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September 14, 2021

• Digium Revisiting & Remembering the Benefits of UCaaS

  In the past 18 months, many of us have lived one of the prime benefits of UCaaS – the mobility aspect, which is the ability to work anywhere anytime because your business phone number rings to your mobile phone or your desktop via the UC client. Additionally, we all now fully understand the productivity increase from using UC collaboration and video applications.

  However, there are other benefits to UCaaS that you as an employee using UCaaS may not see. For instance, the move from CAPEX and an OPEX model is important for many companies because they don’t have to lay out the UC costs all upfront. This “pay as you go” model is attractive for many companies.

  And when the system is not having to be managed by the company, there are typically lower costs because the system updates are handled by the provider and not a dedicated company employee – meaning bug fixes and security updates do not have to be managed by the company. Plus, they get done automagically!

  Cloud systems should also have higher uptime because of the nature of a cloud architecture. Superior cloud-based UC providers offer built-in redundancies, auto-failover features, and more reliable networks, as well as the ability to access critical communications like email and voicemail in an emergency.

  Finally, a major benefit of having cloud UC is the ability to add or remove users when they are needed and grow in near real-time. There is no limit to growth potential in the cloud; plus, it’s the most cost-efficient platform for enterprise communications needs.

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  Download the ultimate guide to UCaaS and cloud services here.

  The post Revisiting & Remembering the Benefits of UCaaS appeared first on Sangoma.

September 13, 2021

• ng-voice What is Voice over LTE (VoLTE)?

  In this blog post, we are going to take a look at what Voice over LTE is and why it has become the new standard to deploy voice services on mobile networks. This blog will contain an example of ng-voice’s IMS/VoLTE solution to further elaborate on its importance and benefits.

  What is Voice over LTE (VoLTE)?

  Voice over LTE or VoLTE is an acronym for Voice over Long Term Evolution. VoLTE is the mechanism that provides voice over LTE. With the use of IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS), The IMS/VoLTE solution can enable voice services on any 4G, 5G, WiFi or other data networks.

  Why VoLTE and virtualized networks?

  To answer why VoLTE and virtualized networks are critical, we should look at the two main challenges that the telecom industry is facing.

   

  1- High-data usage and increasing cost pressure. 

  While mobile network operators are faced with a tremendous increase of data usage in the past years (estimated that 60-70% of it is driven by video content), the willingness of consumers to pay for voice (telephony) is decreasing. New over-the-top applications such as WhatsApp, Skype and Facetime have started to absorb the revenues of operators for voice services and text messaging. With declining voice revenues and a remaining high capital intensity (e.g. expected investment into 5G infrastructure and coverage expansion) mobile network operators face increasing cost pressure and need to innovate on their offer.

   

  2- Deploying VoLTE and virtualizing networks is the only option for operators to react. 

  Despite low voice prices and consumers’ decreasing willingness to pay, operators are and will be required to continue offering voice services. 3G-networks can process data and voice at the same time, but 4G and 5G networks are data-only and require additional software to enable a consumer to make voice calls on these networks. Deploying Voice-over-LTE (VoLTE) and Voice-over-WiFi (VoWiFi) is the only solution to offering voice services on 4G and 5G networks as well as to free up spectrum (the most limited resource of network operators) for 3G networks and reduce costs all at once. Given the complex and costly infrastructure of legacy hardware-based networks, VoLTE and VoWiFi are an important step for operators to become more software-centric and virtualize their core networks (e.g: IMS). It also allows operators to start decommissioning their legacy 3G network.

  ng-voice’s VoLTE solution

  Here is an overview of some of the features that ng-voice’s fully containerized and cloud-native IMS core has to offer:

   

  •       Native VoLTE calling (voice-over-LTE)
  •       Native ViLTE calling (video-over-LTE)
  •       Native VoWiFi calling (voice-over-WiFi)
  •       Quality of Service support (QoS) for calling on 4G/5G (PCRF integration)
  •       Sending and receiving of SMS (Short-Message-Service, SMS over IMS)
  • Handover from 2G/3G towards 4G/5G; Single-Radio Voice-Call-Continuity (SR-VCC), mid-call or in early stage

   

  Apart from being feature-rich, our IMS core is based on Kubernetes architecture, with the smallest container sizes, high level of automation, and efficient use of resources, which makes it scalable, flexible, and easy to deploy and manage.

   

  Born in a cloud-native era where software is at the center of the business, ng-voice is creating innovative mobile infrastructure solutions and making them accessible for operators and enterprises of any size that want to deploy future-proof networks. ng-voice is the ideal partner for innovative mobile (virtual) network operators and private networks. To learn more about our fully containerized and cloud-native IMS core, you can visit our solutions page or contact our team at info@ng-voice.com.

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  Carsten Bock

  Founder and CTO

  Publisher Bio

  With 20 years+ experience in VoIP and IMS, Carsten led the development and implementation of the first IMS/ VoLTE platform at Telefonica in Germany and was a senior member of the Kamailio management team, developing the IMS extensions in Kamailio. He founded ng-voice in 2011 because he wanted to develop a flexible alternative to existing IMS solutions in the market.

• ng-voice What is an IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS core)

  In this blog article, we are going to discuss what is an IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS), giving an overview of the IMS architecture and its different layers. We are also going to take a look at ng-voice’s cloud-native IMS core and what makes it unique and different from others.

  What is an IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS)? A look into ng-voice’s fully containerized and cloud-native IMS core.

  The Internet Protocol Multimedia Subsystem, or more commonly known as IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS), is an architectural framework that was developed by an industry association called 3G.IP in 1999, which later on, was proposed to the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP). The IMS initially was not about telephony, but more about multimedia applications during the age of 3G. When IMS was introduced, it was not planned as a telephony replacement, but more like a “service extension”. Today, the architectural framework has become standardized across the industry for next-generation mobile networks.

