service as well. As item 6 states, these managed services foster reduced IT effort. And that’s good because there is a lot the IT department needs to deal with. Cybersecurity, saving costs, etc. Other managed offerings, such as Security as a Service, SD-WAN, etc., can help you meet all your organization’s needs.

  The post The Benefits of Using Managed Communication Services appeared first on Sangoma Technologies.

August 23, 2023

• Digium Leveraging Unified Communications for Manufacturing Industry

  Unified communications (UC) is a technology that combines different communication channels, such as voice, video, chat, email, and collaboration tools, into a single platform. Unlike traditional communication methods, UC offers a seamless and integrated experience, allowing users to communicate and collaborate more efficiently.

  For instance, rather than waiting for a response to a sent email, a user can initiate a video call or engage in instant messaging to get an immediate answer. So, without further ado, let’s read the in-depth unified communications concepts discussed below.

  Key Features of UC in the Manufacturing Industry

  According to a report by MarketsandMarkets, the Unified Communications market size is expected to grow from $76.7 billion in 2022 to $141.6 billion by 2027, at a CAGR of 13% during the forecast period. This growth is driven by the increasing adoption of Unified Communications by various industries, including manufacturing.

  Sangoma has few of the most important UC technology to enhance manufacturing processes like:

  Collaboration Tools for Real-Time Communication
  This feature facilitates real-time communication to solve problems, share ideas, and make prompt decisions. For instance, a team working on a production line can use video conferencing or instant messaging to discuss the changes to be made on a whim.

  Mobile Solutions for Remote Teams
  This feature enables remote workers to stay connected with their colleagues and access important information anywhere through mobile devices. For instance, a sales representative can use a mobile app to communicate with the production team and get updates on inventory levels, production schedules, and delivery times.

  Cloud-Based Solutions
  Cloud-based unified communication solutions can provide manufacturers access to various communication and collaboration tools anywhere. It simplifies the operations of the remote teams and helps them stay connected.

  How to Implement UC in Manufacturing?

  Implementing Unified Communications (UC) in manufacturing can significantly enhance communication and collaboration among employees, suppliers, and customers. Here are the steps to follow for a successful UC deployment:

  • Assess your current communication infrastructure
  • Define your objectives and goals
  • Choose the right UC solution
  • Develop a deployment plan
  • Train the employees

  Companies can also follow some best practices for a successful UC deployment. These include:

  • Involving key stakeholders in the decision-making process
  • Conducting pilot tests before full deployment
  • Regularly communicating with employees about the benefits and progress of the deployment

  Conclusion

  The manufacturing industry can significantly benefit from leveraging unified communications solutions. Manufacturers can improve efficiency, reduce costs, and ultimately increase profitability with the ability to streamline communication and collaboration across various departments and locations.

  Additionally, manufacturers can stay ahead of the competition and meet the ever-evolving demands of the industry by partnering with Sangoma and leveraging its cutting-edge offerings.

  The post Leveraging Unified Communications for Manufacturing Industry appeared first on Sangoma Technologies.

August 22, 2023

• Jitsi Authentication on meet.jit.si

  What’s going on?

  Starting on August 24th, we will no longer support the anonymous creation of rooms on meet.jit.si, and will require the use of an account (we will be supporting Google, GitHub and Facebook for starters but may modify the list later on). This is a first for us, so users may encounter a few bumps here and there as we are tweaking the experience to make sure there is as little friction as possible on the way into a meeting. 

  Why make a change?

  When we started the service back in 2013, our goal was to offer a meeting experience with as little friction and as much privacy as possible. We felt and still feel that both of these goals are very important and one of the main reasons that justified the existence of “yet another meeting service.” We wanted people to be able to converse easily and freely, without fear of expressing their views and opinions.

  Our “one tap and you’re in” experience was a big part of our strategy to eliminate friction. We didn’t want people to have to worry about “creating” meetings in advance, remembering passwords, codes or long complicated sequences of numbers for a meeting ID. We wanted users to be able to think of a name and just go there. Through the years we’ve had to compromise on this a little bit. We ended up introducing a pre-meeting device check screen. We felt that checking your camera and microphone before you entered a room could save everyone some hassle so it was worth the pause. 

  As for privacy, we previously made sure all communication was always encrypted and we retained no data beyond what is necessary to actually provide a decent meeting service. 

  Offering the possibility to anonymously use the service felt like a good way to help with both its privacy and the usability.

  Our commitment to both goals remains as strong as ever but anonymity is no longer going to be one of the tools we use to achieve them.

  Earlier this year we saw an increase in the number of reports we received about some people using our service in ways that we cannot tolerate. To be more clear, this was not about some people merely saying things that others disliked. 

  Over the past several months we tried multiple strategies in order to end the violations of our terms of service. However in the end, we determined that requiring authentication was a necessary step to continue operating meet.jit.si.

  How does this impact user privacy on meet.jit.si? 

  It is a good time to have a look at our privacy terms. 8×8 will now store the account responsible for creating rooms. Aside from the changes to our privacy terms referenced above, there is no other change to our meetings. We are still very much committed to holding user privacy in the highest regard and we still have no tools that would allow us to compromise the privacy of the actual audio or video content of a meeting, nor do we intend to create any.

  That said, it is completely understandable that some users may feel uncomfortable using an account to access the service. For such cases we strongly recommend hosting your own deployment of Jitsi Meet. We spend a lot of effort to keep that a very simple process and this has always been the mode of use that gives people the highest degree of privacy.

  If you see content that violates the jit.si terms of service you can always report it.

  That’s all we’ve got for now!

  The Jitsi Team

  The post Authentication on meet.jit.si appeared first on Jitsi.

• WebRTC Hacks WebRTC cracks the WHIP on OBS
  

  Open Broadcaster Software – Studio or OBS Studio is an extremely popular open-source program used for streaming to broadcast platforms and for local recording. WebRTC is the open-source real time video communications stack built into every modern browser and used by billions for their regular video communications needs. Somehow these two have not formally intersected […]

  The post WebRTC cracks the WHIP on OBS appeared first on webrtcHacks.

August 17, 2023

• Digium When to Look for a New UCaaS Provider?

  UCaaS (Unified Communications as a Service) has become critical to modern business communication. The service provides a cloud-based solution integrating various communication channels, including voice, video, messaging, and collaboration tools.

  With UCaaS, employees can communicate and collaborate seamlessly from anywhere, using any device. This technology has become essential for businesses of all sizes, enabling them to stay connected and operate efficiently in today’s digital age. So, without further ado, let’s dive in and understand when you should seek a new UCaaS provider.

  When to Seek a New UCaaS Provider?

  Looking for a new UCaaS provider can be daunting, but it’s important to recognize when it’s time to make the switch. Here are three signs to look for that indicate it’s time to find a new UCaaS provider.

  1. Poor Call Quality & Dropped Calls
  If you’re experiencing poor call quality and dropped calls with your current UCaaS provider, it’s time to start looking for a new one. According to a survey by INC Magazine, 86% of businesses stopped doing business with a company due to weak customer service.

  A trustworthy UCaaS provider can greatly enhance the quality of your calls and minimize the chances of dropped calls. Imagine you’re a sales manager amid an important conference call with a potential client. If the call quality is poor or the call drops, it can negatively impact your company’s reputation and result in missed business opportunities.

  2. Lack of Scalability & Limited Features
  According to a Frost and Sullivan whitepaper, 80% of people consider increased uptime and freeing up IT as major benefits of the cloud. Additionally, 38% of businesses plan to move to the cloud for communication technology, while 33% have already switched.

  With UCaaS, you can easily add or remove users, features, and services as your business needs change. For example, if your business expands to new locations, UCaaS can quickly and easily connect those locations to your existing network without additional hardware or infrastructure.

  3. Poor Customer Support & Technical Assistance
  Looking for a new UCaaS provider is essential for better customer support and technical assistance. It can negatively impact productivity and profitability from a business point of view.

  Therefore, seeking a new UCaaS provider that offers reliable technical assistance and exceptional customer support is important. Almost half of the companies (45%) are adopting a single primary platform for UC, with more than half of that group choosing Microsoft.

  Conclusion

  Choosing the right UCaaS provider is crucial for the success of your business. While it can be difficult to know when to switch providers, there are several signs to look out for, such as poor call quality, limited features, and lack of scalability.

  You can ensure you get the most out of your UCaaS solution and maximize your business’s potential by keeping these factors in mind and staying vigilant.

  In the ever-evolving world of Unified Communications, selecting the perfect UCaaS partner is not just a decision—it’s a game-changer for your business. And in this game, Sangoma emerges as the undisputed champion. By joining forces with Sangoma, you unleash the full power of your business, leaving behind the shackles of subpar call quality, limited features, and restricted growth. It’s time to make the bold move, embrace the undeniable advantages, and conquer the realm of Unified Communications with Sangoma as your trusted and triumphant partner.

  The post When to Look for a New UCaaS Provider? appeared first on Sangoma Technologies.

August 15, 2023

• Digium End of the Telephone?? Part 2

  In my last blog, I wrote about why the “end of the telephone” is the wrong scenario for personal calls. In this blog, I will discuss why that kind of scenario is wrong for business calls.

  I am sure some of you think I am nuts to write that and go, “I haven’t been on a work telephone call in a long time.” And that is true for you, and I will not argue your truth. And that is also true for many people, who subsequently write articles like “end of telephone.”

  And that is where, to me, it gets dicey. Because you, as knowledge workers, do not represent the entirety of people communicating and talking in the business world. You live your day when communicating with other people, as I largely do on instant messaging and video calls. And that is fine, and that is certainly a big, substantial change from 10 years ago and something that accelerated when we all had to work from home back in 2020.

  But I know there are many, many, many businesses who need a business phone system to make and take phone calls from customers. I know that since this is our core customer base at Sangoma. These businesses have customer-facing workers who need to use a phone number to make and take calls or send text messages. Just think about the last month – you probably needed to call or get a call/text from a small business, whether it was your dentist, your pharmacy, your lawyer, a restaurant, a field service rep, etc.

  And many of them still use desk phones. We still sell them and sell a lot of them, so I know businesses use them. Or they just use their smartphone with an app on it that has their business phone number. Or use an app on their laptop (that still has a dial pad format, BTW to make the calls). So, let’s not forget about the phone call and how important it is to many, many businesses. Even if you personally do not use one every day, businesses still need to make/take phone calls to thrive.

  The post End of the Telephone?? Part 2 appeared first on Sangoma Technologies.

August 11, 2023

• Digium It’s Time to Reinvent Your Business Connectivity

  Connectivity has become more critical with the rise of remote work and the global market. The need for businesses to adapt to cloud technology and Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) cannot be overstated.

  Cloud technology allows businesses to store, manage, and access data remotely. It provides a secure and scalable platform for businesses to store their data, making it accessible anywhere in the world.

  UCaaS takes connectivity to the next level by integrating various communication tools into a single platform. It includes instant messaging, video conferencing, and voice calls. Want to know more? Continue reading as we discuss the in-depth concepts about the topic.

  How Cloud Technology and UCaaS Can Enhance Business Connectivity?

  Did you know that the majority of businesses are using multiple cloud services? 81% of enterprises already have a multi-cloud strategy or are working on one.

  Additionally, cloud infrastructure accounts for 67% of enterprise infrastructure, and 82% of workloads will soon be on the cloud. Here are some key features of cloud computing:

  Admin Responsibility Shifts to the Service Provider
  In the past, businesses would have to purchase and maintain their hardware and software for their communication systems. It meant they were responsible for troubleshooting and fixing any issues. With cloud technology and UCaaS, the service provider takes on this responsibility. They handle the maintenance, upgrades, and troubleshooting, freeing the customer to focus on their business.

  Address Scalability Concerns
  Traditional on-premise solutions often need help to keep up with growing businesses’ demands, leading to limited capacity, slow performance, and high costs. Cloud technology solves these issues by providing a virtualized environment that can be easily scaled up or down based on demand. UCaaS takes this further by providing a fully integrated communication solution accessed anywhere.

  Improved Updates and Security Patching
  Cloud technology and UCaaS (Unified Communications as a Service) provide improved updates and security patching by utilizing advanced security protocols such as SSL/TLS encryption, multi-factor authentication, and network segmentation.

  These protocols ensure that all data transmitted between devices and servers is encrypted and authenticated, reducing the risk of data breaches and unauthorized access.

  Ease of Geographically Dispersed Deployments
  Cloud technology and UCaaS deliver ease of geographically dispersed deployments by allowing businesses to deploy their communication and collaboration tools from a central location, accessible to users anywhere in the world.

  It is achieved through cloud-based servers and software accessed remotely via the internet. It eliminates the need for physical hardware and infrastructure at each location, reducing costs and simplifying management.

  Conclusion

  In today’s fast-paced digital age, businesses must constantly adapt and reinvent themselves to stay competitive. It includes their connectivity strategies, which form the backbone of their operations.

  Whether it’s upgrading to faster internet speeds, implementing cloud-based solutions, or exploring new communication channels, businesses that prioritize their connectivity will reap the benefits of increased productivity, efficiency, and customer satisfaction.

  The post It’s Time to Reinvent Your Business Connectivity appeared first on Sangoma Technologies.

August 03, 2023

• Digium Joining Forces: Top 5 Reasons to Partner with a Company with a Well-Organized Sales Team

  The telecom industry is changing fast with new tech and digital disruption, which is shaking up how we communicate. If you’re an IT professional looking to grow and succeed, it’s important to find the right company to work with. One big thing to think about is whether they have a strong sales team. In this blog post, we’ll go over the top five reasons why teaming up with a company that has a well-structured and capable sales team can be a game changer.

  1. Faster Lead Conversion and Higher Closing Rates

  When you’re working with a sales team that’s well organized- you know they’ve got the right tools, strategies, and training – it can make a world of difference in how well you convert leads into sales opportunities. IT professionals who partner with a crew like that can take advantage of their expertise and get higher closing rates. With the combined strengths of the agent and the sales force, the chances of achieving and surpassing desired sales goals become significantly higher.

  2. Enhanced Opportunity for Collaborative Selling

  A well-structured sales team understands the value of collaboration and teamwork. IT professionals can take advantage of this collaborative selling approach to lead to even better outcomes. At the end of the day, it’s all about sharing resources, connections, and knowledge to find new leads, discover untapped markets, and ultimately make more money. In a partnership like this, the sales team brings its industry-wide knowledge, while the IT professional adds their expertise and personalized service, creating a powerful combo.

  3. Access to Comprehensive Sales Support and Resources

  Companies with well-organized sales teams often have dedicated support staff and a wealth of sales resources designed to nurture and develop their team’s success. By partnering with such a company, IT professionals gain access to these valuable resources, including customer onboarding to help you get your customers turned up on the service quicker, training programs to help you up your sales game, tools to help you sell more effectively, and insights into the latest trends and technologies. This support system helps IT professionals hone their selling skills, stay updated with the latest trends and technologies, and ultimately help them be the best sales professionals they can be.

  4. Improved Brand Credibility and Market Trust

  Partnering with a company that has a well-organized sales team can provide significant benefits for your brand’s credibility and trust with potential and existing clients. A top-tier sales team’s reputation and professionalism reflect on the IT professional, allowing them to approach the market with increased confidence and credibility. This collaboration can make customers more loyal and even bring in fresh faces who are drawn to the joint venture’s proven track record and reliable services.

  5. Streamlined Sales Processes and Time Savings

  Collaborating with a highly efficient and well-organized sales team can lead to a more streamlined and efficient sales process. The sales team has probably developed a refined sales pipeline, process, and lead nurturing plan that IT professionals can use it as a blueprint and tailor for their own businesses. This way, you don’t waste precious time on trial and error – you can focus on what you’re good at, like building relationships with your customers and selling your services.

  To sum up, teaming up with a company that has a well-structured sales team can offer numerous advantages for IT professionals. These include increased lead conversion rates, chances for collaborative selling, access to extensive sales support resources, improved credibility for your brand, and simplified sales procedures. If you’re an IT professional seeking to grow your business and achieve greater success, it’s worth considering partnering with a company like Sangoma that has a top-notch sales team.

  The post Joining Forces: Top 5 Reasons to Partner with a Company with a Well-Organized Sales Team appeared first on Sangoma Technologies.

• Jitsi Introducing the Jitsi Meet Flutter SDK

  Flutter‘s initial release occurred in 2017, the same year as the introduction of our mobile apps and mobile SDKs. For those who are unfamiliar with it, Flutter is one of the most popular frameworks for developing cross-platform applications.