  IMS Architectural breakdown

  The IMS architectural framework consists of 3 different layers (service/application, control and transport layer). These 3 separated layers provide functions to manage signals and traffic for multimedia applications.

   

  Service Layer/Application layer – The application layer is where it hosts and executes services provided to users (e.g. 4G/5G mobile networks, Wifi or any other network infrastructure). 

  Control Layer – This layer is responsible for session controlling and management. The control layer regulates the traffic between the transport layer and the service/Application layer by authenticating and distributing traffic (eg. the Proxy-/I-/S-CSCF).

  Transport layer – This layer is responsible for supporting the architecture’s core network by acting as a gateway linking access layers and IP networks (ranging from Application servers for supplementary and other services, from SMS, Call-Forwarding or even more sophisticated services such as IP-TV).

  The image below shows ng-voice’s IMS architectural framework. 

  

  The IMS core or the control layer is responsible for providing session control and governing communications based on subscription information and network policies. Below we have stated the roles of each element in the IMS core. 

   

  1- P-CSCF – Proxy Call/Session Control Function

  The P-CSCF provides the central entry point into the operator network. All requests need to go through the P-CSCF and that entity should be located close to the connecting endpoint. This is to increase network efficiency by avoiding useless traffic transport and reducing latency.

  2- I-CSCF – Interrogating-Call/ Session Control Function

  The Interrogating-CSCF (I-CSCF) queries the Home Subscriber Server (HSS) and based on its response routes the message to the correct S-CSCF. If no S-CSCF is indicated by the HSS, the I-CSCF will select S-CSCF.

  3- S-CSCF – the Serving Call/Session Control Function

  The Serving-CSCF is the worker in the IMS world. It communicates with the HSS using Diameter (Cx-interface) to retrieve information about authentication and in order to retrieve user profiles for triggering different application servers. 

  4 – Emergency Services Implementation (incl. E-CSCF)

  The P/I/S-CSCF implementations have been extended to identify emergency registrations. In case of such a registration, the I-CSCF will add an emergency flag in the Diameter User-Auth-Request so that the HSS will ignore roaming restrictions. 

  The signaling protocol that is commonly used to communicate is Session Initiation Protocol (SIP). SIP is used for managing, maintaining, routing as well as authorizing and terminating real-time sessions. To put it in simple terms, Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) signals and controls the multimedia communication sessions

  What makes ng-voice’s fully containerized and cloud-native IMS core unique?

  ng-voice’s fully virtualized turnkey IMS/ VoLTE solution enables voice services on any 4G, 5G, WiFi, or any other data network. It is a fully-fledged VoLTE solution, including a lightweight HSS and PCRF, OCS, and a broad range of application servers (e.g. MMTel/ TAS, IP-SM-GW, Legal Intercept) and is based on 3GPP standard architecture. ng-voice’s solution is cloud-native, easy to deploy, scales for any network size, and integrates with any infrastructure: 

   

  Smallest container sizes: Based on microservices and fully containerized using Kubernetes, our container size of less than 25 MB allows for rapid service delivery, extending the capacity of your platform. 

  100% cloud-native and platform-agnostic: Born in the cloud, our IMS runs on any public, private (bare metal) or hybrid cloud environments, and off-the-shelf hardware.

  Minimal resource footprint: The most efficient use of hardware resources thanks to cloud-native architecture, very small container size and modular approach.

  Flexible Business model: Our business model based on the number of subscribers requires a low upfront commitment, reducing our customer’s overall capital expenditure.

   

   

  ng-voice’s fully containerized and cloud-native IMS core brings a completely new approach to mobile infrastructure software. Based on Kubernetes architecture, with the smallest container sizes, high level of automation, and efficient use of resources, our IMS core is scalable, flexible, and easy to deploy and manage, offering operators and enterprises of any size innovative voice services on LTE/5G networks. To learn more about it, please contact our team at info@ng-voice.com or request a demo.

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  Carsten Bock

  Founder and CTO

  Publisher Bio

  With 20 years+ experience in VoIP and IMS, Carsten led the development and implementation of the first IMS/ VoLTE platform at Telefonica in Germany and was a senior member of the Kamailio management team, developing the IMS extensions in Kamailio. He founded ng-voice in 2011 because he wanted to develop a flexible alternative to existing IMS solutions in the market.

September 09, 2021

• ng-voice The sunset of 2G and 3G networks – If you have not done it yet, you need to act NOW

  The sunset for 2G and 3G networks is already a reality. With 4G and 5G being pervasively deployed in many regions, the issue of shutting down legacy networks has become an ardent topic. Several players in the industry have already decommissioned their legacy while others have announced their intentions to follow the same path. Mobile networks are in a midst of metamorphosis, in which to cater for the exponential growth and demand for data traffic, operators are forced to evolve, guaranteeing the best experience for their customers.

  The reasons for the sunset of 2G and 3G networks

  The decision to sunset 2G and 3G networks is based on a variety of factors. Freeing up spectrum, cost efficiency, and government regulations can be considered to be the driving force behind this movement. 

   

  Spectrum is physically limited and the most expensive resource of a mobile operator, therefore its efficient use is crucial. Consumer behavior is changing, as customers demand more data and high-speed connectivity, while not being keen on spending as much for the service, which reduces the operator’s overall revenues. In order to meet this demand, operators need to think about cost-efficiency.  Apart from being faster, the total cost-of-ownership (TCO) is drastically lower for 4G and 5G networks compared to 2G and 3G, while spectrum efficiency is higher. 

   

  The shutdown is also being incentivized by authorities as many regions have set up regulations and deadlines to decommission 2G/3G networks.

  Why act now and prepare for the sunset of 2G and 3G networks?

  With this movement being accelerated, operators that do not adapt might be left behind. With their peers moving to 4G/ 5G, operators that still rely on their legacy networks will face challenges with outdated service offers and an overwhelming cost structure. 

   

  Voice is one of the main services that still rely on legacy networks. For voice services, the use of VoLTE/ VoNR has become the norm in the industry. The migration to 4G/ 5G, in this case, not only allows operators to provide a better service, improving the customer‘s experience, but also drastically reduces voice production costs. 

   

  Furthermore, the shutdown of 2G/3G might be the perfect opportunity for operators to modernize their infrastructure to face the growing demand. Deploying a cloud-native mobile infrastructure can bring additional benefits in terms of cost reduction, flexibility, and scalability. It allows automation of the whole development, deployment, and maintenance process, decreasing the time-to-market of new services and features.

   

  For all of the reasons above, it is right to assume that operators should not delay the decision to shut down their legacy networks. There are servals benefits (listed below) to start the migration today:

   

  • Optimization of the spectrum use to provide faster connectivity
  • Overall operational cost reduction.
  • Meeting increased customer demand for mobile and data usage.
  • Meeting government regulations.
  • Voice production costs reduction
  • Improvement of customer experience for consumers and enterprise users 
  • Opportunity to move into a cloud-native network infrastructure

  Deploying voice services on 4G/5G networks with ng-voice’s fully containerized and cloud-native IMS core

  ng-voice is the right partner for you in the migration to 4G and 5G, offering a VoLTE/VoRN solution that is truly cloud-native, containerized, and cost-efficient.

   

  ng-voice’s IMS core is the first 100% containerized and Kubernetes-based fully-fledged IMS solution – the critical component to deploy voice services on 4G/ 5G networks. It has a high level of automation and a minimal resource footprint, reducing voice production costs and optimizing the entire life-cycle management of the application. Its major aspects of innovation are:

   

  • Smallest container sizes: Due to the clever slicing of our services, the image size for our sub-components was reduced to under 25 MB
  • Rapid service delivery: reduces the time of deployment and optimizes the lifecycle management of the application
  • Minimized resources footprint: it consumes only 2.5 vCPU and 3.1 GB of memory for an average enterprise network 
  • Flexible business model: our business model is adapted after the customers’ needs, reducing our customer’s overall capital expenditures.

  Made-in-Germany, ng-voice’s solutions adhere to the highest security and data protection standards. To learn more about our solutions, please contact our team at info@ng-voice.com.

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  Carsten Bock

  Founder and CTO

  Publisher Bio

  With over 20 years of experience, Carsten Bock is one of the VoIP industry veterans. He believed in IMS becoming the new telephony standard when it was still a niche technology and took the opportunity to build an IMS based Kamailio while working at Telefonica. Nine years ago he founded the company to begin developing ng-voice’s own virtualized, cloud-native IMS. Today he continues to lead our tech team to take ng-voice to the next level.

September 07, 2021

• Digium VI Communication Service’s Voice for MS Teams

  Collaboration has always allowed teams to be greater than the sum of their parts. With more and more people working from home, instead of just grabbing people and pulling them into a room to discuss problems, options, and strategies, you must hunt people down and herd them like cats to get what you need. Distractions around the home, screaming babies (and spouses sometimes), and difficulty getting into the “working mindset” without the work environment you are used to have caused us to lose that extra value from collaborating.

  There are plenty of tools out there to help you get that value back, though. Video Meetings as a Service (VMaaS) applications are a lifesaver. Our offering, Sangoma Meet, allows anyone to set up multi-party video conferences with screen share instantly and enable you to record it to come back to it later.

  Microsoft Teams has also become a great tool to help in today’s work environment. MS Teams offers an online, shared document version of Office programs (Word, Powerpoint, Excel, etc.) that allows you to work out of the same document, bringing some of that extra value back into your workplace. On top of the text communication and available applications, MS Teams has also recently opened up “Direct Routing” for voice calls to and from the platform, which has drastically improved the program’s value.

  MS Teams, in addition to everything else it does, has simple phone system features inside of it if you have the proper licensing (Phone System license is included in A5/E5 and is a hefty fee for other license types). “Direct Routing” allows you to bring a voice service provider and connect it to Microsoft Teams, allowing you to buy phone numbers and inbound/outbound service inexpensively through the service provider instead of expensively through Microsoft itself.

  While Microsoft Teams has the possibility of replacing an existing PBX, it lacks most of the robust features and reporting that traditional UC systems have offered for years. Chances are, if phone calls are a large part of your business that you’ll want to stick with your existing PBX and possibly look into options to integrate that PBX with Microsoft teams to get the best of both worlds.

  Microsoft also has “Calling Plans” that offer an industry-standard ‘unlimited’ number of minutes (fine print: 3,000 minutes per calling plan). Based on their pricing, though, you would need to be on the phone a lot to get your money out of them with these calling plans. Most office workers are looking at an average of 200-400 minutes per month of external-calling phone time (around 3 to 6.5 hours), coming in well below the 50 hours/month that Microsoft requires you to paying for. Bringing in your provider instead of purchasing a Microsoft Calling Plan is an opportunity to save people a lot of money by paying for what they are using instead of buying 3,000 minutes for an employee that makes a 30-minute call twice a week. In addition to that, with Mircorosoft’sMicrosoft’s Calling Plans, making any calls outside of your country requires an even more expensive plan, even if you need to make a call once.

  At Sangoma, we saw a need for a service plan that makes more sense to all companies using MS Teams. VI Communication Service’s Voice for MS Teams is all about customizability and paying for what you use. We are not trying to sell you ten times as many minutes as you’re going to use while trying to pass it as a “deal.”

  In addition to saving money, you also gain a lot of value. VI Carrier Services gives you access to other services not offered by Microsoft’s Calling Plans (like SMS, Fax to Email/Email to Fax, Robocall mitigation, and more), services that are required for any business.

  Protection is an essential aspect of our Voice for MS Teams also. In addition to the Robocall Mitigation product, which helps tag inbound “spam” or fraudulent calls for your users, we also offer a fraud protection system for International Termination. You can set up daily spend limits and per minute limits for calls outside of US/Canada. This helps to protect you from bad actors using your service to make those calls and protect you from “Larry” in shipping and receiving spending hours on the phone with somebody in Elbonia, racking up a huge phone bill.