  Now a few years after their first release, we are thrilled to announce that our mobile SDKs and Flutter cross paths as the Jitsi Meet Flutter SDK. Yes that’s right, after multiple requests, an official Jitsi Meet Plugin for Flutter is now available.

  As of now, our family of mobile SDKs is more complete than ever.

  Android and iOS are supported, of course. The plugin serves as a wrapper for the iOS and Android SDKs, on top of which a Flutter API was created with functionality similar to those found in native APIs.

  Add Jitsi Meet to your Flutter app

  The plugin is available on pub.dev under the jitsi_meet_flutter_sdk name. Discover it there, follow the instructions, and you’ll be able to utilize the API to the fullest extent.

  Here is a sneak peek of how simple it is to add a meeting to a fresh page.

  

  Here is how that looks like:

  

  In your own Flutter app, you’ll have the same view as the one from the Jitsi Meet mobile apps, with just a few additional lines of code, amazing, right?

  Have a look at the sample apps

  We developed two apps using the Jitsi Meet Flutter SDK, one of which is the example app in the plugin repository and primarily acts as a tester app by displaying the majority of the plugin’s features in the user interface, and the other of which is an official sample app in the repository that contains all of our samples for all mobile SDKs and is just a straightforward example of integrating Jitsi Meet.

  Flutter is new to us, and we hope this new SDK will make it easier for our users and JaaS customers to embed video meetings into their existing Flutter apps we agerly await your feedback!

  Your personal meetings team.

  ---

  Author: Gabriel Borlea

  The post Introducing the Jitsi Meet Flutter SDK appeared first on Jitsi.

August 02, 2023

• Digium 5 Key Benefits of UCaaS for Banking & Finance

  Unified Communications-as-a-Service, abbreviated as UCaaS, is a cloud-based solution facilitating communication and collaboration among employees, teams, and departments in the financial sector.

  UCaaS is crucial in enhancing communication and collaboration among the banking and finance industry’s employees, customers, and partners. It enables real-time communication, reduces communication costs, and improves productivity and efficiency. According to the IEEE Computer Society, nearly 57% of businesses have increased their spending on UCaaS.

  Want to know the benefits of using UCaas in banking and financial services? Continue reading as we discuss the advantages of using UCaas in the next section.

  What are the Benefits of Using UCaas for Banking and Finance?

  UCaaS is eventually gaining popularity among businesses and financial institutions. But why and how? Let’s explore the benefits of using UCaaS for banking and financial services below:

  Improved Internal Collaboration and Secure Communications
  The UCaaS solution allows employees to communicate quickly and collaborate, regardless of location. They can share files, discuss projects, and make real-time decisions, improving productivity and efficiency. For instance, a team of bankers working on a loan application can use UCaaS to collaborate on the document, share feedback, and make real-time changes, even in different locations.

  Secure Communication
  Secure communications is another significant advantage of UCaaS for banking and finance. The solution uses advanced encryption and security protocols to protect sensitive financial information from unauthorized access or hacking. Some security protocols used in UCaaS include data encryption, VoIP call security, two-factor user authentication, and fraud prevention.

  Documenting Communications for Compliance
  UCaaS enables recording and documentation of the communication to ensure compliance regulations are met.

  For instance, consider a bank that uses UCaaS for all its communication needs. When a customer inquires about their account, the call is automatically recorded and stored in the UCaaS platform, which is further used to retrieve the required data.

  Cost-Effective Option
  Financial institutions can save significant costs by eliminating the need for expensive on-premises hardware, maintenance, and upgrades by using UCaaS. Since UCaaS is cloud-based, it is easy to manage and maintain. The service provider handles the software updates and hardware upgrades, reducing the financial institution’s IT costs.

  Flexibility
  UCaaS solutions offer a variety of communication channels, such as voice, video, chat, and conferencing, enabling financial institutions to choose the right channel for each situation. This flexibility enables teams to collaborate and communicate in real-time, regardless of location or device, improving productivity and efficiency. Switching between communication channels provides a seamless and integrated experience for the financial institution’s employees and customers.

  Conclusion

  UCaaS has become an indispensable tool for the banking and finance industry. Its ability to streamline communication, enhance collaboration, and improve customer service has made it a valuable asset for financial institutions. The market size of this effective tool is set to increase up to $210.07 billion in 2028.

  With the increasing demand for digital banking, UCaaS is poised to play an even more significant role in the industry’s future. As financial organizations continue to embrace the benefits of UCaaS, they can expect significant improvements in their operations, customer satisfaction, and overall success.

  At Sangoma, we empower financial institutions to revolutionize their communication, collaboration, and customer service. With Sangoma as your trusted partner, you gain secure internal collaboration, compliant documentation, cost-effective operations, and flexible communication channels.

  The post 5 Key Benefits of UCaaS for Banking & Finance appeared first on Sangoma Technologies.

August 01, 2023

• Digium End of the Telephone?? Part 1

  I periodically read articles with titles basically saying, “It is the end of the Telephone!� It is attention-grabbing for sure, but it is just wrong. Well… I guess it depends on what you mean. I think there are readers of this blog who have never even used a telephone like I have in the picture here, let alone maybe even seen one. Yep, when I grew up, we used to have to use this. And then we got push-button dial pads And we saved a lot of time. So yeah, it is true if you mean using this kind of phone. It has been the end of that for a while.

  But when I see titles like that, it is more trying to say people are not using telephones anymore to call people. And yeah, I don’t have a kitchen telephone anymore and have not for some time. But I still have a smartphone, and while we do other things on the smartphone, we still TALK. And I do that for personal calls and for business calls.

  Let’s delve into both topics since that also colors the “End of the Telephone” conversation.

  So, let’s start with personal calls. Texting, for sure, has replaced some of the phone calls. As has social media since you can “catch upâ€� using social media instead of using phone calls. But I still use the phone to make and take personal calls, as I’m sure you, as readers, do. I’m talking here about smartphones. Not landline calls but talking over a cell or Wi-Fi network. So, if we use the telephone to mean that kind of phone in the picture, I get it. But it is not the end of the phone.

  Which brings us to business calls. And this is where it gets really interesting and dicey to me. And where I find it just plain wrong. Read my next blog to find out why.

  The post End of the Telephone?? Part 1 appeared first on Sangoma Technologies.

July 28, 2023

• Enable Security July 2023: VoIP and WebRTC attack surface, pentesting for 2023 and VoIP DDoS attacks
  Welcome to the July edition of the RTC security newsletter! For this month, we brought back the short news section making this edition a bit shorter than usual. Do you prefer the longer form or is this more to your liking? In this edition, we cover: Our own recent presentation about the VoIP and WebRTC application attack surface Booking us for your pentest this year and our involvement with the upcoming OpenSIPIt DDoS threat report and VoIP SentryPeer news, STIR/SHAKEN problems and malware using RTC!

July 26, 2023

• Digium State of Unified Communications in 2023

  Unified Communications (UC) has rapidly evolved by integrating new technologies and advanced features. In 2023, the state of UC is expected to witness a significant transformation, leading to enhanced collaboration, productivity, and cost optimization.

  With the integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI), the Internet of Things (IoT), and cloud-based platforms, UC solutions will likely become more intelligent, seamless, and user-friendly.

  By 2030, the Unified Communications as a Service market is predicted to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 10.2% and reach a value of US$44.7 billion, up from an estimated US$20.4 billion by the end of 2022. So, without further ado, let’s delve deeper into the future of UC and explore its possibilities for businesses across industries.

  Key Technologies that Unified Communications Will Integrate in 2023

  In 2023, several key technologies are expected to be vital in integrating unified communications. Some include the following:

  Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Systems
  Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems are software applications that help businesses manage and analyze customer interactions and data throughout the customer lifecycle. When UC is integrated with a CRM system, it allows for seamless communication between employees and customers.

  Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Systems
  ERP systems are designed to automate and integrate business processes and operations such as accounting, inventory management, and human resources. By integrating UC with ERP, employees can access and share information more efficiently and effectively.

  Productivity Tools
  UC tools work together to increase productivity by streamlining real-time communication and collaboration. One example of a UC system is Microsoft Teams, which integrates with Office 365 productivity tools such as Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.

  Another example of a UC system is Zoom, which allows users to hold video conferences, webinars, and meetings with screen-sharing and recording capabilities.

  Business Intelligence Tools
  When UC and BI tools are integrated, it allows organizations to gather data from different communication channels such as phone calls, emails, and messaging apps. This data is then analyzed to identify patterns, trends, and insights that can help organizations to improve their operations, customer service, and sales.

  IoT Devices
  Internet of Things (IoT) devices are physical objects connected to the internet, enabling them to collect, send, and receive data. The combination of UC and IoT creates an ecosystem where communication tools can seamlessly interact with smart devices, enhancing productivity and efficiency.

  Artificial Intelligence
  AI enables performing tasks typically requiring human intelligence, such as speech recognition, natural language processing, and decision-making. By integrating AI into UC, businesses can automate routine tasks and improve the overall efficiency of their communication systems.

  Conclusion

  To sum up, the state of Unified Communications (UC) in 2023 looks promising, with advancements in technology and communication infrastructure. More businesses are adopting UC to improve collaboration, productivity, and efficiency.

  The shift to remote work has also highlighted the importance of UC in enabling seamless communication and collaboration among remote teams. As we look towards the future, we expect UC to continue evolving and transforming our communication and work.

  At Sangoma, we are at the forefront of this transformation, providing innovative solutions and leadership in the Unified Communications space. With our cutting-edge technology and commitment to excellence, Sangoma has been instrumental in empowering businesses to leverage the full potential of UC, driving collaboration, and achieving their communication goals.

  The post State of Unified Communications in 2023 appeared first on Sangoma Technologies.

July 24, 2023

• WebRTC Hacks 10 Years of webrtcHacks – merch and stats
  

  webrtcHacks celebrates our 10th birthday today 🎂. To commemorate this day, I’ll cover 2 topics here: Our new merch store Some stats and trends looking back on 10 years of posts We have the Merch In the early days of webrtcHacks, co-founder Reid Stidolph ordered a bunch of stickers which proved to be extremely popular. […]

  The post 10 Years of webrtcHacks – merch and stats appeared first on webrtcHacks.

July 20, 2023

• Jitsi Introducing the Jitsi Meet React Native SDK

  Ever since we introduced our mobile apps to the world back in 2017 they have been backed by React Native.

  Using React Native allowed us to reach feature parity quickly since all logic is shared between our web and mobile codebases, because they are not 2 different things, it’s a single codebase

  Later that year, we released our native mobile SDKs to the world. These SDKs werer a thin wrapper over our React Native application, so our users could embed the entire meeting experience into their own mobile apps, with little effort.

  This has been our guiding priciple since the inception of the iframe API: to privide a high-level and fully-featured component that can be integrated into other apps.

  Today we are taking another step in our mobile jouney by releasing a React Native SDK.

  What does this mean? Before today if you had a React Native application we provided you with no way for embedding Jitsi Meet. Now we do!

  As mentioned above, our mobile apps are built using React Native and over time we received a number of requests from our community and customers to have an actual React Native SDK. We finally managed to expose it as a React Native library. It’s not that we didn’t have it in the back of our minds, but we focused on native first to cater the needs of our internal consumers.

  Exposing a React Native app as a component seems easy on the surface, but being so complex and having so many dependencies made it a lot harder han we had thought. Fortunately, this all changed thanks to Google Summer of Code. We were fortunate to have Filip Rejmus take on the project and kickstart it. After his amazing work, we took over and added the final touches and now it’s available on npm.

  How can I start using it?

  First go and grab our package from npm and follow the setup instructions.

  In the screenshot below you can see how easy it is to integrate and enable different meeting options into your app, by simply importing the JitsiMeeting component and adding it to your code:

  

  You will have access to the same features as the Jitsi Meet app.

  

  Test the sample app!

  We created a sample app which integrates our brand new SDK together with react-native-navigation, check it out!

  This new SDK will make it easier for our users and JaaS customers to embed video meetings into their existing React Native apps, we agerly await your feedback!

  Your personal meetings team.

  ---

  Author: Calin Chitu

  The post Introducing the Jitsi Meet React Native SDK appeared first on Jitsi.

July 19, 2023

• Digium Demystifying 10DLC: Unpacking Trust Scores and Campaign Registration

  10DLC (10 Digit Long Code) has evolved into a potent tool for application-to-person (A2P) corporate messaging, but new registration mandates from carriers have emerged. What’s the reason for registration? How does it work?

  Just like your commitment to delivering stellar service to your customers, carriers like AT&T and T-Mobile are keen on ensuring their customers’ satisfaction. This means they’re intent on curbing spam and unwanted messages from businesses – a protective measure for their brand.

  With the application of these A2P 10DLC rules, carriers are proactively identifying the senders and the content of the messages. The process begins with the one-off registration of your organization, referred to as the brand. Following this, you’ll need to register for a campaign – your use case that demonstrates your intended use of SMS.

  While the decline in spam is positive, customers might not see much difference in the A2P messages they receive from businesses. A crucial aspect of the 10DLC Campaign Registry is to build trust. You register your brand, detailing your business and its intent, which gives carriers an understanding of whether they can trust you or not.

  Multiple elements contribute to a brand’s trust score, including the brand’s industry, the intended use of SMS, and the brand’s compliance history. Carriers are keen to understand the nature of your business and the intent behind your messages before you start sending A2P messages.

  Registering for a 10DLC campaign can be a significant first step in proving to carriers that you are not a spammer and can be trusted. Carriers use a 1 to 5 scale to rate brands, which is then stored in their database. Here’s a simple guideline for understanding this score:

  1. High Risk: Unfortunately, you’re seen as a threat. Your messages will be sent at the lowest rate.
  2. Moderate Risk: You’re not seen as entirely reliable. Your messages will be sent at a slightly higher rate than the lowest.
  3. Low Risk: There’s a level of trust. Your messages will be sent at a standard rate.
  4. Trusted: You’re seen as reliable. Your messages will be sent at a high rate.
  5. Very Trusted: You’re seen as highly reliable. Your messages will be sent at the highest rate.

  Being in the process of registering your brand and campaign, there are a few things you need to be aware of. You can’t just start sending out messages – there are steps to follow that will determine the success of your campaign or your messaging ability.

  The process of getting a trust score is designed to ensure that you’re not seen as a risk. Once you’ve registered your brand and campaign, you’ll have to wait to receive your trust score. Once you do, your messages will be sent.

  In case you have restrictions, you might want to consider talking with your carrier to get approved. But if you decide to apply for the highest trust score, you’ll have no restrictions on your messaging, provided you’re not seen as a high risk.

  The main advantage of 10DLC is that it provides a better balance between high throughput rates and more reliable delivery. However, it’s important to note that your trust score can directly influence your carrier fees and your message throughput ability.

  How Sangoma Makes it Easy For You To Register for 10DLC

  To comply with 10DLC, every organization sending text messages is required to register their brand (the legal entity responsible for the content of the messages) with The Campaign Registry. If you are using one of Sangoma’s UCaaS platforms, we’ve taken care of this registration process for you with a simple form you can complete online.

  If you are a voice or communication service provider using Sangoma’s wholesale carrier services (formerly known as VI Communication Services), we’ve integrated the registration process directly into our BackOffice portal. This allows you to quickly collect information from your customers and get their numbers registered on their behalf. If you’d like more information on 10DLC and how Sangoma can help you and your customers, feel free to reach out to us!

  The post Demystifying 10DLC: Unpacking Trust Scores and Campaign Registration appeared first on Sangoma Technologies.

July 18, 2023

• Digium The Top Gun Video Podcasts

  I’ve done several video and voice podcasts over my career, and I wanted to single out a fun one I did recently with Steve Farmiloe on “The Top Gun Show” / #topgunshow.

  

  This show is the most widely viewed and followed video podcast on LinkedIn in the telecommunications, VAR, and MSP industries. So it gets a good following, and I can see why. If you have 6 or 7 minutes, listen. It takes little time. And one thing Steve does differently is asking some non-business questions, which, to me anyway, makes it all interesting.

  Steve understands the channel quite well and asked us relevant questions. A central theme, and why we decided to go on this show in the first place, was that Sangoma is getting a “buzz” in the channel.

  What and why? So you can hear myself, Jamie Minner (CRO), Aaron Kanahale (VP of Strategic Relationships), Dan DeLozier (VP of Sales), and David Hardy / Chris Holloway (SVP Sales and SVP Channel Sales, respectively) talk about why we think this is so.