  There is also a lot of value in working with a company that focuses on the service that you are buying through them and has been focused on that service for many years. We also value YOU as a customer, a partner – offering a Customer Success department whose purpose is to make sure that we help you with everything you need.

  Overall, Sangoma specializes in Communication Services and offers an experience tailored for what you need with a specialized team available to help at any time. VI Communications Services’ Voice for MS Teams is the way to go if MS Teams is integral to your business. Our team is ready to help you with any questions you might have and will give you a demo of our account management portal and help you determine how little you’ll be spending with us!

  To learn more, visit us at carrierservices.sangoma.com/voice-for-ms-teams/

  The post VI Communication Service’s Voice for MS Teams appeared first on Sangoma.

• Digium Will 5G Fixed Wireless be viable to handle real-time UC?

  Alright, I’m back to traveling pretty regularly, at least within the United States. And with that comes airport delays. Yep, I almost forgot about them. I was in a massive delay a few weeks ago, and I ended up working from the airport. The Wi-Fi wasn’t great there, and I ended up using my hotspot the whole time. And if there weren’t video involved so people could see a different background, no one would even have known.

  It wasn’t quite as good as working from home, but everything worked OK, even the video calls that I did. But I started thinking about what would happen if I didn’t have great Internet at home and it went out a lot, and I needed to rely on mobile for my Internet, like a permanent hotspot. That’s 5G Fixed Wireless.

  My 5G hotspot when I was doing that work gave me 30Mbps download and 16Mbps upload. As I write this at home, I’m getting 123Mbps download and 120Mbps upload. And that works great.

  At $60/month for 5G fixed wireless, it could be problematic if I can only get 10Mbps. I might have to turn off the video. 25Mbps would much better. So, at 25Mbps it could probably work but at 10Mbps, it would only be a good backup if I had spotty landline service. Or if that was the only option to get Internet service.

  Anyway, since I hot-spotted fine, I feel like a fixed-wireless option will work (but check the speeds).

  The post Will 5G Fixed Wireless be viable to handle real-time UC? appeared first on Sangoma.

September 02, 2021

• Digium Save Money, Cut Your IT Costs & Reduce Complexity with Desktop-as-a-Service

  Businesses are turning to Desktop-as-a-Service (DaaS) in order to adapt to today’s modern, flexible, and remote workforce. It is the most secure method for staff to access their tools and applications from any location to do their work, when compared to traditional PC deployments. DaaS delivers simplified IT that administrators are always looking for and cuts down on the CAPex of deploying PCs, since DaaS allows users to access their cloud-hosted desktops from any device.

  While the benefits of DaaS are enticing, some businesses shy away as soon as they realize the price tag, which ranges from $20-$140 a seat depending on the provider. To see the full picture, however, it’s important to understand the return on investment (ROI) of DaaS, which can be more cost effective than existing deployed solutions. See how DaaS allows businesses to scale up on their remote capability demands and future-proof their digital operations without inflating IT budgets.

  What Are You Spending On IT Today?

  When evaluating a solution to support a distributed workforce, businesses should focus not on specific costs, such as hardware or licensing, but the total cost of ownership (TCO). It’s important to factor in the cost of designing, building, and most importantly maintaining the infrastructure.

  Start by establishing a baseline for existing infrastructure costs and the state of end-user devices. This can help in understanding potential implementation and management costs, compared with an existing set up.

  Businesses should be asking themselves questions like:

  • What are the costs around human capital?
  • What are the average lifespans of endpoints?
  • Will ongoing needs be met with my current licensing purchases?

  With a basic understanding of existing IT costs, businesses can then investigate how DaaS can alleviate or eliminate overhead expenses, with careful consideration to ongoing hardware management and support costs.

  To fully appreciate the TCO of DaaS we also need to understand where the demand for it came from.

  Don’t Get Left Behind With Old Technology!

  Physical desktop computer infrastructures no longer make sense in today’s corporate world. It’s difficult to secure, maintenance heavy, and inflexible in supporting today’s constantly changing IT landscape.

  Desktop computing has become a major cost issue for IT departments. Workstations are eventually replaced once they reach their lifespan, or even sooner when new software requires newer hardware. While it is essential for delivering “must-have” applications and services to end-users, IT managers are increasingly concerned about the tremendous amount of time, complexity, and cost inherent in managing and securing physical PCs.

  What You Need to Know About Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)

  With VDI, businesses install virtual machine software onto in-house servers to deploy virtual desktops to all their users. Each user’s PC effectively lives on these servers and is accessed from any workstation, on-demand, even from outside the corporate network. This not only eliminates the need for dedicated workstations, it also makes it easier to patch, configure, and monitor the system as a whole since it has become centralized.

  Businesses can also deploy “thin clients”, which are low-powered end-points since all the computing is delivered from the virtual desktop over an internet connection. Thin clients are an attractive alternative to physical PCs as they have a significantly smaller power footprint, a longer life cycle, and are easier to manage as a near stateless device. Depending on the scenario, this can cut the workstation cost in half, per user.

  We can already start to see the benefits of a VDI environment over traditional PC infrastructures when comparing their capabilities:

  

  An example of the financial benefits of VDI come from a Forrester study of a school district saving $3.3 Million over a span of 3 years by investing in thin clients for their labs vs traditional PC workstations. The end result was 40% IT efficiency gains and $52,000 in savings on software licensing costs by deploying VDI over traditional desktops.

  Cut Down On IT Costs

  IT labor is a large portion of the expense for standard desktops, and an area where virtual desktops deliver significant savings as the desktops are now a centralized and controlled resource. Areas of cost savings include:

  • Helpdesks where support personnel can resolve issues remotely instead of being tied to the physical device
  • Desktop maintenance for support and maintenance of end user devices, since they are either BYOD or thin clients
  • General labor involving OS patching, desktop infrastructure maintenance, finance, and application delivery

  Should You Invest In Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)?