  To go to the video podcasts, please go here and scroll down.

  The post The Top Gun Video Podcasts appeared first on Sangoma Technologies.

• WebRTC Hacks WebCodecs, WebTransport, and the Future of WebRTC
  

  Explore the future of Real-Time Communications with WebrtcHacks as we delve into the use of WebCodecs and WebTransport as alternatives to WebRTC's RTCPeerConnection. This comprehensive blog post features interviews with industry experts, a review of potential WebCodecs+WebTransport architecture, and a discussion on real-time media processing challenges. We also examine performance measurements, hardware encoder issues, and the practicality of these new technologies.

  The post WebCodecs, WebTransport, and the Future of WebRTC appeared first on webrtcHacks.

July 12, 2023

• Digium Hold the line, caller…you’re about to be switched off!

  Tick, tock, tick, tock…time is running out for your outdated business telephony.

  In 2017 BT announced it intended to Switch Off ISDN and PSTN in the UK; from 2025, traditional phone lines will stop working, and all calls will be made over the Internet.

  It’s the biggest and most important modernisation of the public phone network ever, and your business needs to ACT NOW to ensure a smooth transition.

  Thankfully, there’s no need to worry about how it will all work, as we can get you to where you need to be.

  There are four options, all suitable for businesses ranging in size from as few as three employees to many thousands of employees. All you have to do is decide which is the best fit for you, and we’ll help you do the rest…

  Option 1 – Adapt What You Have

  Extend the life of your current phone system by connecting it to the internet. This is done by adding hardware known as a VoIP Gateway and a link known as a SIP Trunk, which uses your existing Internet connection. It’s easy, and affordable, and users notice no difference – no new cables, handsets, or training.

  Option 2 – Upgrade What You Have

  Replace your installed on-premise system with the latest feature-rich digital technology known as a Unified Communications (UC) Platform; this can be installed as hardware or software. All your telephony is now on the internet and seamlessly aligned with your email, messaging, and chat applications via an easy-to-use, easily accessible user interface. Plus, it can all be replicated on employees’ desktop computers, laptops, and mobile devices for super-convenience.

  Option 3 – Migrate to the Cloud

  Follow hundreds of millions of organisations worldwide by replacing your on-premise system with a powerful, cloud-powered Unified Communications (UC) solution. All your calls, email, chat, and messaging now via the internet; zero line rental; limitless ability to add the latest new features at will; and pay monthly only for the services you use.

  Option 4 – Blend It All Together

  Mix options 1, 2, and 3 to suit your needs—for example, an on-premise system at your head office and a cloud-based system serving your remote sites. Or connect a cloud-based unified communications platform to an on-premise VoIP Gateway or SIP Trunk-powered system. Whatever the blend, enjoy the same seamlessly-integrated user experience.

  Click here for more background information about the Switch Off!

  The post Hold the line, caller…you’re about to be switched off! appeared first on Sangoma Technologies.

July 06, 2023

• Digium Exploring 10DLC: A Comprehensive Insight Into Its Significance In Application-to-Person Texting

  A2P, or application-to-person texting, involves using an SMS service provider to send and receive messages. This used to be limited to automated messaging but has now expanded to resemble more personal conversations as more customers respond to business texts through 10DLC. This progression has led carriers like AT&T and T-mobile to step in to regulate these use cases.

  The Need for 10DLC Regulations

  The primary reason carriers are implementing 10DLC regulations is to prevent spammers from exploiting this medium. By requiring you to specify the A2P use cases for which you’re using texting, carriers aim to maintain text messaging as a quality channel for both customers and businesses. Complying with these regulations involves registering your organization and the texting use cases. Failure to do so may result in your messages being filtered and not delivered to customers.

  The Effects of 10DLC Brand Registration

  Registering your brand under 10DLC will improve the throughput of your messages, leading to faster delivery. This initiative by carriers is designed to ensure that SMS remains a reliable communication channel as more businesses start texting customers. The registration process helps to reduce spam and improve deliverability, thus enhancing the credibility of your messages with customers.

  Registration Requirements

  The 10DLC registration process requires you to provide the following details:

  • Your company’s legal name
  • Your company’s country of registration
  • The type of your organization (private, publicly traded, nonprofit)
  • Your company’s tax number/ID/EIN
  • Your business’s website
  • Descriptions of each campaign you text for
  • Sample messages for each campaign you text for

  While this may seem extensive, the information will be gathered via a form and submitted to The Campaign Registry, ensuring minimal work for you and contributing to your texting success.

  Understanding the Campaign Registry

  The Campaign Registry is a central platform for registering A2P 10DLC messaging campaigns. They help verify your business to prevent your messages from being filtered by carriers. They act as a liaison between your business and mobile carriers, and we work closely with them to represent your business and ensure your texts are delivered.

  Preventing Your Texts from Being Marked as Spam

  We’ve compiled a comprehensive guide to help you craft professional text messages that don’t get flagged as spam. Here are a few key tips:

  • Avoid sending mass messages with shortened URLs
  • Do not end a message with a link
  • Refrain from sending naked links (include the “https://”)
  • Avoid using ALL CAPS in your message
  • Limit the use of special characters (especially $ signs or emojis)
  • Don’t repetitively send the same exact message to large groups
  • Avoid sending texts the length of emails
  • Ensure your messages are well-written, free of spelling or grammatical errors and sound human

  You can sell your SMS service as wholesale just like you can with SIP trunking. However, you should be aware of a few key considerations:

  1. Industry Standards: As with SIP trunking, when you’re selling SMS services, you should aim to work with a reliable and reputable provider. The provider should offer services that meet industry standards and have a proven track record of reliability and quality.
  2. Carrier Regulations: One of the main differences when selling SMS services wholesale, particularly in the context of Application-to-Person (A2P) messaging, is the need to comply with carrier regulations. For example, in the United States, carriers like AT&T and T-Mobile have implemented regulations around the use of 10-digit long codes (10DLC) for A2P messaging. These regulations aim to prevent spam and maintain the quality of text messaging as a communication channel. As a wholesaler, you’ll need to register your organization and the use cases (campaigns) you text for, otherwise, your messages may begin to be filtered, and thus not delivered to customers. This registration process involves providing information about your organization, such as its legal name, country of registration, type of organization (private, publicly traded, nonprofit), tax number/ID/EIN, business’s website, and descriptions and sample messages for each campaign you text for.
  3. The Campaign Registry: A2P 10DLC messaging campaigns are registered through The Campaign Registry, a central hub that verifies your business to ensure your messages don’t get filtered by carriers. They serve as a conduit between your business and mobile carriers.
  4. Avoiding Spam: To avoid having your messages marked as spam, you should follow best practices when sending text messages. These include avoiding the use of shortened URLs, not ending a message with a link, avoiding sending the same message to large groups over and over again, avoiding sending texts the size of emails, and ensuring your messages sound like an actual human wrote them and are free of spelling or grammatical errors.
  5. Fees and Costs: With the implementation of new 10DLC regulations, mobile carriers have also introduced new fees. These registration fees are often pass-through costs, and service providers may incorporate them into the cost of their service plans.

  If you are a voice or communication service provider using Sangoma’s wholesale carrier services (formerly known as VI Communication Services), we’ve integrated the registration process directly into our BackOffice portal. This allows you to quickly collect information from your customers and get their numbers registered on their behalf. If you’d like more information on 10DLC and how Sangoma can help you and your customers, feel free to reach out to us!

  The post Exploring 10DLC: A Comprehensive Insight Into Its Significance In Application-to-Person Texting appeared first on Sangoma Technologies.

July 05, 2023

• Digium Communications and the Hospitality Market

  I used to wonder why phones were in hotel rooms anymore. You don’t need to call out or receive phone calls from outside the building anymore, given we all have cell phones now. But I started learning more about this market, and guess what – you need a phone in the room. People call for room service, and people call for more towels; you never know when you might need to call 911, etc. Just because I haven’t used the hotel room phone in a while doesn’t mean no one else does. So you need a phone

  Last month, you might have noticed that Sangoma announced a partnership with GrayMatter Networks. They have built a specific hospitality module that works in conjunction with Sangoma’s UCaaS platforms PBXact and FreePBX.

  GrayMatter’s BrainBox interfaces with hospitality property management systems to enable a comprehensive suite of hospitality-centric features, including enhanced wake-up calls, call accounting, voicemail, housekeeping room status, next-generation 911 compliance, and more.

  Sangoma historically has supported different vertical communication markets, and we’re happy to work with GrayMatter Networks to provide best-in-class solutions that enable hospitality businesses to improve operational efficiency, enhance guest services, and streamline communication workflows.

  The post Communications and the Hospitality Market appeared first on Sangoma Technologies.

June 30, 2023

• Enable Security June 2023: Talks on VoIP security, WebRTC server-side attacks and WISH/WHIP
  It is finally conference season and so this newsletter covers 3 different events focused on RTC and opensource communications as well as the latest and greatest security fixes related to VoIP and WebRTC. In this edition, we cover: Kamailio World, CommCon and OpenSIPS summit presentations of interest Our own work especially on WebRTC and WISH (WHIP) security More open SIP relay attacks in the wild DDoS, botnets and VoIP RTC vulnerabilities and fixes in MacOS, iOS, WebRTC and more RTCSec newsletter is a free periodic newsletter bringing you commentary and news around VoIP and WebRTC security.

June 21, 2023

• Digium Harnessing the Power of Wholesale SIP Trunking: A Guide for Communication Service Providers

  Introduction

  In the increasingly digital landscape of business and communication, staying ahead of the curve is paramount. As communication service providers, we’ve seen firsthand the evolution of our industry. From the humble beginnings of the telephone to the booming era of mobile devices, the change has been rapid and relentless. Today, we find ourselves at the precipice of another transformation – wholesale SIP trunking. But what does it mean, and more importantly, how can it drive growth for communication service providers and voice service providers? This article will illuminate the path to understanding and harnessing the power of wholesale SIP trunking.

  The Dawn of SIP Trunking: A Brief History

  The Evolution of Telecommunications
  Our journey begins decades ago, in a time when the concept of instant communication was just a dream. Over the years, we’ve seen the advent of the telephone, the proliferation of mobile devices, and the rise of internet-based communication. In each of these phases, the core objective remained the same – to make communication quicker, clearer, and more efficient. As we stand in the era of digital communication, SIP trunking has emerged as a technology that encapsulates these objectives. Born out of the need for more efficient voice communication, SIP trunking bridges the gap between traditional telephony and digital communication, offering a hybrid solution that combines the best of both worlds.

  Why Wholesale SIP Trunking?

  The Predictable Revenue Stream: A Business Dream
  As seasoned communication service providers, we understand the importance of stable, predictable revenue. It serves as a backbone for our operations, helping us plan better and strategize more effectively. By providing low-cost SIP services, we can tap into a burgeoning market, providing a service that is in high demand. This creates a recurring, predictable revenue stream, giving us the stability and confidence to grow our operations.

  Loyal Customers: The Heart of a Successful Business
  Customer loyalty is not just about retaining customers, it’s about strengthening relationships and establishing trust. By introducing customers to SIP and VoIP, we can offer them a more cost-effective, efficient solution to their communication needs. This not only enhances our value proposition but also helps us earn a more significant portion of their telecommunications expenditure. This strengthens the customer relationship and engenders loyalty, an invaluable asset in today’s competitive business landscape.

  The Ease of Deployment & Administration
  In a world where speed and efficiency are of the essence, the quick deployment and easy administration of wholesale SIP trunking come as a boon. Unlike traditional telephone systems, which involve physical lines and lengthy installation processes, SIP trunks and channels can be provisioned in real-time and configured on-demand. This agility enables us to serve our customers better, getting them up and running in no time.

  The Profitability Potential
  Wholesale SIP trunking isn’t just about providing a service; it’s also about maximizing profitability. By offering value-added services along with SIP trunking, such as call recording, automated attendant, and disaster recovery, we can increase the profitability of each account. This allows us to diversify our revenue streams and leverage cross-selling opportunities, thereby bolstering our bottom line.

  Flexibility: The Key to Customer Satisfaction
  Every customer is unique, with their own specific needs and wants. The most successful service providers are those that can cater to this diversity. With wholesale SIP trunking, we can offer multiple pricing models, including unlimited minutes per channel, unlimited number of channels with a set number of minutes, and a per-minute rate for an unlimited number of channels. This flexibility ensures that we can meet the needs of all our customers, providing a personalized and tailored solution that leaves no one out.

  The Importance of a Reliable Network
  In the world of telecommunications, quality and reliability are non-negotiable. Customers expect, and rightly so, a service that is high-quality and dependable. As such, it’s crucial to work with a wholesale SIP provider that leverages a Tier-1, SAE 16 Type II certified network with real-time replication and total redundancy. This ensures that we can offer our customers a reliable service, enhancing our reputation and credibility in the market.

  The Power of Versatility: Compatibility Across Platforms
  One of the greatest advantages of wholesale SIP trunking is its compatibility with a variety of PBX solutions. This enables us to serve customers across multiple platforms, increasing our potential customer base. And with the popularity of open-source PBX platforms like Asterisk and FreePBX, it’s crucial to choose a wholesale SIP trunk solution that is compatible with these platforms.

  Branding: More Than Just a Logo
  In today’s digital world, branding is more important than ever. It’s not just about a logo; it’s about creating a consistent, recognizable identity that resonates with customers. With wholesale SIP trunking, we can reinforce our brand by white labeling our services. This means adding our logo and branding to the SIP system we offer, creating a consistent customer experience that builds brand recognition and loyalty.

  The Significance of Support in SIP Trunking
  In any business, support is a crucial element that can’t be overlooked. This is particularly true in the world of SIP trunking, where technical issues can arise. Understanding the level of support offered by wholesale SIP trunking platform providers is essential to ensure that you can tackle any challenges that may come up.

  Tax & Billing Handling: The Unsung Hero of Business Operations
  Tax and billing might not be the most glamorous part of business, but it’s certainly one of the most important. Managing telecommunications-related taxes and fees can be a complex and tedious process. Luckily, some wholesale SIP partners take care of this for you, handling the nitty-gritty of taxation and billing so you can focus on growing your business.

  Conclusion

  Wholesale SIP trunking represents a promising opportunity for communication service providers and voice service providers to grow their brand and scale their operations. By offering predictable revenue, fostering customer loyalty, simplifying deployment, increasing profitability, and providing a flexible and reliable service, wholesale SIP trunking can be a game-changer in the world of telecommunications.

  To learn more about our wholesale sip trunking services please visit: https://carrierservices.sangoma.com/

  Frequently Asked Questions

  1. What is wholesale SIP trunking?
  Wholesale SIP trunking is a technology that allows communication service providers to offer SIP services at a lower cost. It bridges the gap between traditional telephony and digital communication, providing a hybrid solution that offers the best of both worlds.

  2. How can wholesale SIP trunking create a predictable revenue stream?
  Wholesale SIP trunking creates a predictable revenue stream through its subscription-based model. By offering low-cost SIP services, communication service providers can tap into a growing market and generate recurring, stable income.

  3. What role does wholesale SIP trunking play in customer loyalty?
  Wholesale SIP trunking enhances customer loyalty by providing a cost-effective and efficient solution to their communication needs. This strengthens the customer-provider relationship and engenders trust, thereby fostering customer loyalty.

  4. How does wholesale SIP trunking enhance profitability?
  Wholesale SIP trunking enhances profitability by allowing providers to offer value-added services alongside SIP trunking. These additional services provide cross-selling opportunities, diversifying revenue streams and increasing the profitability of each account.

  5. What makes a high-quality, reliable wholesale SIP trunking service?
  A high-quality, reliable wholesale SIP trunking service is one that leverages a Tier-1, SAE 16 Type II certified network with real-time replication and total redundancy. It should also offer a high level of support to handle any technical issues that may arise.

  6. What role does branding play in wholesale SIP trunking?
  Branding in wholesale SIP trunking is about creating a consistent, recognizable identity that resonates with customers. Through white labeling, providers can add their branding to the SIP system they offer, reinforcing their brand and building customer loyalty.

  7. How does wholesale SIP trunking handle tax and billing?
  Some wholesale SIP partners take care of tax and billing for providers, handling the complex and tedious process of managing telecommunications-related taxes and fees. This allows providers to focus on growing their business.

  The post Harnessing the Power of Wholesale SIP Trunking: A Guide for Communication Service Providers appeared first on Sangoma Technologies.

June 20, 2023

• Digium Making it Easy for SMBs Looking for Communications Solutions

  You may have noticed back in April; we announced our bundles. And I’ve gotten a few questions about what’s that all about and why we did it.

  First, let me address what it is all about. For some time in Sangoma, we have been trying to address the complexity a business has in buying multiple cloud communication solutions. From UCaaS to video meetings to collaboration to fax to internet access to SD-WAN to security, organizations have to sift through different vendors, contracts, user types and options, pricing structures, etc., when purchasing services. We’ve heard this from both partners and end-users. Yes, we understand it is not easy. And it’s confusing. And it takes time. It takes time.

  So at the heart of the Sangoma Suite is making it easy to buy and understand what you are getting. The Suite is centered around purchasing UCaaS and adding on top of other services you might need in an easy-to-understand manner. So I hope if you are evaluating us, this comes through.

  And why did we do it? In many ways, we are unique in that we offer all of what an SMB might need for communications – UCaaS (phone calls, collaboration, video meetings), add-on services such as fax and contact center, and also offer MSP type services such as internet access options, security, and SD-WAN. We are unique in providing all of these services. So our bundles take this into account – easy to understand what you are getting, with easy-to-understand pricing if you take the optional services.

  Please go here to learn more about how our bundles might help you.

  The post Making it Easy for SMBs Looking for Communications Solutions appeared first on Sangoma Technologies.

June 09, 2023

• Digium Retail SIP Trunking vs. Wholesale SIP Trunking: Time to Take the Big Sip?

  We’re all familiar with SIP Trunking – it’s reliable, cost-effective, and a staple in the business communication landscape. But have you heard of its more advanced counterpart, Wholesale SIP trunking?

  Wholesale SIP trunking is like SIP trunking but on steroids. It promises greater savings, improved scalability, and an opportunity to resell services. It’s the next step in telecommunication evolution that could catapult your business efficiency to new heights.

  Now, you may be asking, “When should my business consider this switch?” Well, strap in, because we’re about to embark on a journey to answer that very question. Let’s explore when it’s time to hang up on regular SIP trunking and switch to wholesale SIP trunking. The future of your business communications might just be a ‘switch’ away!

  SIP Trunking: The Trusty Workhorse of Business Communication

  Before we explore the shiny new world of wholesale SIP trunking, let’s take a moment to appreciate our dependable staple – SIP trunking. Acting as the backbone of business communications, SIP trunking has been transmitting voice and other unified communications data across the internet with remarkable efficiency.

  Worldwide, SIP trunking accounts for almost 60% of all network traffic. And it’s not just because it’s popular; it’s because it delivers. Over 90% of SIP users report being satisfied with the audio quality​.

  But its pièce de résistance? The incredible cost savings. Businesses that have switched to VoIP via SIP trunking have seen the cost of their local calls drop by up to 40%, and international calls? They’ve saved up to a staggering 90%​. That’s the kind of economics any business can get behind.

  So, with its strong track record and undeniable financial benefits, SIP trunking has firmly established itself in the business communications landscape. But as we all know, even the trustiest workhorse can face competition from a more powerful contender. Enter wholesale SIP trunking. Let’s see what this new player brings to the table.

  The Turning Point: Recognizing When to Switch to Wholesale SIP Trunking

  In the dynamic landscape of business communication, knowing when to embrace change can be a decisive factor for growth and efficiency. Not every business may need to transition to Wholesale SIP trunking, but for some, it could be an essential step forward. So, how do you discern when it’s the right time for this strategic move? Here are several key indicators to consider:

  Business Expansion
  If your business is experiencing rapid growth, it may necessitate a communication solution that can adeptly keep pace. Just as an expanding team requires more resources, a burgeoning business might outgrow the capacities of regular SIP trunking. In such scenarios, Wholesale SIP trunking, with its inherent scalability, can cater to evolving needs more effectively.

  Demand for High Uptime
  Downtime can be detrimental to any business, causing disruptions that lead to loss of productivity and revenue. If your business operations demand high uptime, Wholesale SIP trunking could be a strategic choice. With the potential to achieve an uptime of up to 99.96% using cloud-based VoIP, it offers a robust solution for maintaining business continuity​.

  Cost Efficiency
  SIP trunking is already more cost-efficient than traditional telephone lines, but wholesale SIP trunking can take these savings even further. This is especially true for businesses with a high volume of calls, as the cost per call can decrease significantly with a wholesale model. Moreover, there’s no need to invest in high-priced equipment, and installation costs are minimal​​.

  Increasing Call Volume
  If your business is consistently handling a high volume of calls and you’ve noticed that your costs are rising with this demand, it might be time to look at wholesale SIP trunking. The scalability of this model can provide significant cost savings for businesses that have a large volume of calls, reducing the cost per call​​.

  Growing Your Business
  If your business is rapidly expanding and you’re adding new locations or employees. You can even add regional and international office numbers, allowing your customers to avoid long-distance charges​​.

  Deciding to switch to wholesale SIP trunking is a significant decision that requires careful evaluation. However, if your business aligns with one or more of the above scenarios, it may be time to transition from regular SIP trunking to its more advanced and versatile counterpart, wholesale SIP trunking. Recognizing the turning point can pave the way for greater business efficiency and growth.

  These signs can help you recognize when it’s time to switch from SIP trunking to wholesale SIP trunking. Remember, every business is unique, so it’s important to weigh the pros and cons based on your specific needs and circumstances.

  “Super-Sizing” SIP: Upgrading Your SIP Experience: The Wholesale Advantage

  So, you’re sold on SIP trunking but now you’re considering stepping up your game and diving into the wholesale pool. Good on you! But what’s in it for your business? Let’s unbox the benefits of moving from regular SIP trunking to wholesale SIP trunking:

  Scalability
  Wholesale SIP trunking offers unparalleled scalability. Whether your business is growing faster than a weed in spring or you experience seasonal spikes in call volumes, you can easily add or remove channels as needed with wholesale SIP trunking. You’re not stuck with a fixed number of channels that either leave you paying for capacity you don’t need or constantly bumping up against the limits of your lines​​.

  Reselling Opportunities
  With wholesale SIP trunking, you’re not just a consumer—you’re also a potential provider. If you’ve ever dreamt of becoming a telecom tycoon, here’s your chance! As a wholesale SIP trunking user, you can offer SIP services to your own clients, providing them with phone numbers and lines at competitive rates. Now, that’s what we call a win-win​​​.

  View this infographic to learn why you need to sell wholesale SIP trunking.

  Redundancy & Reliability
  Wholesale sip trunking providers often have redundant infrastructure, ensuring that your communication remains uninterrupted even in the face of network outages or disasters. It’s like having a backup generator for your voice services!

  So, if you’re looking to level up your SIP game, wholesale SIP trunking offers a host of benefits that regular SIP trunking just can’t match. Whether it’s the scalability, reselling opportunities, improved uptime, cost efficiency, or the ease of geographic mobility, wholesale SIP trunking is a force to be reckoned with in the business communications arena.

  Making the Transition to Wholesale SIP Trunking – Smooth Sailing Ahead!

  How do you make the transition without breaking a sweat? Here’s a simple roadmap:

  Find a Reliable Provider
  Do your research and choose a wholesale sip trunking provider with a stellar reputation and a track record of exceptional service. Look for features like 24/7 customer support, network redundancy, and a global footprint.

  Evaluate Your Needs
  Determine your call volume, international requirements, and growth projections. Communicate these details to your chosen provider so they can tailor a solution to meet your specific needs.

  Plan the Switch
  Coordinate with your provider to ensure a smooth transition. Create a deployment plan, test the new setup, and train your team on any new features or processes.

  The SIP Trunking Journey

  In the world of SIP trunking, it’s not just about making calls—it’s about making connections. And with wholesale SIP trunking, those connections could be clearer, more reliable, and more cost-effective than ever before.

  Remember, the goal isn’t to just follow the crowd—it’s about choosing the right path for your business. It’s about recognizing when your business is ready for a change, understanding the benefits, and making a well-informed decision.

  Whether you’re dealing with an increasing call volume, planning to expand your business, eyeing the potential of reselling SIP services, seeking improved uptime, or just looking for more cost efficiency, wholesale SIP trunking could be the next big leap for your business communications strategy.

  If you’re considering whether wholesale SIP trunking is right for your business, or if you just have more questions, don’t hesitate to get in touch with us. We’re here to help guide you through the decision-making process and ensure that you find the best solution for your business.

  The post Retail SIP Trunking vs. Wholesale SIP Trunking: Time to Take the Big Sip? appeared first on Sangoma Technologies.

June 06, 2023

• Digium More Reasons to Utilize SD-WAN

  Last month, Sangoma partnered with Frost and Sullivan to offer a leading-edge webinar regarding the state of SD-WAN.

  SD-WAN is growing quite well, primarily because of all the cloud applications requiring resources and the need for a business to ensure that it has sufficient internet access at an affordable price. But SD-WAN is relatively complex to operate, so 91% of all SD-WAN installations are either of the fully-managed or co-managed variety. If you are looking for a solution to help your business, Sangoma can help you.

  One new learning that makes sense but I hadn’t thought much about before is that all these new “smart” IoT applications will require even more bandwidth, smart scaling, and intelligent routing, making SD-WAN even more important. So if you haven’t deployed SD-WAN yet, at some point, soon you will want to for the continued health of your business.

  If you want to listen to a webinar replay, please go here.

  The post More Reasons to Utilize SD-WAN appeared first on Sangoma Technologies.

• WebRTC Hacks Livestream Replay: WebCodecs, WebTransport, and the Future of WebRTC
  

  Here at webrtcHacks we are always exploring what’s next in the world of Real Time Communications. One area we have touched on a few times is the use of WebCodecs with WebTransport as an alternative to WebRTC’s RTCPeerConnection. There have been several recent experiments by Bernard Aboba – WebRTC & WebTransport Co-Chair and webrtcHacks regular, […]

  The post Livestream Replay: WebCodecs, WebTransport, and the Future of WebRTC appeared first on webrtcHacks.

May 31, 2023

• Enable Security May 2023: RTC conferences, advisories for Cisco, Mitel, sofia-sip
  Welcome to the May edition of the monthly VoIP and WebRTC security newsletter! In this edition, we cover: Kamailio World in Berlin and CommCon in the UK Open Source Telecom Software Survey 2023 Asterisk PBX and ASAN compilation SIP-based vulnerabilities in Shannon Baseband vulnerabilities many more RTCSec newsletter is a free periodic newsletter bringing you commentary and news around VoIP and WebRTC security. We cover both defensive and offensive security as they relate to Real-time Communications.
• Digium Leaving DIY Behind

  With a lot involved in deploying SD-WAN, leveraging a managed service provider (MSP) can help businesses keep their IT staff forward-thinking. There are many to choose from, and knowing the criteria to get the best fit is essential.

  Choosing an MSP Tailored to Business Size

  In searching for an MSP to align with, the size and focus are important so that businesses receive service based on their needs and style. For instance, if an SMB pairs up with an MSP designed for enterprise networking, MSP may not provide the personalized touch the business requires. They are simply too large. On the other hand, selecting a start-up MSP may not be mature with respect to its service offerings. However, they might be able to deliver SD-WAN, which may not meet overarching needs.

  Missing Complementary Services

  Once a business chooses an MSP for SD-WAN, they’ll want them to provide more than just services. For instance, businesses may want to add:

  • Voice services for collaboration for all their locations
  • Security services

  Businesses should want to partner with an MSP that can consolidate these services more holistically. They will want a partner that can help with their overall technology roadmap. For instance, integrating the network security of SD-WAN with endpoint security.

  Security at the MSP Level

  This relates to how the MSP is protecting themselves which effectively protects the customer. If their network is not reliable and secure, that will mean downtime and security issues for their customers. An easy way to investigate this is to know what type of certifications they have. A typical one to look for is SOCII (service operation center), where they have their processes not only well established but are independently tested by third-party auditors. These auditors will verify the following:

  • Network Security
  • Data Security
  • Process Security

  MSP WAN Diversity

  As they look for an MSP, businesses may find that many lack WAN service diversity and are not carrier agnostic. Businesses will want to ask questions such as:

  • Do they offer just one type of circuit?
  • Do they partner with just one carrier and offer just one service?
  • Do they have the relationships and product breadth to cover many different transport types over many different regions?

  That’s the benefit of picking an MSP that has those relationships to bring in a complete solution set and deliver it over one single bill instead of receiving bills from all the individual locations.

  The Sangoma Difference

  Let’s take a look at how Sangoma’s Managed SD-WAN service delivers this solution-set to customers and look at some key strengths.

  Dedicated Implementation Team
  When an SD-WAN solution is deployed, our dedicated implementation team begins to establish a relationship with the customer; they bring the customer through the entire implementation lifecycle, including post-implementation, monitoring, and support. This dedicated project management style approach is a crucial differentiator of Sangoma’s.

  Owned & Operated Robust Core Network Backbone
  Sangoma has pioneered the SD-WAN landscape with its own privately owned and operated PCI-Certified and HIPAA-compliant backbone. We have a diverse set of WAN transport options that brings all those transport options into a single network backbone that enables our clients to have the carrier and transport diversity that enables them to be successful.

  Managed, Maintained & Monitoring 24/7/365
  A major strength of Sangoma’s SD-WAN service is that customers can completely offload their IT resources from the burden of managing, monitoring, and maintaining the SD-WAN service. Sangoma’s dedicated network operations center (NOC) does all this for them remotely. If any issues arise, the NOC team is automatically notified and resolves the issue, even before it has any chance of reaching the customer’s network. Since Sangoma has a homegrown SD-WAN solution, customers have true experts on their side, assuring total satisfaction.

  Simplified Billing
  There is a lot of value in having customized invoices that simplify a customer’s back office approach to processing bills and allow the back office staff to be more strategic in their efforts.

  Sangoma’s Managed SD-WAN solution ensures customers securely connect any user, any device, anywhere, anytime, over any transport. It provides connectivity uptime for users in the most secure way.

  Summarizing SD-WAN Objectives

  In summarizing the need for SD-WAN, there are 3 main objectives:

  Uptime & Application Availability
  Users need to be able to reach their application whenever needed, so network uptime is vital. Included in uptime is also a security component. For instance, if there is a security attack that takes down the network, the user applications become unavailable. So, ensuring security incidents don’t occur is also key.

  Visibility & Management of WAN Workloads
  With the resiliency of an SD-WAN network, a failure could occur without users ever noticing and without impact. Still, visibility and management of those individual components are important to ensure the trouble has been identified and remediated in order to get back to primary services.

  Simplifying the Complexity of Telco Billing
  Consolidating all the individual bills from each carrier in their respective regions offers a nice white-glove approach and saves customers time and resources.

  So, is DIY the right approach to SD-WAN?

  SD-WAN technology is advantageous to incorporate into business networks. Still, it can worsen the complexities of network management for organizations that lack the IT resources to deploy and maintain an SD-WAN solution. They may look to MSPs to deliver managed SD-WAN to replace their traditional WAN architecture. MSPs can provide simplified SD-WAN operations by leveraging a multi-vendor strategy enabling them to augment their offering to provide agility and a differentiated service tailored to business requirements.

  Get in touch with one of our Managed SD-WAN specialists.

  The post Leaving DIY Behind appeared first on Sangoma Technologies.

May 24, 2023

• Digium Build Your Own Communications Platform with APIdaze (CPaaS)

  No commercial off-the-shelf software meeting your needs? Tired of wasting time juggling multiple, disparate communications tools to get the job done?

  Tie together Voice, Video, and SMS, for example, and integrate customized solutions into your existing user interface or business processes with our pre-built APIs in our communications platform/SDK environment.

  APIdaze is our CPaaS platform for programmable telephony that clients have used to develop custom IVRs, create webhooks for WebRTC, and even develop AI Bot responders. Build your own call center, integrate SMS in your softphone client, automate call tracking applications, and more; the applications are nearly endless.

  APIdaze enables you to create the perfect communication solution platform, or augment your existing one, without the time and money building it all by yourself.

  Check out this customer testimonial for more details.

  APIdaze can integrate with your existing platform to enhance your development efforts. APIdaze is highly customizable and uses our pre-built communications API’s to enable your developers to add real-time voice, video, and messaging elements into VoIP, web, and mobile applications.

  Download our paper on the CPaaS Revolution to learn more about how APIdaze can streamline your communication platform development efforts.