  Deploying VDI does come with its challenges, requiring in-house IT to manage desktop infrastructure, servers, storage and hypervisors, as well as the virtual desktop images and applications. This is also true for MSPs who offer, or want to offer, VDI services to clients from within their data centers.

  A key factor impeding the adoption of VDI is the upfront data center hardware costs needed to run the infrastructure for VDI, specifically servers and storage. A calculation of virtual CPUs and RAM are required, from a server perspective, and input/output performance and gigabytes for disk space, from a storage perspective, per user. From a footprint perspective, a business would assign 25-50 GB solely to run the Windows OS. Given the performance requirements of a virtual desktop, the internal storage of these servers is not recommended, requiring SAN or NAS storage, which adds to the TCO.

  Overall, the datacenter costs are centered around:

  • Floor, cooling, and rack space, on a recurring cost schedule
  • Server hardware, along with support, and power consumption
  • Cost for NAS solution, including power and racking, along with cost per GB per year
  • Cost per GB per desktop image, per year

  If you are an MSP hosting VDI services, then these costs balloon considering the size of your datacenter infrastructure in order to support your customers.

  Aside from hardware specifics, VDI also includes management and software overhead:

  • Management overhead: Management servers and storage running Windows Servers and associated data. Typically a pair of them is needed to create a high availability setup in case one fails for any reason.
  • Software overhead: Windows licensing for desktops, including licenses for virtual desktop access and other related licensing costs.

  The visual representation below shows more clearly how data center costs can pose a significant challenge and may not be suitable for some businesses.

  Hardware

  

  Software

  

  Don’t Throw Your Money Away On Bloated Data Center Hardware Costs

  It’s a well known fact that businesses are over provisioning and underutilizing their VDI hardware infrastructure. A report by ControlUp indicates almost half of VDI servers in datacenters were deployed with too much RAM and 80% of general purpose machines over-provisioned. This appears to be the case because IT admins simply avoid right-sizing their hardware as it’s a complicated process and it’s simply easier to accept the architecture design of the vendor and pay the cost.

  A VDI solution already saves money for businesses when compared to traditional PC infrastructure, whether it be an SMB, enterprise, or an MSP delivering VDI services to them from their data center, but there is still a lot of room to save even more cost, especially when it comes to RAM. To throw some numbers around, in the ControlUp study, about 26 GB of RAM was allocated for over 70,000 servers running an OS at a price tag of $69.3 million. Of that, ControlUp estimates over 75% of the servers were over-provisioned, leading to nearly $31 million overspent on RAM.

  Aside from analysing total cost of ownership from a pure hardware perspective, the operating system has an impact as well. Up to date operating systems run more efficiently, which can help save on hardware costs. However, as you run out of capacity, hardware vendors are more likely to sell more hardware resources than make software efficiency updates, so it’s up to the SMB, enterprise, or the MSP to make sure their systems are up to date, further adding to the total cost of ownership.

  How Connected Workspace Can Transform Your Business

  It’s important for businesses to find a solution that meets their total cost of ownership needs in an agile and dynamic, scalable way. And this is where our Connected Workspace can help. It’s a Desktop-as-a-Service solution that meets your compliance needs, mitigates risk, and reduces your total cost of ownership. Connected Workspace’s total cost of ownership is delivered at a fraction of the cost of VDI as there are no servers for you to set up in a datacenter running virtualized software and virtual desktop management infrastructure. Tying in with the aforementioned datacenter hardware and software costs of VDI, Connected Workspace cuts those down considerably:

  

  A recent case study shows how Connected Workspace saved a business up to 75% on costs from using their previous infrastructure.

  As a cloud-hosted VDI solution with enhancements, Connected Workspace is delivered on-demand and within minutes from a web portal. The enhanced provisioning process right-sizes the solution for you so that you pay for exactly what resources and tools you need, and can be scaled at any time, saving you money. We can see in the table below how Connected Workspace continued to deliver greater benefits than VDI or PC solutions:

  

  Connected Workspace does not require any expertise in VDI or IT technology. Simply configure employees, or client user workspaces, from a dedicated online portal, along with the tailored tools and virtual desktops needed, and the Connected Workspace infrastructure is ready for users to access and stream their cloud-based office space within minutes, from any device.

  Connected Workspace is very easy to manage, and allows a single administrator to manage all their distributed offices and staff workspaces or thousands of clients. There are no sunk costs, no separate licensing, no physical hardware or software updates to keep in mind, and it creates a significant reduction of IT management workload to manage user tools and applications. Plus it’s enhanced security measures, such as built-in ransomware protection and multi factor authentication, make sure your business and customers are safe at all times.

  ---

   
  Want to see Connected Workspace in action? Schedule a free demo to learn more!

  The post Save Money, Cut Your IT Costs & Reduce Complexity with Desktop-as-a-Service appeared first on Sangoma.

August 31, 2021

• Digium How SD-WAN Can Help Your Business

  As cloud-based communications become more of the natural fabric of business communications infrastructure, SD-WAN is becoming more important for the enterprise. And this is precisely the reason we chose an SD-WAN company (BigLeaf) to present the keynote at Virtual AstriCon, November 3-4, 2021. It is an essential subject to customers who may want to use it or partners who likely will need to offer this as one of their solutions to help their customers.

  What is SD-WAN (Software-defined Wide Area Network)? First, let’s review how connectivity occurred before SD-WAN. A WAN for a company would be how a company connects different locations and sends data back and forth in a private manner (i.e., not using the open internet). Obviously, this has been happening for a long time via routers using MPLS. One could encrypt traffic over the MPLS network. All traffic back and forth between locations would use MPLS on this private network.

  However, public clouds such as AWS and Azure are being used now with enterprises. Interaction with these public clouds is occurring within the enterprise. With SD-WAN, one can intelligently route traffic – send the traffic either over private WAN links or the internet depending on policies set up. Since some traffic doesn’t need to be on the private WAN, or some traffic will be on public clouds anyway, SD-WAN can manage this. You can scale easier and faster, can drive traffic flows, etc.

  Firewalls also have to be set up when interaction with the internet occurs, and these are known as (believe it or not) NGFWs (Next-Generation Firewalls!). Some NGFWs have SD-WAN capability. And some do not, by design. And some SD-WANs have some NGFW capability, and some do not, also by design.

  To learn more about SD-WANs, go here. And as a reminder, the AstriCon keynoter is Jeff Burchett, co-founder and chief revenue officer at Bigleaf Networks, who will discuss demystifying SD-WAN.

  The post How SD-WAN Can Help Your Business appeared first on Sangoma.

August 26, 2021

• Digium CCaaS & Its Role In The Contact Center’s Future

  The CCaaS (Contact Center as a Service) movement continues to grow as contact center capabilities become increasingly outsourced. This popular model of app deployment allows organizations to buy tech capacity as needed to keep operations running smoothly.

  What Is CCaaS?

  Contact Center as a Service products offer cloud-based capacity on demand; the enterprise pays for access to contact center capabilities as part of a subscription. This model has implications on helping cut costs related to IT spending, maintenance, and support, while expanding integration. CCaaS also supports new features rollout, as updates are pushed automatically by the provider.

  With CCaaS, companies incur no investment, other than subscription costs, in infrastructure, maintenance, or physical overhead. Similarly, logistical headaches are also passed off to the service provider.

  Differences Between CCaaS & UCaaS

  Despite some functional overlap, CCaaS differs from the more common UCaaS (Unified Communications as a Service) due to varying applications. Contact Center as a Service supports customer communications, while the UC variant promotes inter-organizational collaboration.

  On-demand contact center software includes call center features to assist sales and support staff, as well as the customer, whereas UCaaS options include functions such as video conferencing, messaging, email, and voice calling to streamline employee workflow and collaboration.

  What are CCaaS Capabilities?

  Outsourced contact center solutions are defined by several features.

  Automated Contact Distributor (ACD)

  The ACD routing engine intelligently queues self-service, AI chatbot CCaaS exchanges. The capability supports the omni-channel desktop, with features for handling context and designing contact flows. Managers can also pre-assign coverage areas to specific agents for intelligent customer call routing. For the service provider, this element provides critical coverage for handling customer inquiries and addressing concerns, streamlining customer relationship management (CRM) and experience management (XM).

  Interactive Voice Response (IVR)

  The Contact Center as a Service function includes a customizable, interactive menu that allows callers to either speak a command or dial a number to enter a selection. IVR also integrates with ACD to support data sharing. From customers’ perspective, automated lines can be frustrating and repetitive. IVR technology streamlines the query process, helping to properly convey thoughts and questions to appropriate channels, extending customer satisfaction.

  Outbound Software / Predictive Dialer

  CCaaS outbound software – or “predictive dialer” – includes features to support outbound calling. This function supports proactive outreach, as well as features to help sales and customer service agents improve connection rates and function as if situated in a physical call center. For the remote contact center, the implications are numerous, as its features serve to drive sales, support connection rates, and eliminate lag time.

  Benefits of Using CCaaS

  Competitive CCaaS installation advantages generally focus on its ability to streamline and simplify operations management. Top benefits include:

  • Scalability – CCaaS environments can be scaled up or down, according to organizational need. Infrastructure-related investments are tossed aside, as capacity and capabilities can be added / removed.
  • Reduced Cost – Expenses associated with installing, testing, maintaining and using physical contact center solutions are eliminated using Contact Center as a Service. Organizations can restrict spending strictly to items deemed necessary for operational growth, and offset costs related to administering such infrastructure to the provider.
  • Less Overhead – CCaaS deployments support reduced overhead spending, including personnel and technology investments. Physical infrastructure – and its often-costly maintenance – are reduced to practically nothing.
  • Reinforced Customer Experience – CCaaS reinforces CX, with elements to streamline access to dedicated personnel, automate selections and obtain information without disruption.
  • Business Continuity and Disaster Preparedness – Data, as its maintenance no longer falls on the organization itself, becomes accessible on a 24×7 basis, and is backed up and secured against natural and man-made disaster. Additionally, data replication technology – whereby data is stored in multiple, geographically dispersed data centers – promotes accessibility even in the event of provider failure.

  Check out the contact center features available with Switchvox from Sangoma.

  The post CCaaS & Its Role In The Contact Center’s Future appeared first on Sangoma.

August 24, 2021

• FreeSWITCH Connecting the Internet to Everyone

  One thing the pandemic has demonstrated – if we didn’t already believe it – is that internet access is essential to modern life. Work, school, healthcare, connecting to other people in general – how we’ve gotten through lockdowns and quarantines would have been completely impossible without sufficient internet being widely available today. But we’re still working on making the internet more accessible to all.  

  When it comes to living modern life, access to the internet has become as essential as access to electricity and running water. Maybe once considered a luxury, we all need good internet access to do almost anything required of us during the global pandemic. In the U.S., the question has been asked over the last few years: is the internet a right or a privilege? In early 2020, the estimated number of Americans without internet access was 25 million, and somewhere around 90 million people didn’t have access to sufficient high speed internet, a significant roadblock with the coronavirus pandemic forcing us to change how we live our daily lives. 

  Being hit with COVID forced many people to look at this problem more seriously and reconsider the internet as a utility. Earlier in 2021, the Biden administration had promised to make broadband affordable and available to all, with a proposed $100 billion effort to connect every rural and low-income home to high-speed internet service. And just this month, a $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill was finally passed by the U.S. Senate, which the federal government had been squabbling over for months. Of this, $65 billion will be devoted to funding broadband. Though not quite as much as the original proposed $100 billion, this move has still been widely praised across the telecommunications industry, though certain big providers are convinced they’ll take a hit from the effort to tackle digital redlining.  