  About Sangoma Wholesale Carrier Services

  Sangoma Wholesale Carrier Services, formerly known as VI, provides value-added resellers access to industry-best Sip Trunking products and carrier services, over our own nation-wide network at discounted rates to service aggregators. We offer wholesale Trunking as a Service (TaaS), provide telecom compliance and regulatory solutions, SPAM/Fraud protections, and reseller-focused features such as Hosted Billing. Sangoma Wholesale Carrier Services continues a legacy of innovations in product development, the expansion of our core networks and to advance technological capabilities, such as CPaaS, to help value-added resellers thrive as communications service providers.

  The post Build Your Own Communications Platform with APIdaze (CPaaS) appeared first on Sangoma Technologies.

May 23, 2023

• Digium Cybersecurity Importance to SMBs

  Cybersecurity is essential for SMBs. This Business Tech Weekly article explains why in more detail, but some of the obvious ones include a relative lack of resources, inadequate training, and the desire to spend only what the business considers to be “needed.”

  But this is proving risky. According to the IBM Security, Cost of Data Breach 2022 Report, data breaches cost businesses a lot of money. “Reaching an all-time high, the cost of a data breach averaged $4.35M in 2022, and 83% of organizations studied have experienced more than one data breach.”

  As such, today, many companies are making this their number one IT priority – to ensure they do not contribute to the next report!

  But what to do about it? While the Business Tech Weekly article explains a few essential areas to cover (like training employees about phishing emails, instituting solid passwords, etc.), that still won’t cover everything.

  The IT department may have a big load they can’t handle. One good way to address that is to go to a Managed Service Provider who can offer these services. One you already go to for your UCaaS or Access—someone like Sangoma.

  The post Cybersecurity Importance to SMBs appeared first on Sangoma Technologies.

May 17, 2023

• Digium The Pitfalls To Avoid In DIY SD-WAN

  In our last blog we started a conversation around the advantages of Managed SD-WAN vs DIY. In this post we are continuing that discussion by outlining some of the pitfalls to avoid when attempting a DIY SD-WAN.

  Overloading internal IT & Project Management Resources

  Depending on the size of the business, monopolizing IT staff resources for SD-WAN deployment may not be the best use of their time when they could be focusing on more strategic efforts. Enterprise businesses may be fine as they may have an entire floor dedicated to IT/ project management resources, but for an SMB, the IT resources are much thinner. So, keeping IT resources as strategic as possible is most important here.

  Inaccurate Budget & Timeline

  As already discussed, there are a lot of things that need to be discovered when it comes to the implementation and post-implementation of an SD-WAN solution. When it comes to budget, there is a need to expand the focus not just on dollars but take a look at the human capital and timeline to be able to complete a deployment.

  For small to medium-sized businesses, it’s beneficial to align with an experienced MSP who can deploy a dedicated team of certified and specialized network engineers that not only can set realistic expectations but can help them remain mindful of all the steps for an on-time delivery.

  Overlooking/Underestimating the Complexity of Networks

  The first question an executive team should ask themselves is, “Should we continue to manage our networks within?” It’s a meaningful and impactful question, especially if the business is starting to embrace hosted solutions, SaaS, or public cloud services, where the network’s complexity will change drastically.

  Thinking that SD-WAN & A Network Cure-all

  A major benefit of SD-WAN is that it can automatically detect link failures and seamlessly failover to a backup connection. So, if there is a failure in the primary link, a business will not notice any service disruption because it will continue to function over the failover connections. What this means is that the actual problem is never detected and resolved. For example, if the primary connection is a broadcast connection and the failover is over LTE, if the primary link fails, everything routes over to LTE and will continue to do so until the primary link failure is resolved. In this scenario, the business would be paying for increased charges since the connection remains on LTE. So SMBs may not have the capacity to maintain SD-WAN services efficiently.

  Key Executive Considerations

  • What are some of the key business outcomes expected from SD-WAN?
  • Does the business have in-house expertise that can select & purchase, project manage, install, and manage an SD-WAN solution?
  • Is managing SD-WAN in-house adding value to the business, or are there other ways?

  Can the business supply helpdesk staff with 24/7/365 monitoring & support?
  Many businesses run from 9-5 but want their networks to run smoothly around the clock without straining their staff.

  Can the public cloud be leveraged?
  Which deployment model will best support the use of SaaS and public cloud services? It’s essential to understand the different workloads and how that traffic will traverse the network for an end-user experience.

  Timeline for implementation & can we meet the desired dates?
  The best thing to do here is to define the desired completion dates, then work backward and develop milestones that need to be completed then be able to understand if those milestones can be completed by those desired dates.

  Business Outcomes

  There are 6 key outcomes for a business deploying SD-WAN:

  Hard Cost Savings
  SD-WAN vendors on the market typically promote the hard cost savings of their industry solution. SD-WAN saves substantial circuit costs for businesses relying on legacy circuits for their locations.

  When it comes to growth enablement, how can companies rapidly deploy for new locations or new applications? Ideally, they want to reduce provisioning time and turn up services for their end users in days, not weeks or months.

  Reduction of Risk & Meeting Compliance
  How can a company have advanced service features to identify and respond to security threats that may become prevalent in its environment?

  Business Continuity
  How can companies have continuity and be able to failover to secondary and tertiary connections services in the event that their primary provider suffers an outage?

  Efficiency & Productivity
  This relates to the end-user experience, and they want to know that when they turn on their applications-that, they will work. It’s about understanding how a network can be designed to prioritize and shape bandwidth to support those business-critical applications.

  Simplified Billing
  This is an impactful value but not necessarily known upfront. There is value here in handling multiple carriers and being able to consolidate billing. For example, for nationwide businesses and all their locations, what is realized is that their back office becomes inundated. The workload sometimes becomes out of control with individual bills from many different carriers, which may require an increase in the accounting departments to handle this. So, you can consolidate the circuits, hardware, and licenses into a simple bill with SD-WAN or a managed SD-WAN solution.

  So, while there are front-end needs for SD-WAN, things like simplified billing is a nice white-glove approach to SD-WAN to look out for.

  Stay tuned for our next and final blog post on DIY vs a Managed approach for SD-WAN.

  Get in touch with one of our Managed SD-WAN specialists.

  The post The Pitfalls To Avoid In DIY SD-WAN appeared first on Sangoma Technologies.

May 15, 2023

• ng-voice How to make voice services economically viable in private 4G/5G networks

  Mobile Private Network (MPN) is a buzzword in the enterprise space. An MPN is a mobile network designed for a certain use case in a particular region and utilizes 4G or 5G cellular technology. The network is exclusively used by the enterprise and can be managed by it or as a managed service on its behalf. With the increase in availability of spectrum for private networks and telco suppliers such as ng-voice providing low-footprint Core software, the interest and adoption of private networks have accelerated. While data use cases were the initial focus in MPNs, demand for voice use cases is steadily increasing owing to the need of guaranteeing quality of service for voice-based mission-critical use cases.

   

  According to a study by CMI (Custom Market Insights) [1], the Global Private 5G Network Market was estimated at USD 1.45 Billion in 2021 and is anticipated to reach around USD 41.80 Billion by 2030, growing at a CAGR of ~49.7% between 2022 and 2030. With the maturity of 5G standalone networks, enterprises are leveraging the capabilities/features of 5G technology to enhance existing operations or introduce new product offerings for additional revenue streams. Digital transformation, intelligent factories, and the Internet of Things (IoT) are applications of enterprise transformation. Though 5G is the focus in private networks, it should be acknowledged that 4G technology is also a viable option for private networks and provides the necessary capabilities depending on the use case.

   

  Some enterprises have deployed private networks for decades, mainly in the form of Wi-Fi. However, both 4G and 5G cellular technologies offer significant advantages over other technologies, including Wi-Fi 6. They provide better coverage, are more reliable, provide better flexibility to deploy, support moving devices more effectively, and have better security. In the case of 5G, there are additional capabilities, most relevantly the Ultra-Reliable Low Latency Communications (URLLC) functionality, which will allow for the support of real-time control systems, autonomous vehicles, and augmented/virtual reality, amongst other things. ng-voice’s IMS is suitable for both 4G or 5G private networks and can provide Voice over LTE (VoLTE) and Voice over New Radio (VoNR) capabilities. Furthermore, integration of ng-voice’s IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) with use case-specific application servers (e.g., Mission Critical servers) ensures that various use cases or scenarios can be achieved in a private network setup.

   

  Industries managing or providing critical services require a secure and reliable network. Always-on connectivity and guaranteed Quality of Service (QoS) need to be ensured. Let us look at some examples of use cases.

   

  In the healthcare industry, reliable communication is required for communication between healthcare personnel, especially where life is at stake. Furthermore, there are IoT applications where medical devices (e.g., ventilators) can initiate calls to medical personnel based on triggers such as heart rate going above a threshold.

   

  In public safety, security, construction, manufacturing, and mining industries, Push-to-talk (PTT) over Cellular (PoC) is a common use case. PoC allows cell phones to be used as walkie-talkies. Users can communicate by pressing a button and speaking when the phone indicates it is OK to do so. The user releases the button when they are done talking. A PTT Application Server communicates with the IMS to enable PTT over IMS; hence, guaranteed resources are allocated in the network for transmission of speech. Furthermore, there is efficient network resource utilization, as resources are only allocated when a user is actually speaking.

   

  Enterprises may choose to deploy private networks with emergency calling capabilities as well. ng-voice’s IMS recognizes the emergency call based on a preconfigured list of emergency numbers and prioritizes the call accordingly. The emergency call can be routed to a private emergency center or Public-Safety Answering Point (PSAP). ng-voice’s IMS is compliant with emergency calling regulatory standards, including those of the EU and North America.

  Lower cost, reduce complexity.

  One of the biggest differences between private and public networks is the economy of scale. Whereas the public network typically caters to a larger number of subscribers, private networks’ size can vary from tens to a few thousand subscribers and/or devices. Making these small networks commercially viable requires a low-cost, low-complexity solution. This applies to both deployment as well as operations. To achieve this, firstly, the solution should be able to scale down to a very small number of subscribers. Secondly, it should be easy to deploy with limited integration, e.g., through a single pre-integrated solution (combined Radio and Core). Thirdly, as enterprises might not have in-house 4G/5G skillsets, the solution needs to be easy to maintain and operate.

   

  ng-voice’s IMS solution is perfectly positioned to address these challenges through its fully micro-service–based and containerized architecture, which is scalable from very few subscribers to 1000s using only a minimal footprint. As an example, ng-voice’s IMS solution deployed on a box-standard Intel® NUC Mini PC (Intel Core i5 processer, 16 GB RAM, 1 TB storage) already caters for a few thousand subscribers. This, together with the flexible pricing model, results in a much lower TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) compared to legacy IMS solutions, with as much as 80% operational cost reduction, as highlighted in the figure below.

  

  To simplify the deployment and integration, ng-voice IMS can be deployed automatically, based on your preferred deployment model, be it private cloud, edge cloud, or public cloud, and has been integrated with various solution partners to further reduce integration complexity.

   

  ng-voice’s extensive use of Automation and Artificial Intelligence helps to keep operations straightforward, providing automated lifecycle management through full CI/CD flow, in-service scaling (up and down), and auto-healing. In addition, ng-voice offers an IMS-aaS model, providing a fully managed solution, further simplifying the operations.

   

  To learn more about ng-voice’s IMS, please contact info@ng-voice.com or visit our website at https://www.ng-voice.com/.

   

  [1]: https://www.custommarketinsights.com/report/private-5g-network-market/

  

  Pieter Knikkink

  VP of Partnerships and Alliances

  Publisher Bio

  Pieter is a veteran telecommunications professional with over 20 years of experience in various roles around the world. Prior to joining ng-voice, Pieter worked at Nokia in various roles around the world. In 2022, he joined ng-voice and currently is the VP of Partnerships and Alliances. He is responsible for managing and nurturing the company’s relationships with key partners and driving strategic alliances that enable ng-voice to grow and expand its business.

  

  Elijah Indarjit​

  Customer Solution Architect

  Publisher Bio

  Elijah has vast experience in the industry working for companies such as Vodacom South Africa and Vodafone Turkey. In his previous roles, Elijah deployed VoLTE interconnected networks and developed a Core network strategy and evolution, resulting in better service quality for customers. Elijah brings his skills in IMS, Packet Core, Voice Core, and QoS to ng-voice to design solutions and evolve our portfolio based on customer needs.

May 11, 2023

• Digium What is an Omnichannel Contact Center & Why Should You Care?

  In today’s fast-paced business environment, customer expectations are higher than ever before. Customers demand seamless experiences across all channels, including voice, email, chat, social media, etc. To meet these expectations, contact centers must be able to provide an omnichannel experience.

  What is an omnichannel contact center?

  An omnichannel contact center is a customer service strategy that integrates all communication channels and allows customers to switch between channels while maintaining the context of their interactions. This approach enables businesses to provide a consistent and personalized experience across all channels, increasing customer satisfaction and loyalty.
  Omnichannel means you can reach out and touch your audience wherever they are, which means you have more opportunities to get them interested in what you’ve got going on. You can do this by using channels like email, phone calls, text messaging, and even social media platforms.
  An omnichannel contact center is the next step in customer service for companies that want to provide a better customer experience but maintain efficiency and effectiveness.
  Here are some reasons why an omnichannel contact center is necessary:

  Customers expect it: As mentioned earlier, customers expect a seamless experience across all channels. They want to be able to contact a business through their preferred channel and have their inquiries resolved quickly and efficiently.

  Improved customer retention: Customers are more likely to stay loyal to a business that provides a seamless and personalized experience across all channels. An omnichannel contact center can help businesses retain customers by providing a consistent and efficient customer experience. Switching communication channels can improve hold/wait times, fostering a better customer experience.

  Better Reporting and insights: An omnichannel contact center can give businesses better insights into customer behavior and preferences. By tracking customer interactions across all channels, businesses can better understand their customer’s needs and preferences.

  In conclusion…

  Ultimately, an omnichannel contact center is all about providing a better customer experience. It’s not just about technology or how you deliver your services; it’s about understanding what customers want and how they want to interact with your brand. By combining all of these things into one seamless process, organizations can create a contact center that meets their customers where they are and, thus, create loyal customers who will continue to do business with them in the future.

  For additional information on Sangoma CX and omnichannel, click here.

  The post What is an Omnichannel Contact Center & Why Should You Care? appeared first on Sangoma Technologies.

May 10, 2023

• Digium The Growing Benefits of 5G Wireless Internet for Businesses

  In today’s digital age, businesses rely heavily on fast and reliable internet connectivity to stay competitive and succeed. With the advent of 5G wireless internet, businesses can experience a new level of internet connectivity which is faster, more reliable, and more secure than ever before. Here are some of the growing benefits of 5G wireless internet for businesses:

  1. Lightning-Fast Internet Speeds

  One of the most significant benefits of 5G wireless internet is its lightning-fast internet speeds. With download speeds up to 100 times faster than 4G, businesses can enjoy seamless connectivity and faster data transfer rates. This means businesses can upload and download large files in seconds, host virtual meetings without lag, and stream high-quality video content without buffering.

  2. Seamless Connectivity

  Another benefit of 5G wireless internet is its seamless connectivity. Unlike traditional wired internet connections limited to certain areas, 5G wireless internet is accessible almost anywhere. This means businesses can stay connected on the go or in remote locations.

  3. Increased Productivity

  With faster internet speeds and seamless connectivity, businesses can experience increased productivity. Employees can complete tasks faster, communicate with each other seamlessly, and collaborate on projects more effectively. This can lead to increased efficiency and better performance.

  4. Better Security

  5G wireless internet is designed to be more secure than previous generations of wireless technology. With its enhanced security features, businesses can protect their data and communications from cyber threats more effectively. This can help businesses avoid costly data breaches and protect their sensitive information.

  5. Future-Proof Technology

  5G wireless internet is a future-proof technology supporting the latest applications and devices. As businesses embrace new technologies, such as the Internet of Things (IoT) and artificial intelligence (AI), they will require faster and more reliable internet connectivity. 5G wireless internet is designed to meet these demands, making it a valuable investment for businesses looking to stay ahead of the curve.

  Sangoma has launched its 5G wireless Broadband internet service as part of its Managed Internet connectivity product suite. Our new wireless service leverages our relationships with the major US wireless carriers to deliver customers the best 5G plan based on their geographical location and from the provider of their choice! It consists of:

  • Download speeds up to 650 Mbps+
  • Data options from 50GB -> unlimited data
  • Static public IP address included!

  Since it’s part of Sangoma’s Managed Internet services, customers benefit from 24/7/365 maintenance and monitoring from our in-house NOC.

  If you want to take your business to the next level, consider upgrading to our 5G wireless internet today!

  Contact Sales

  Contact Sales

  The post The Growing Benefits of 5G Wireless Internet for Businesses appeared first on Sangoma Technologies.

May 09, 2023

• Digium Reminder: Sangoma is Recognized in the Gartner UCaaS Magic Quadrant

  About 6 months ago, it was announced that Sangoma was positioned by Gartner, Inc. in the 2022 Gartner® Magic Quadrant for Unified Communications as a Service. Sangoma is one of only twelve other companies placed in 2022 and one of just six companies to appear consecutively for the last eight years.

  So why am I writing about it again, now? This is on my mind since at last week’s Channel Partners conference, I was asked about this multiple times. Sangoma’s brand is getting out there more, to people who may not know us that well. This becomes part of the 60 second Sangoma story

  Read More About Sangoma's Magic Quadrant Award

  Read the Full Report

  The post Reminder: Sangoma is Recognized in the Gartner UCaaS Magic Quadrant appeared first on Sangoma Technologies.

May 03, 2023

• Digium Why Managed SD-WAN is Better than a DIY Approach in a Digital Transforming World

  Why do businesses look for SD-WAN solutions? What kind of challenges are they experiencing? Why do businesses want to change how their business locations and end users connect?

  This is the first of 3 posts where we discuss the needs for SD-WAN within business networks, the different ways to implement and lastly the benefits of partnering with an MSP for a Managed approach to SD-WAN.

  Short and simple, the traffic across networks continues to increase, and so too are business networks. In fact, global network traffic size is expected to expand at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 9.7% from 2021 to 2028 and even higher for small-to-medium sized businesses of 10.3% during the respective period. Businesses purchase various software and applications and then realize that their network is limiting them from achieving their goals. It’s become very labor-intensive for them to log into many devices to manage their network.

  Current Trends & Challenges

  Today’s business environments are seeing a lot of challenges in the following ways:

  • Mobile devices on the corporate network, BYOD, and guest access are straining corporate LAN and WAN
  • IT staff struggling with how to manage security during growth
  • Poor end-user and application experience
  • High-cost interest services from multiple carriers

  As trends continue and companies undergo digital transformation, they are embracing more software-as-a-service (SaaS) and public cloud applications. In a prior time, they relied on applications and services running on servers in their office locations. Now they are moving to a business model where they rely on that being provided as a service, where those applications run on hardware located elsewhere. So businesses need to understand how to manage their networks in this new way, how to secure them, and be able to provide a reliable end-user experience so that end-users can achieve what’s needed. They also need to figure out how to connect all their locations, decide what type of internet services are needed at each, and what type of carriers they need to embrace in order to achieve a holistic environment. This all focuses on a company’s network, how it’s set up, and how it’s managed.

  This identifies software-defined wide area networking (SD-WAN) as a need within business networks. SD-WAN is a virtual WAN architecture that allows businesses to leverage any combination of transport services, such as broadband, MPLS, LTE, to securely connect users to applications. SD-WAN uses a centralized control function to steer traffic securely and intelligently across the WAN and directly to trusted SaaS providers. This increases application performance and delivers a high-quality user experience, which increases business productivity and agility and reduces IT costs. This is why we are seeing businesses of all sizes adopting SD-WAN at an exponential rate. For instance, an in-depth analysis of industry insights shows that the market is expected to have an estimated Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 31.2% between 2022 and 2030. Significant contributors to this growth are small to medium businesses (SMBs). Prior to SD-WAN availability, SMBs were limited to offering goods and services globally and having a distributed workforce across multiple locations because it needed to be more of an operating cost to bear. With SD-WAN and a highly competitive landscape, SMBs can leverage SD-WAN to reduce operating expenses while leveraging multiple links to low-cost local internet lines.

  Selections: Things to Consider

  Deploying an SD-WAN solution can be very complex and includes a combination of three key elements when selecting the right components:

  • Hardware Vendor – There is a hardware component to SD-WAN that connects the business’ local network to the internet. It’s essential to select the right solution provider based on business needs. For instance, is the hardware standalone, or can it be integrated into business activities, such as security? New vendors are popping up in the market, and being able to identify their ability to withstand and stay within the market to provide long-term support is something to consider.
  • Carrier Selections – This depends on where the business locations operate. Are all locations in one geographical area or spread out and across territories? So, they’ll need to identify if they need local, regional, or national coverage and then figure out which carriers they trust.
  • Connection Types – What kind of access is required at each location? Choices exist from direct internet access, broadband, LTE, and the combination of those for primary and failover connections.

  Finding the right partner to work with will help businesses achieve their goals here.

  Implementation: Things to Consider

  After having selected the right components, there’s a list of things to consider on the implementation front.

  • Hardware, Licensing & Maintenance Contracts – SD-WAN hardware selected for each site which includes licensing and maintenance contracts the business will need to own.
  • Circuit Procurement with Independent Lead Time – Whether all the circuits are available from a single carrier or come from multiple carriers. Are they different technology types? What type of bandwidth will be needed for each location? And knowing when each will become available by the vendor to know how to roll out the solution.

    It’s important to note that the contracts for the hardware licenses and the circuits may not align, so it’s important to keep that in mind for renewal purposes.

  • Hardware Configuration & Shipping for Deployments at Each Site – Depending on the size of the business and the number of locations, it can take months or over a year, or even more, to roll out the solution. So, it’s imperative to consider this timeline, along with hardware licensing and circuit contract dates.
  • Installation, Delivery & Activation – The actual deployments in the field of the SD-WAN devices, the scheduling and the turning up of the circuits, and the activation and testing.

  So, there are many things to look at during the implementation cycle.

  Post Implementation

  Once everything is all set up from an implementation standpoint, there are things to consider regarding maintenance. Businesses need to document everything and keep the information current in the event their support teams need to reach out to hardware manufacturers or carriers for help. Or if changes are required during the lifecycle of the service. This includes:

  • Circuit diagrams
  • Network diagrams
  • Hardware and license inventory for asset management
  • Configuration files for deployed hardware
  • IP address schema for each site
  • Contact numbers and internal helpdesk, carrier, and vendor helpdesks
  • All the due diligence in maintaining each site’s network and IP address schema
  • All the different contacts from carriers and hardware manufacturers that need to be kept all together in case support teams need to reach out to individuals

  Stay tuned for the next post where we continue this discussion and get into the pitfalls to avoid in DIY SD-WAN.

  Or get in touch with one of our Managed SD-WAN specialists.

  The post Why Managed SD-WAN is Better than a DIY Approach in a Digital Transforming World appeared first on Sangoma Technologies.

April 28, 2023

• Enable Security April 2023: 3CX incident updates, WebRTC security and H264
  April brings with it conference announcements, updates to the 3CX incident and a very interesting paper about the most popular video codec. In this edition, we cover: New fuzzing of RTP codecs with SIPVicious PRO Details about our WebRTC security presentation for CommCon News about the 3CX compromise and much much more! RTCSec newsletter is a free periodic newsletter bringing you commentary and news around VoIP and WebRTC security. We cover both defensive and offensive security as they relate to Real-time Communications.

April 25, 2023

• Digium Application Aware Network

  More and more businesses are turning to the cloud to run parts of their business – from their phone system to their back office type systems to everything in between. And many of these services are managed services, offloading and optimizing IT resources.

  Many of these services run in different public networks, a hodge-podge of whatever the particular service uses, and run on any device. This puts stress on the networks as bottlenecks could occur. I’m sure we’ve all experienced this in our work-from-home experiences using video meetings – sometimes, the video is a bit “wonky” for brief periods. This can happen in business connections as well. As such, the networks businesses use to deliver workloads to their employees need to be responsive, or adaptive, to the applications running on them.

  This is one of the benefits of using SD-WAN. An SD-WAN solution has intelligence that can define traffic routes and priority based on the application need and, as such, can inherently find the best route for the traffic. There’s a lot more to it than a single sentence, though, as SD-WAN is complex.

  In fact, according to a 2021 Frost and Sullivan SD-WAN survey of North American-based network services decision-makers, 64% said they prefer a fully managed SD-WAN service, and 16% said they like a co-managed approach precisely because of the complexity of setting it up and running it. See what Sangoma has to offer with managed SD-WAN.

  The post Application Aware Network appeared first on Sangoma Technologies.

April 18, 2023

• ng-voice VoLTE in the IoT market – advantages of a cloud-native solution in the IoT context

  The advent of the Internet of Things (IoT) has brought about a revolution in many industries. Connected devices and machines able to communicate and share data have become the norm and are allowing advances in productivity and performance.

  IoT networks require high-quality data connections to allow machines to communicate. What is less known, however, is that ~20% of networks also require native voice features. Think about emergency calling in cars – who doesn’t know the button in the car you can press to speak to emergency services. The same goes for lifts. Or medical devices, which are equipped with voice technology to communicate to hospital staff.

  The “user behaviour” for voice services in IoT contexts is very different, however, from traditional mobile networks and requires solutions like those of ng-voice to work efficiently.

  Different traffic characteristics require cost effective solutions

  In IoT networks, there are a large number of connected devices. However, the actual volume of the calls is significantly less compared to mobile VoLTE networks.

   

  This means that the IMS solution must be able to operate with limited resources while still being able to offer high levels of service resiliency. The ng-voice IMS is ideal in this case, as one of the key differentiators of the ng-voice IMS is that it can work with a very low resource footprint – meaning it consumes ~80% fewer resources compared to legacy solutions (each container being less than 25 MB). Instead of “bulky” software and hardware, the ng-voice IMS is cost-effective, scales automatically based on consumer behaviour and can run in any type of infrastructure. Think about a VoLTE solution hosted in the public cloud – that scales when needed, but otherwise hardly consumes any resources.

   

  ng-voice has a tailored public cloud-based IMS offering for IoT networks, which can be seamlessly interconnected with any 4G/5G core networks. ng-voice also offers a transparent commercial model, which is subscription based per active VoLTE user with a very low commitment usage fee, eliminating upfront costs.

   

  The fully automated CI/CD (Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment) cycle of ng-voice IMS enables quick adaptability, allowing for seamless updates and enhancements without disruption to IoT networks.

   

  This makes ng-voice’s IoT offering ideal for IoT environments with limited resources or constrained energy requirements but requiring high levels of service resiliency and uptime.

  Value enhancing features for IoT

  On top of being fully cloud native, the ng-voice IMS also has a rich feature set which is a great value add for industries in the IoT space. As an example – Location-based services are critical for IoT deployments in IoT industries and ng-voice offers its network provided location information (NPLI) for this use case. It is a network-based approach that relies on the infrastructure of the communication network to provide location information, without the need for dedicated positioning hardware or GPS receivers on the IoT devices. NPLI is particularly useful for the IoT market due to its ability to provide location information in situations where GPS signals may be weak or unavailable, such as in indoor environments or urban canyons. It can also be beneficial in scenarios where GPS receivers may consume excessive power or add to the cost and complexity of IoT devices.

   

  NPLI can also be used in conjunction with other technologies, including GPS, to enhance the accuracy and reliability of location information. For example, a hybrid approach can be used where NPLI is used for indoor positioning, and GPS or other satellite-based positioning technologies are used for outdoor positioning. This combination can provide a more comprehensive and accurate location-based service for IoT devices, allowing them to accurately determine their location in both indoor and outdoor environments which can be invaluable for tracking, navigation, and emergency response.

   

  Event-based triggers are another important feature of ng-voice IMS for IoT deployments. IoT devices in cars and elevators often generate events, such as sensor readings, alarms, or status changes. ng-voice IMS supports event-based triggers, allowing automatic initiation of voice calls or other actions based on predefined events. This enables real-time communication and automation in response to IoT events, enhancing operational efficiency and enabling timely actions.

   

  Custom call routing is also a specialised feature of ng-voice IMS for IoT deployments. Cars and elevators often have unique call routing requirements, such as routing calls to a designated service centre or a specific group of users. ng-voice IMS provides customised call routing capabilities, allowing calls to be routed based on predefined rules or policies, tailored to the specific needs of the IoT deployment. This ensures efficient call routing and streamlined communication workflows in the IoT network.

  Simple deployment and operations

  On top of being fully cloud native and providing a rich suite of features for the IoT market, the ng-voice IMS solution offers a comprehensive user interface that simplifies deployment, installation, troubleshooting, and configuration for the IoT market. It provides a seamless and intuitive experience for managing these tasks, making them straightforward and efficient. Using the ng-voice UI, users are able to deploy the entire solution, monitor key KPIs and configure each element of the IMS separately providing a unique user experience and high degree of flexibility and automation.

   

  

  The UI also offers automated integration tests, making the entire integration process significantly easier and faster.

   

  Another key advantage of the ng-voice IMS is its ability to leverage AI for improved operational efficiency, enhanced user experience, and optimised resource allocation. The ng-voice IMS solution contains an AI-based autoscaler, which analyses network traffic and scales the individual microservices accordingly resulting in improved operational efficiency and enhanced network performance.

  Conclusion

  In conclusion, the ng-voice IMS is a perfect match for IoT networks due to its resource efficiency, scalability, and service resiliency. Its low energy and resource footprint make it ideal for IoT environments with limited resources, while its features such as network provided location information (NPLI), event-based triggers, and custom call routing enhance its value for IoT deployments in industries. The extensive user interface, automated integration tests, and AI-based autoscaler further contribute to its ease of deployment, management, and operational efficiency. With ng-voice IMS, IoT networks can be up and running in just a few weeks, managed remotely by a small team, and achieve up to 80% reduction in resource utilisation compared to competitors. ng-voice IMS is truly a game-changer for the IoT market, enabling seamless voice connectivity and services for IoT devices and unlocking new possibilities for innovation and automation in IoT deployments.

  

  Abdul Basit Alvi

  Chief Technologist Cloud and Virtualization

  Publisher Bio

  With vast experience in virtualizing the mobile core of network operators and developing cloud-native solutions, Basit has implemented Pakistan’s first fully virtualized IMS to launch VoLTE capabilities in tier-1 operators. Abdul Basit is passionate about cloud, automation and Dev-Ops tools and enjoys his time off exploring new cities and towns.

April 11, 2023

• Digium 6 Benefits Of A Quality Contact Center

  If you are in the customer service business, and your business is growing, it is probably time to add an agent-based contact center to supplement calls queues, etc. that may be part of your basic UC / phone system. While some call center type features are making their way into the base phone system, these are more departmental type of call center features. Which are great if you have a small business, but as that business grows, it may be time to upgrade to an agent-based contact center. Why?

  1. Improved Customer Service: A contact center can help your business provide better customer service by allowing customers to reach your company easily through multiple channels such as phone, email, and chat.
  2. Increased Efficiency: With a contact center, you can streamline your customer service operations by managing all customer interactions in one place. This helps to reduce response times, minimize errors, and increase productivity.
  3. Scalability: A contact center can easily scale up or down to meet the changing needs of your business. This is particularly useful for seasonal businesses or those experiencing sudden growth.
  4. High-Value Reporting: Make better, informed business decisions with high-value reporting such as response times, average talk time and call volume.
  5. Data Collection and Analysis: Contact centers can help you collect and analyze customer data to gain insights into customer behavior, preferences, and needs. This can be used to improve your products and services, as well as your customer service.
  6. Compliance: Contact centers can help you stay compliant with industry regulations and standards, particularly in industries such as healthcare, finance, and telecommunications.

  As your business grows, it may be time to augment your UC solution with an agent-based contact center. To find out more about Sangoma’s Contact Center solution, please go here.

  The post 6 Benefits Of A Quality Contact Center appeared first on Sangoma Technologies.

April 05, 2023

• Digium The Top 5 Trends in SD-WAN

  There have been some important developments in SD-WAN technology over the last year. We need to continually assess changes in key technologies so we can make informed decisions and move our businesses forward. Let’s take a look at some of these developments so you can determine whether they might be important to your organization.

  SD-WAN, or software defined wide area networking, is now well over a decade old as a technology. The term SD-WAN was coined in 2014 by Cisco well after the technology’s introduction, so SD-WAN is now considered a mature service.

  What is SD-WAN?

  Here’s a quick overview for those unfamiliar with SD-WAN. Traditional site-to-site connectivity models relied upon closed private networks in the past. Typically, we saw MPLS or private lines connecting sites back to a centralized data center. Those data centers had the applications and security stack for the organization. Also, internet access was concentrated at that data center behind that security stack. This provided ease of management and concentration of security tools creating a strong security posture. These networks were expensive, but they guaranteed quality of service and security as well as reliability.