  Broadband redlining is a huge issue in the U.S. today. The areas that can’t get high-speed internet access in U.S. cities are those same neighborhoods that couldn’t get mortgage loans in the 1940’s. For context, 1930’s American banks drew up maps to withhold loans from “high risk, undesirable inhabitants.” This, over the decades, also affected decisions to build essential businesses like supermarkets in these areas, and access to insurance services and healthcare was limited. Redlining was made illegal in 1968, but the damage had been done. Today, when it comes to broadband, the echoes of redlining still live on. Poorer communities often have no internet, or internet that is so slow it’s almost useless for the activities required by the pandemic, while still costing residents as much as it does for those who live in wealthier areas.  

  The 2021 infrastructure bill acknowledges and aims at tackling the problem of digital redlining. It’s a step in the right direction, though it comes over a year late into the global pandemic. Priority will be given to projects focused on connecting underserved areas and high-poverty areas to the internet. 

  A 2019 Pew Research Center study found that half of the people who did not have broadband connection could not afford it, while only 7 percent claimed lack of access as the reason. So achieving universal internet access will require a permanent subsidy service available to low-income families, which wasn’t something that polled well among Americans in the past. Just a few months ago, however, an emergency discount was finally offered to low-income households for high-speed internet services and devices to get online: the emergency broadband benefit program. But as this effort was a one-time emergency fund, the passage of the infrastructure bill will hopefully be able to make lasting and meaningful change in getting people online.

  The $65 billion will include a few big programs and grants. $42 billion will be invested in a Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment program, to provide grants to bridge the digital divide by getting broadband to underserved areas. Each of the 50 states and other U.S. territories will be receiving at least $100 million for this goal. A $1 billion grant will be invested in Middle Mile Infrastructure for broadband infrastructure which “does not connect directly to an end-user location.”  And $14 billion will be allocated to an Affordable Connectivity subsidy program, which is an extension of the Emergency Broadband Benefit Program. $167 million in grants will fuel rural broadband projects across a dozen states.

  The passage of this historic bill is a big deal: it’s a once-in-a-generation, bipartisan infrastructure bill unlike anything that’s been passed in recent years. In addition to expanding high-speed internet, the spending for roads, public transit, clean drinking water, and climate change measures is aimed to to improve the lives of current and future generations of Americans. It will be the largest federal investment in public transit, clean drinking water, and clean energy ever, and contains the explicitly stated goal of ensuring every American has access to reliable high-speed internet. This echoes a similar goal from about 100 years ago, when the federal government made the historic effort to provide every American with electricity.   

  As Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack puts it, “Generations ago, the federal government recognized that without affordable access to electricity, Americans couldn’t fully participate in modern society and the modern economy. Broadband internet is the new electricity. It is necessary for Americans to do their jobs, to participate equally in school learning and health care, and to stay connected.”

  Though this is what the U.S. is up to this year, the issue of internet connectivity extends worldwide. Around 3.5 billion people don’t have reliable access to the internet. The digital divide creates a problem for nearly every country in the world – and it’s going to take a lot of effort, and a lot of funding, to fix it.

  The post Connecting the Internet to Everyone appeared first on FreeSWITCH.

• Digium Future of the Deskphone for Knowledge Workers

  With all the remote working going on, we’ve all started using different kind of endpoints. Maybe it’s a headset now connected to your computer, using your UC system’s desktop client. Or a speakerphone connected as well. Or just your mobile phone connected to your UC system’s mobile client. Either way, if you have been working remote or from home, you’ve probably been using your deskphone less than you have been.

  But does that mean that deskphones are going the way of the horse and buggy? Not necessarily.

  The deskphone industry is still a multi-billion dollar USD industry and depending on what reports you read it’s either stagnant, growing a little, or declining a little. The message here is that the market is big and will stay big for a long while. Why?

  Well, first of all, if you are a SMB, it’s hard to work from home. Your business needs to be open. And your employees will have phones at their desk.

  Additionally, even for someone like me, who has a home office but also has a deskphone in my home office (connected to a Sangoma Cloud UC solution of course!) and while I have utilized different endpoints as per the first paragraph, I still use the phone for various reasons (4 digit dialing to others in Sangoma is easy, calls to/from customers, partners, etc.).

  For those that might work from home some of the time, they will still have an office. So, phones will be required for them.

  And even though phone usage per se may be less, as business grows and expands, companies grow and expand, and employees will still need phones. Because you still need to make and receive phone calls.

  The post Future of the Deskphone for Knowledge Workers appeared first on Sangoma.

• ng-voice Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) at ng-voice

  Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at ng-voice

  Why do we rarely consider ourselves as ‘able-bodied’ when we think of our self-identity?

  What microaggressions have we experienced and how can we deal with them? 

  Do you recognize our own privilege?

   

  These were the questions we covered during the eight hours we spent together with Ellen and Hewan at Cross Cultural Bridges. With the increasing representation of colleagues from various backgrounds, perspectives, and experiences along with the company’s rapid growth, we organized the first diversity, equity, and inclusion workshops. As a professional coach, Ellen shared her own stories as black homosexual woman living in a foreign country to create a safe space to open participants’ minds. These sessions aimed to set the common language around diversity, to be aware of blind spots on our own bias, and ultimately to foster diversity-conscious culture.

   

  One of the potluck party analogies is to leave a lasting impression to understand the concepts of diversity, inclusion, and belonging. A potluck party would be boring if everyone brings similar dishes. The success of a potluck party depends on the diversity of dishes to celebrate different tastes. In this context, diversity means when you organize a potluck party and ask participants to bring their own foods that are different. Inclusion means when all the participants try each other’s dishes, familiar or new, with a sense of curiosity and respect. Belonging means that the participants take turns to be organizers to invite people and plan together.  

  

  
  Equality? Equity!