  Over the last decade, that model has changed though.

  • More applications were pushed to the cloud
  • Real-time applications, such as video and web conferencing required minimal latency and more bandwidth
  • Redundancy requirements forced public internet connections as failover at all sites, so security was pushed out to the branches and management became much more complex

  As a result, the datacenter became less important as a central computing hub, and distributed security made the centralized security platform less important as well. This gave rise to SD-WAN.

  How does SD-WAN work?
  SD-WAN allows users at each enabled location to access cloud applications directly over the public Internet, bypassing the need to route through a data center hub and enhancing performance. So, SD-WAN reduces costs and management effort while improving performance without sacrificing security.

  Here’s a brief outline of how SD-WAN works and is used:

  • SD-WAN is best used with redundant public internet connections, typically eliminating expensive private connections and allowing the organization to purchase whatever internet is available at that site
  • SD-WAN enhances quality of service over the public internet by determining the best route for individual sessions or packets
  • SD-WAN is frequently purchased with next generation firewalls and increasingly other cloud-based security services
  • Management is accomplished through a single portal ensuring consistency across all locations

  SD-WAN is Mature & Reliable
  SD-WAN is offered by the most reputable names in the networking industry and has completely replaced MPLS or private line for new network deployments. Most mature technologies enter into a state referred to as the plateau of productivity according to Gartner Hype Cycle, where SD-WAN is well entrenched in at this point. Typically seen in this phase of the technology lifecycle is a stagnation on product development. The industry focuses more on consolidation and adoption, rather than new capabilities. This is because the easy stuff has already been invented and so new capabilities come slower. However, the development within SD-WAN doesn’t seem to be slowing down. SD-WAN remains a dynamic and evolving technology as capabilities are pushed into the cloud rather than residing on a heavy appliance on site. To add, with the computing scale of the cloud, additional services are easy to add, and the industry continues to move forward.

  What’s new with SD-WAN?

  When evaluating an SD-WAN strategy there are some new trends to consider.

  Secure Remote Access
  One of the biggest developments in SD WAN is the coupling of secure remote access. The work-from-home strategy changed the focus of all IT professionals from secure location to securing the individual or the data itself. Some forward looking SD-WAN providers have already incorporated secure remote access before the pandemic, aligning their strategy with Gartner’s Secure Access Service edge (SASE). Other SD-WAN providers have since paired secure remote access capabilities with their SD-WAN platforms.

  In fact, small office locations for some customers are eliminating SD-WAN architecture and just using the secure remote access of their SD-WAN provider. What you lose here is application prioritization and seamless failover. That may be acceptable for a few users who might work from home if necessary, in an SD-WAN for home deployment. For a location with five or fewer people broadband connectivity is probably adequate for applications and redundancy is not absolutely critical, where you might have a wireless redundant option rather than a fixed circuit option for redundancy. What you gain is a lower cost structure.

  Co-Managed SD-WAN
  Early on, enterprises with considerable staff of network architects purchased SD-WAN devices and deployed and managed those devices themselves. This provided ultimate control similar to what they had in their prior WAN environment. Over time, however, organizations have realized that SD-WAN doesn’t require much care and oversight. The talents of the network architect are better used in strategy, policy and design rather than maintaining the appliances.

  One of the key benefits of managed SD-WAN is a co-managed environment between the managed services provider and clients’ IT teams. Co-management is now the most popular strategy where SD-WAN service providers maintain the device and its high-level configurations and the customers manage the application policy within the SD-WAN platform. This gives clients a sense of control that they need to run their network while delegating the non-value-added work to a vendor. Some clients are completely outsourcing the management of the WAN, and this option is frequently paired with a network carrier, creating a true network-as-a-service environment.

  Wireless Only SD-WAN
  While this option has existed for years now since wireless was integrated into SD-WAN, with the increased mobility of the workforce and supply chain issues affecting the delivery of wired services, wireless SD-WAN has caught on. Typically, with just a single wireless service SD-WAN prioritizes the application, so limited bandwidth is optimally utilized and eliminates non-business activity on the network, saving the aggregate bandwidth costs. Certainly, 5G makes this a very interesting exit strategy, but at least in the United States, it’s only really applicable for certain low utilization use cases because of the cost.

  SD Branch
  Software Defined branch office technology is an extension of the SD-WAN concept. The monitoring and management of branch LANs, access points, print resources and other branch peripherals reduces the need for on-site support and improves the service to the branch. The SD-WAN architecture is core to SD branch delivery.

  Security Tools
  Look for SD-WAN providers to continue to expand horizontally into other SASE categories, such as secure web gateway, data loss prevention, remote browser, etc. The industry is very fluid right now and SD-WAN is at the center of most security strategies. Going forward demand continues towards becoming the core interoffice connectivity technology. We’ll see automation and AI begin to make its way into the industry allowing the platforms to make adjustments in real time.

  So, SD-WAN is mature, but not idle. There is a lot of growth in the industry and it’s important for users to have a well thought out strategy before making an SD-WAN decision. If you’d like to know more how SD-WAN can help your business and how Sangoma’s Managed SD-WAN services work, click here.

  The post The Top 5 Trends in SD-WAN appeared first on Sangoma Technologies.

March 31, 2023

• Enable Security March 2023: Trojan 3CX Client, CRA talk, OpenSIPS audit report and much more
  Welcome to the end of March, and this month’s edition of the RTCSec Newsletter. A lot has accumulated in March on the VoIP and IP Communication security front. In fact, this one is packed! In this edition, we cover: Our news, involving CI/CD automation of VoIP security testing with SIPVicious PRO More news from us, including the OpenSIPS security audit report and a chat about the Cyber Resilience Act 3CX Phone Client turned into a trojan Critical vulnerabilities affecting Samsung and Pixel phones via VoLTE and 5G Silent fix in Kamailio gets a CVE, vulnerable door phones and various other security reports RTCSec newsletter is a free periodic newsletter bringing you commentary and news around VoIP and WebRTC security.

March 28, 2023

• Digium Overall Managed Access Benefit Review

  Today, I’ll touch on the benefits of using a Managed Internet Access service according to the Eastern Management Group. Managed Internet Access is a service where a provider (such as Sangoma) obtains and proactively manages the uptime of internet facilities of each customer location.

  Major benefits include:
  

  • The provider (not you as the end-customers or partner) obtains the best type of access for each site, gets the best price, and does QoS configuration. So the provider would set up your network for you, the end-user company.
  • The provider manages, maintains, and monitors the services 24/7 to ensure everything’s running smoothly.
  • The customer receives one single unified bill from the managed service provider.
  • Using outsourced expertise avoids the costs of developing management and reporting capabilities.

  If you want to read the full report now, please go here.

  The post Overall Managed Access Benefit Review appeared first on Sangoma Technologies.

• WebRTC Hacks Web 上的视频帧处理 – WebAssembly、WebGPU、WebGL、WebCodecs、WebNN 和 WebTransport
  

  Note: Chinese translation thanks to Xueyuan Jia and Xiaoqian Wu of the W3C. See the English version here.  W3C Web 技术标准专家 François Daoust 和 Dominique Hazaël-Massieux（Dom）先前与我们探讨了如何使用 WebCodecs 和 Streams 进行实时视频处理。那篇文章重点介绍了如何设置流水线以应付来自摄像头、WebRTC 流或其他来源的视频帧低延迟处理。演示了一些处理示例 — 改变颜色、覆盖图像，甚至是改变视频编解码。引用的其他用例还包括机器学习处理，例如添加虚拟背景。 今天，他们将重点讨论可用于进行实际视频处理的诸多技术选项。有很多技术用来读取和更改视频帧内的像素。他们全面回顾了当前基于 Web 的所有技术选项 — JavaScript、WebAssembly （wasm）、WebGPU、WebGL、WebCodecs、Web 神经网络（WebNN）和 WebTransport。其中一些技术已经存在一段时间，许多则是新出现的。 这是一篇关于与视频分析与操作的文章。感谢 François 和 Dominique 与我们分享他们的研究，测试 Web 上可用的进行视频处理的完整技术目录。 正文内容 视频帧处理选项 使用 JavaScript 像素格式 性能 其他考虑 使用 WebAssembly 演示代码 […]

  The post Web 上的视频帧处理 – WebAssembly、WebGPU、WebGL、WebCodecs、WebNN 和 WebTransport appeared first on webrtcHacks.

• WebRTC Hacks Video Frame Processing on the Web – WebAssembly, WebGPU, WebGL, WebCodecs, WebNN, and WebTransport
  

  There are a lot of options for reading and changing the pixels inside a video frame. In this post, W3C specialists François Daoust and Dominique Hazaël-Massieux (Dom) review every web-based option for processing video frames on the web available today - JavaScript, WebAssembly (wasm), WebGPU, WebGL, WebCodecs, Web Neural Networks (WebNN), and WebTransport.

  The post Video Frame Processing on the Web – WebAssembly, WebGPU, WebGL, WebCodecs, WebNN, and WebTransport appeared first on webrtcHacks.

March 21, 2023

• Digium Protecting Your Mission Critical Services When Your Internet Provider Has An Outage

  Late summer of 2022, there was a major multi-day internet outage that happened in Canada that affected many businesses, small and large. Let’s discuss what happened and some of the steps you can take to protect your business if something similar happens to you.

  In July of 2022, Canada’s Rogers Communications suffered a major internet outage. For those of you who haven’t heard of Rogers, it is a very large internet and wireless service provider, on the scale of ~ 20 billion US dollars and 26,000 employees. Rogers suffered an outage due to a packet storm on their network. It was caused by a software upgrade that accidentally removed all the traffic filters to the internet from their network. Without the filters, the Rogers network equipment became quickly overwhelmed and stopped functioning. Rogers serves about 30% of Canada’s internet capacity, so this was a big event and affected many people and businesses. It took about 2-3 days to fully restore services to all customers.

  So, as a business delivering services to your customers, what would you have done in this case, if your internet service provider was down for multiple days? Businesses who had invested in SD-WAN and redundant ISPs were generally okay. However, those without redundancy, or without an SD-WAN platform to prioritize internet service, they unfortunately suffered catastrophic downtime. Some of them even had to rely on manual processes to keep their business running. They would never have thought service from a large and reliable vendor like Rogers would come to a halt like this, so the investment didn’t seem needed. Businesses with backup internet access generally made it through, and the ones that had SD-WAN did not experience any degradation in service, at all. This is because SD-WAN prioritizes real-time traffic, by application. Even if your redundant internet connection is based on inexpensive broadband, SD-WAN will automatically prioritize your most important applications, so that things like voice and point-of-sale (POS) have the capacity they need, while other less critical applications are limited to what’s left over. This is a significant benefit of SD-WAN and something to consider if real-time traffic is important to your business, because without it, your typical failover setup means a loss in all active communications which would need to be re-established once the backup connection becomes active.

  SD-WAN has a couple of other key features as it relates to protection. For instance if your SD-WAN provider is a gateway or private middle mile service, your inbound traffic is also protected because inbound packets will be routed over the best available circuit. Also, if you’re using an SD-WAN provider with gateways or private middle miles, you’ll have built in DDoS protection. So SD-WAN provides a number of protections aside from just managing network resiliency.

  Here’s the interesting takeaway. Even if you had a resilient design, and you had sufficient internet, and you had SD-WAN in place, your vendors and business partners may not. With the Rogers outage, a major credit card transaction system was taken offline, leaving their point of sale customers without the ability to accept credit cards. Another example was cell phone service being disrupted as well. We can imagine that many businesses with critical vendors and applications experienced an impact even if they themselves continue to have strong internet service. It might be far-fetched to try and identify whether or not your key business partners have network redundancy and utilize SD-WAN, but identifying the key providers and confirming with them may actually be a new priority element in your business continuity plan.

  Beyond internet access, what other key services might be exposed to vendor interruption. Is voice critical to your business? Are you using Microsoft Teams for voice or collaboration? For example, what would happen if Microsoft had an issue or you had to quarantine Office 365 because of a cyber event?

  If you’re curious how to protect your environments and learn more about our maintenance-free SD-WAN service, get in touch with one of our Managed SD-WAN specialists.

  The post Protecting Your Mission Critical Services When Your Internet Provider Has An Outage appeared first on Sangoma Technologies.

March 17, 2023

• Enable Security OpenSIPS Security Audit Report is fully disclosed and out there
  It’s almost a year since the OpenSIPS project published a minimized version of our security audit report from 2022. Now, the full version has been published, with all the information intact on how to reproduce the vulnerabilities and extra details in an 80+ page report. The OpenSIPS security audit report can be found here. What is the OpenSIPS security audit? OpenSIPS is a SIP server that often has a critical security function within an IP communications system.

March 16, 2023

• Digium What You Need To Know About The Growing Complexities of Communications Taxes

  It’s definitely a great time to be a Managed Service Provider (MSP), Communication Service Provider (CSP), and Voice Service Provider (VSP), delivering managed communication services. Whether they be a seasoned provider or just starting out, the work-from-home movement has created a massive change in IT infrastructure, which means managed service providers have become very popular and are enticed to deliver more. For instance, the MSP market was valued at $242.9 billion in 2021 and is projected to reach 354.8 billion by 2026, registering a CAGR of 7.9%! This tremendous growth is pushing MSPs to continue to broaden and diversify their offerings. Still, there is a big surprise waiting for inexperienced or ill-informed providers: the increased set of communications tax complexity, obligations, and risk.

  Why are communications taxes more important than ever?

  MSPs, CSPs, and VSPs certainly understand that they are required to charge for and remit communications taxes. If you are reselling, charging, and invoicing for telecom services, such as data, voice, video, and messaging, then you’re in that camp. But what’s been happening, which has become more challenging, is that communications services have become the de facto method for delivering services from the cloud, but not only that, they’re being offered via programmable interfaces, or APIs. So now communication services are being embedded into SaaS platforms, essentially reselling data services. So the lines have become blurred, and knowing whether you need to pay communication taxes is a bit unknown. You need to ask yourself, “Is my business selling services that incorporate voice, video, or data?” If the answer is yes, then you’ll need to make sure you’re up to speed on tax compliance; otherwise, you’ll have some penalties to pay, aside from learning how to pay those taxes going forward.

  So, what are the complexities of communications taxes? And how do MSPs, CSPs, and VSPs know what taxes apply to their services and customers?

  Let’s start with general sales taxes, which apply at the federal, state, county, and city levels. Communication taxes fall under this umbrella too. From there, though, they can be very different, not just in terms of the rate and how it’s applied, but with communications taxes, there are instances of tax on tax in tearing of taxes. In many instances, the jurisdiction for communications taxes will be completely different from what you may have from a sales tax perspective. For instance, there are a lot of communication taxes that are based on school district zones, so even just establishing the jurisdiction that applies can be different. We now have a stacking of communication tax complexity over the existing complexity of sales tax. So, registering with the local jurisdiction, and collecting the tax, is one thing, but then it cascades since communications taxes have different compliance obligations. There are different registration obligations, different filing obligations, and also things like exemption management, where the forms that are needed to be filled out to be exempt from communications taxes are different from what is needed to be collected from a sales and use perspective.

  How many tax returns do you need to file as a service provider?

  This depends on two criteria: jurisdiction and types of services sold. These combined could mean filing 1,000s of compliance tax returns, especially if the provider is selling services nationwide. Voice itself is taxed heavily, as many different types of taxes are applied. Communication taxes are applied at the federal, state, and jurisdictional levels. E-911 is also similarly taxed.

  Recent Developments

  We talked a bit about the blurred lines around knowing if a business is required to pay communication taxes. On top of that, with the plethora of service providers out there, it would be unsustainably time-consuming for the government to find every business out there with communication services, find out if they are simply consuming or reselling them and dig from there. Businesses could easily fly under the radar from paying their taxes.

  The recent robocall mitigation regulations, including the STIR/SHAKEN mandate, has forced VSPs, CSPs, and MSPs to register their telecommunications business by applying for a Federal Registration Number (FRN). Now that their telecommunications business is registered with the FCC, comprehensive compliance is much more important for that business. This includes the rating, collection, and remittance of taxes, fees, and surcharges that are levied by the government in the various states, counties, and cities that they sell in, as well as at the federal level.

  Things to Consider as a Provider

  • Are there communications taxes on video conferencing and softclient calls? In general, concerning communications taxes, voice is the most comprehensively taxed. When it comes to soft clients, such as Slack, Skype, Zoom, and other collaboration tools, even peer-to-peer VoIP communication is taxed. It’s not as heavily taxed as services going through the PSTN, but VOIP to VOIP services are taxed at a lower rate.
  • How do communication taxes work when bundling products and services? This is something that is becoming prevalent as MSPs are bundling more and more services together within their offerings. This is especially true for MSP customers of Sangoma’s Wholesale Carrier Services, who pick and choose carrier service features to bundle and resell; more on that below. An MSP can bundle voice, SMS, fax, and soft clients and more, so figuring out the tax compliance for these individually sourced features is essential, as they are all taxed at different rates and dependent on the region.

  With all that there is to consider and the challenges there are to become well informed of tax compliance, it may be a good idea to pair up with experts in the field for consultation or, better yet, with a vendor having a tax engine, who can automate rating and calculations of services, based on local and service feature.

  How Sangoma’s Telecom Tax Module Can Help Providers

  As part of our wholesale carrier services hosted billing service, we have a built-in tax module that automates the calculation and collection of taxes and regulatory fees for our customers who resell our wholesale carrier services. For readers unfamiliar with our wholesale carrier services, read this blog post. What differentiates us is that we offer a complete set of wholesale VoIP services, from termination/origination, DIDs, SMS, E911, Fax, fraud detection/protection, and telecom compliance toolkits, wrapped around an intuitive portal, which includes our hosted billing platform and tax module.

  Our tax module is the “single pane of glass,” where our customers save a ton of time in tax rating and calculation for all their customers who may be dispersed nationwide using various services we resell. It consolidates taxes on all levels of government and service types. Also, as our customers expand across regions, the tax modules save them time from figuring out new tax compliance information for those areas as well.

  Tax compliance becomes more complex as products become more innovative and are offered in a less traditional fashion. For instance, voice services integrated within APIs were never something tax compliance was designed for. The natural progression is that innovation outpaces tax law but, with time, always catches up. A great example of this is with streaming services, such as Netflix or Amazon Prime, for example. When they came out on the market, communications tax compliance only applied to traditional TV services. So no taxes were applicable for a while, but communication taxes started working their way into these new innovation streaming services as time progressed.

  As an MSP, CSP, or VSP, it’s essential to understand the gray areas of communications tax compliance and be informed to avoid risks and possible penalties.

  Learn more about Sangoma’s Tax module, built into our hosted billing platform, and have your tax rating and calculations automated for you.

  The post What You Need To Know About The Growing Complexities of Communications Taxes appeared first on Sangoma Technologies.

March 14, 2023

• Digium Softclients are a Critical Component of a Unified Communications Solution

  When the day came that we all “had” to work from home, everyone learned how important a phone system client became (whether it was a mobile one, or a desktop one), because that was how we continued to talk to people and keep the business running– because our business phone number could be called, or we could call out on the business phone number – from these clients. And then the clients that integrated chat and video took center stage. Today, this is all part of a typical Unified Communication solution, including those from Sangoma.

  However, as we start to return to the office, will the importance of these clients diminish? I’ve definitely started to see articles about how especially the mobile client experience may not be the best.

  It seems unlikely that client importance will diminish. First, some form of hybrid work seems to be here to stay, as discussed in this article from Forbes. Employees will always be working remotely in some fashion, whether it is from home or from another location. Employees like it, and while there is some debate about it, it seems organization output is not impacted, though organization culture might be impacted. So, while everyone now needs to come back from the cool place they moved, they likely don’t have to go into the office every day.

  And second, just like always, technology will “solve” any problems. We saw it 20 years ago when VoIP first came on the scene. There were issues and they were overcome. And we’ll see it here as well. 5G is one technology that will certainly play a role in improving the mobile client experience.

  Getting back to the clients. So yes, they will remain even more important. And we’ll need to keep innovating them forward since they’ll remain an ever-critical part of a business communication system.

  The post Softclients are a Critical Component of a Unified Communications Solution appeared first on Sangoma Technologies.

• WebRTC Hacks Real-Time Video Processing with WebCodecs and Streams: Processing Pipelines (Part 1)
  

  WebRTC used to be about capturing some media and sending it from Point A to Point B. Machine Learning has changed this. Now it is common to use ML to analyze and manipulate media in real time for things like virtual backgrounds, augmented reality, noise suppression, intelligent cropping, and much more. To better accommodate this […]

  The post Real-Time Video Processing with WebCodecs and Streams: Processing Pipelines (Part 1) appeared first on webrtcHacks.

March 09, 2023

• Digium Exploring SD-WAN – The Advanced Evolution of Business Networks

  In today’s world, it’s imperative to have access to information from any device, anytime and anywhere. However, this has led to the growth and complexity of the networks that connect everything, making them increasingly challenging to manage.

  LANs vs WANs: A Basic Overview

  The two main types of networks are Local Area Networks (LANs) and Wide Area Networks (WANs). LANs connect devices within a local office, while WANs connect offices across different locations globally. Without WANs, businesses would be restricted to communicating within their local offices, preventing them from accessing the broader online world, the internet.

  The Emergence of SD-WAN: Next-Gen Networking

  SD-WAN, the latest evolution of WAN technology, has recently emerged as a game-changing innovation. SD stands for “software-defined,” and while the concept is not new, it has become a focal point, particularly in infrastructure and networking. SD-WAN essentially leverages software to make IT smarter, faster, and more cost-effective. It is a revolutionary way to construct and manage long-distance networks, providing better bandwidth optimization and ensuring the delivery of real-time applications with improved user experiences.

  Why, How, and What Makes SD-WAN Better?

  Traditional WANs typically have a large number of routers that communicate with each other over extended distances. Within each router is a data plane and a control plane, with the data plane holding the information transmitted or received, and the control plane determining the route the data should take. However, someone needs to program the control plane with rules on how to handle network traffic on the data plane. This is typically done by entering a series of commands into each router’s command line interface, or CLI, by a network administrator. This can be a very manual, time consuming and error prone process. For example, let’s say there is a large business with 100 locations that needs to deploy a new application across all these locations. Let’s assume that each location has one router which needs 20 new commands to implement the correct configurations for the new application. With 100 locations, that’s 2000 (20 x 100) commands and if each command took 40 seconds of time that’s roughly 22 hours of work just to deploy a single application for the business. Also, the CLI can be error prone. Imagine a mistake was made on one of those commands and having to hunt down that error or troubleshoot the application. Staff and IT resources would be impacted and could potentially paralyze the business! To overcome this tedious process, network admins will try to automate this process using programming tools and scripts, however, these tools and procedures add more layers of complexity as well as even more CLI commands with more variables that could compound existing problems.

  With SD-WAN, this process is simplified, as the control plane is centralized, where changes can be grouped and managed simultaneously across the entire WAN, from a centralized management portal. Businesses can use specific rules to automate the process and distribute configurations instantly, eliminating the complexity and errors inherent in the old manual method.

  The Benefits of SD-WAN

  One of the most significant benefits of SD-WAN is the ability to leverage broadband internet connections, reducing the need for expensive private MPLS networks, lowering costs and increasing performance. Moreover, the software-defined capabilities of SD-WAN enable network admins to change characteristics of their entire network from a central management portal, such as:

  • Moving business critical applications to a private MPLS network between locations
  • Block, or lower the priority of social media applications to improve worker productivity

  Once these rules or policies are set, they can be automatically distributed and implemented across the organization in seconds.

  So, with SD-WAN, configuring new or existing networking infrastructure is much easier than the old way of fragile command lines and manual updates.

  What does this all mean about SD-WAN?

  Here are three key takeaways for businesses regarding SD-WAN:

  Agility: SD-WAN enhances agility by simplifying network policy configuration and management.
  Performance: SD-WAN provides higher performance by leveraging multiple paths intelligently, including broadband connections.
  Cost: SD-WAN lowers IT operational costs by simplifying WAN infrastructure and providing a more efficient network.

  Managed SD-WAN: Taking It to the Next Level

  Setting up and managing a WAN has never been easier, provided that it’s software-defined. But taking it a step further, businesses can take advantage of a Managed SD-WAN, where a vendor handles the entire network for them, including deployment, maintenance, updates and technical support. To learn more about this zero-touch network infrastructure get in touch with one of our Managed SD-WAN specialists for more info.

  The post Exploring SD-WAN – The Advanced Evolution of Business Networks appeared first on Sangoma Technologies.

March 07, 2023

• Enable Security SIPVicious PRO incremental update - and Gitlab CI/CD examples
  We just pushed out a new SIPVicious PRO update to our subscribing members! This version does not include any new major features. Instead, it fixes various bugs and brings missing but necessary features to various SIPVicious PRO tools. We have the following highlights in this update: Documentation now includes realistic Gitlab CI/CD examples The RTP fuzzer in the experimental version now supports SRTP Support for new SIP DoS flood request methods The RTP inject tool can now specify the RTP’s SSRC and payload ID The SIP password cracking tool now supports closing the connection upon each attempt The SIP ping utility supports INVITE For the boring details, including a list of bug fixes, do read the release notes for v6.

February 28, 2023

• Digium The Importance of Channel Partnerships

  Channel partnerships are the way Sangoma does business. We understand the value the channel partnerships bring to Sangoma, and ultimately to the end-user customers who need business communication solutions. As such, we work hard to ensure our channel programs bring value to our channel partners, that what we offer our channel partners is unique, and ultimately that it is worthwhile for the channel partner to invest their time with Sangoma solutions.

  If you want to learn more, we will likely be at your favorite Telecom Services Distributor / Technology Services Distributor event as they roll their events out across the country.

  We will also be at the channel event of the year, Channel Partners in Las Vegas in early May. We’ll be at booth 1819.

  We’d love to meet you and show you why Sangoma would be a great option to help you service your customers with the best business communication solutions.

  The post The Importance of Channel Partnerships appeared first on Sangoma Technologies.

• Digium The Importance of Channel Partnerships

  Channel partnerships are the way Sangoma does business. We understand the value the channel partnerships bring to Sangoma and, ultimately, to the end-user customers who need business communication solutions. As such, we work hard to ensure our channel programs bring value to our channel partners, that what we offer our channel partners is unique, and ultimately that it is worthwhile for the channel partner to invest their time with Sangoma solutions.

  If you want to learn more, a few ways are coming up where you can meet us and hear more from us:

  1. We will start some national roadshows, with our first one on March 9 in the Dallas area, up in Plano. If you are in the area, we’d love to have you attend for lunch and drinks afterward. Reserve your spot now.
  2. We will be hosting a general webinar to hear about what Sangoma offers and how we have changed over the past few years, on March 2. Click here to register.
  3. We will likely be at your favorite Telecom Services Distributor / Technology Services Distributor event as they roll their events out across the country.
  4. We will be at the channel event of the year, Channel Partners, in Las Vegas in early May. We’ll be at booth 1819.

  We’d love to meet you and show you why Sangoma would be a great option to help you service your customers with the best business communication solutions.

  The post The Importance of Channel Partnerships appeared first on Sangoma Technologies.

• Enable Security WebRTC attacks, FOSDEM'23 and security fixes
  Welcome to the February 2023 edition of RTCSec newsletter. If you are reading this on your email client, you might notice slight formatting changes - the red color of the Communication Breakdown blog and the mascot on the side. Hope that this makes it more distinguishable. Do let me know if you have feedback, by replying to this email. In this edition, we cover: A chat with Arin Sime of WebRTC.
• ng-voice ng-voice and Infosys join forces to deliver cloud-native solutions for communication service providers

  ng-voice’s fully containerized cloud-native IMS solution for VoLTE / VoNR will be part of Infosys’ SI solutions for customers who want to embrace cloud-nativity

  February 28, 2023 | Hamburg, Germany

   

  ng-voice, a leading provider of a fully containerized and cloud-native IMS solution for the telecom market, today announced a strategic partnership with Infosys, a global leader in next-generation digital services and consulting and system integration to strengthen communication service providers’ (CSPs) digital capabilities and accelerate the deployment of fully containerized and cloud-native network solutions.

   

  As part of this partnership, ng-voice and Infosys will combine their efforts to deliver cloud-native software solutions and managed services excellence while fostering innovation and delivering personalized customer experiences to ng-voice’s customers. Infosys will also offer a range of cross-industry services, solutions, and platforms that enable enterprises and CSPs to rapidly build cloud-native business platforms, helping them to drive business agility and growth.

   

  Balakrishna D. R (Bali), Executive Vice President – Global Head AI and Automation and ECS, Infosys said, “With a growing deployment base, Infosys has demonstrated a steadfast commitment to power innovation-driven growth for the telecommunications industry through digital capabilities. This collaboration is a blend of capabilities powered by Infosys Cobalt and our expertise in the domain and ng-voice’s geographical presence that fast-track adoption of cloud-native network solutions among telcos across Europe. The success of this engagement can be a real game-changer for both Infosys and ng-voice in the 5G era.”

   

  David Bachmann, CEO, ng-voice: said “This strategic SI partnership with Infosys allows us to provide truly cloud-native network solutions to help customers unleash the full potential of digitalization and develop sustainable competitive advantages. We are very excited about this collaboration.”   

   

  ng-voice developed the industry’s first truly cloud-native IMS – the critical component to deploy VoLTE and VoNR. Its key benefits include being cloud-and-infrastructure-agnostic, with highly automated deployment and operation processes, flexibility and reliability to scale (up and down), standard compliance to 3GPP, and a minimal resource footprint.

  About ng-voice

  ng-voice GmbH is committed to building the next generation of 100% software-based mobile networks, combining DevOps with telecommunications expertise. ng-voice’s fully containerized and cloud-native IMS core is scalable, flexible, and easy to deploy and manage, offering communication service providers and enterprises of any size innovative voice services on 4G and 5G networks.

   

  Follow ng-voice:

  LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/ngvoice

  Twitter: twitter.com/ngvoice

  Web: www.ng-voice.com

  Email: sales@ng-voice.com

   

  Press contact for ng-voice

  Maren Pleuss

  maren.pleuss@ng-voice.com

  About Infosys

  Infosys is a global leader in next-generation digital services and consulting. Over 300,000 of our people work to amplify human potential and create the next opportunity for people, businesses and communities. With over four decades of experience in managing the systems and workings of global enterprises, we expertly steer clients, in more than 50 countries, as they navigate their digital transformation powered by the cloud. We enable them with an AI-powered core, empower the business with agile digital at scale and drive continuous improvement with always-on learning through the transfer of digital skills, expertise, and ideas from our innovation ecosystem. We are deeply committed to being a well-governed, environmentally sustainable organization where diverse talent thrives in an inclusive workplace.

   

  Visit www.infosys.com to see how Infosys (NSE, BSE, NYSE: INFY) can help your enterprise navigate your next.

   

  Safe Harbor

  Certain statements in this release concerning our future growth prospects, financial expectations and plans for navigating the COVID-19 impact on our employees, clients and stakeholders are forward-looking statements intended to qualify for the ‘safe harbor’ under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, which involve a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in such forward-looking statements. The risks and uncertainties relating to these statements include, but are not limited to, risks and uncertainties regarding COVID-19 and the effects of government and other measures seeking to contain its spread, risks related to an economic downturn or recession in India, the United States and other countries around the world, changes in political, business, and economic conditions, fluctuations in earnings, fluctuations in foreign exchange rates, our ability to manage growth, intense competition in IT services including those factors which may affect our cost advantage, wage increases in India and the US, our ability to attract and retain highly skilled professionals, time and cost overruns on fixed-price, fixed-time frame contracts, client concentration, restrictions on immigration, industry segment concentration, our ability to manage our international operations, reduced demand for technology in our key focus areas, disruptions in telecommunication networks or system failures, our ability to successfully complete and integrate potential acquisitions, liability for damages on our service contracts, the success of the companies in which Infosys has made strategic investments, withdrawal or expiration of governmental fiscal incentives, political instability and regional conflicts, legal restrictions on raising capital or acquiring companies outside India, unauthorized use of our intellectual property and general economic conditions affecting our industry and the outcome of pending litigation and government investigation. Additional risks that could affect our future operating results are more fully described in our United States Securities and Exchange Commission filings including our Annual Report on Form 20-F for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2022. These filings are available at www.sec.gov. Infosys may, from time to time, make additional written and oral forward-looking statements, including statements contained in the Company’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission and our reports to shareholders. The Company does not undertake to update any forward-looking statements that may be made from time to time by or on behalf of the Company unless it is required by law.

   

  Media contacts:

  For more information, please contact: PR_Global@Infosys.com

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