  When you read the wordings on the sticky notes, it might not sink in immediately. We often use the terms equity and equality interchangeably without knowing the difference. Equality means treating everyone equally regardless of whether one’s socioeconomic status is high or low, if one has a migration background, if one has a differently-abled body. Equity, on the other hand, considers everyone’s different contexts and circumstances. That’s why we called it Diversity, “Equity”, and Inclusion workshops. 

  No Assumption, More Question

  Another aha-moment takeaway was “Don’t assume anything and always ask what the other wants.” We should make conscious efforts to avoid assumptions but ask questions. This may sound easy but unfortunately it often proves to be challenging because people have implicit or cognitive biases. Biases are systematic errors in thinking to save our energy in decision making and judgments. What we often forget is that we make a lot of assumptions about ourselves and others on a subconscious level.

  

  Because we are different, the only thing we can safely assume is that everyone sees and understands the world differently. Let your assumptions be flexible and light, and don’t let them get entrenched in your unconscious self.

  Privileges and Solidarity

  We also reflected on different forms of discrimination like racism, lookism, and ageism before discussing how to address microaggressions from our own experiences. We addressed different privileges as white, christian, heterosexual, or cisgender (A person that identifies with the gender that they were assigned with at birth) in groups and updated our profiles with pronouns as an expression of solidarity and support for LGBTQIA community. 

   

  Two sessions were not enough to go deep into each important topic or share each of our personal experiences and views. Instead, this was a great introduction to the new world where people can more easily talk about uncomfortable issues. We have so much to unlearn and learn about diversity for sure. As a first step, why don’t we reveal ourselves, our authentic experiences, our core fears, desires, dreams, and hopes to others?

   

  At ng-voice, We are on a mission to create an inclusive, equal environment and raise the bar in the telco industry. Feel free to explore our website and learn more about our work culture.

  
  
  

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  Seon Y. Lee

  Finance and Impact Manager

  Publisher Bio

  With over 6 years of experience in finance operations and project management in Seoul and Berlin, Seon has a track record in ecosystem building and business development. She’s known for her reliability, attention to detail, and for initiating new ideas proactively. She’s an avid supporter of women’s empowerment, veganism, and the K-pop boyband, BTS.

August 17, 2021

• Digium AstriCon 2021 Is Now Virtual

  Sangoma has decided to cancel the in person AstriCon 2021 event in Orlando, Florida the last week in September and move it to be a virtual event in it’s more traditional time slot during mid-October (exact dates to be determined).

  While we had a great virtual event last year (what we called AstriCon Plan 9), we were very much looking forward to hosting the community at a face-to-face event this year.

  However, due to the rise of Covid cases recently throughout parts of the US, including Florida, we decided it was in the best interests of the community, our partners and our employees to cancel it again.

  For those of you who have already registered and paid, we will refund your ticket.

  Please bookmark this space as we will update it soon regarding Virtual AstriCon 2021.

  The post AstriCon 2021 Is Now Virtual appeared first on Sangoma.

August 12, 2021

• Digium Top 6 Reasons Your Business Needs Collaborative Workspaces

  Connected Workspace is a virtual desktop, Software as a Service (SaaS), and communications solution, securely streaming your Windows PC, along with all your apps, data and communication tools from the cloud, and to any device. Whether you’re working remotely, at the airport, on the road, or anywhere with an internet connection, you have your office workspace with you.

  Why Should SMBs Adopt Connected Workspace?

  Let’s explore the ways Connected Workspace benefits SMB organizations.

  Benefit #1 – Keeping IT Staff Forward Thinking

  Small-to-Medium businesses will have 1 to 2 IT administrators, based on their staff size, and are typically focused on fixing problems with infrastructure and employee requests. Connected Workspace can increase the return on investment (ROI) for the business by offloading these tasks, enabling IT to focus on strategic investment and simplified management. Star2Star’s Connected Workspace platform engineers handle all the costs, from managing Active Directory and file servers to optimizing app licensing, on behalf of the business. And in the case of businesses relying on a managed service provider (MSP) for IT, then the MSP can benefit in a similar way as well.

  Benefit #2 – Remote Employee

  Businesses with remote employees want to standardize how employees are interacting with the corporate infrastructure, how they access resources, what software they use, and have complete control over all of it. Connected Workspace allows businesses to easily configure the employee’s virtual desktop experience by selecting the features and type of access they can have, via a simple online portal. They can then have access almost immediately by simply signing into their account from the device they have with them, over a simple internet connection. Hiring staff also becomes much easier as businesses can hire based on talent rather than location.

  Benefit #3 – Acquisitions

  Connected Workspace helps businesses standardize IT infrastructure, making it easier for a company to be acquired as well as for the company who is acquiring the other. A business using Connected Workspace has a predictable cost per user, from an IT perspective, making it easy for companies to evaluate the cost of acquiring the company. Also, if both companies have very separate systems in place, it takes more time to integrate them, whereas Connected Workspace makes the integration more seamless and much quicker. This provides a single source that can be adopted across departments allowing strategic system decisions to smoothly transition in and out of the overall application systems, minimizing user impact and keeping productivity as high as possible.

  Benefit #4 – BYOD

  Aside from the benefits of hiring remote employees, BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) enables today’s workforce to use their own existing devices that they use on a daily basis, that work for them in terms of comfort and productivity, and bring them to work in a seamless manner. Connected Workspace allows users to access the corporate infrastructure, while keeping the corporate data and security intact. It also allows users to be more productive, because they can access what they need from any device, at any time, so they don’t need to be chained down to a particular workstation. Their desktop exists in the cloud and is accessible through any device, removing the IT spend and simplifying the management of the local computer in depth.

  Benefit #5 – Seasonable Business

  Seasonal businesses will scale up and down based on customer demand. At their busiest time, they’ll have the highest staffing levels and at their least busy, the lowest. The advantages of Connected Workspace for this type of fluctuation are:

  • The ability to scale users very quickly, whenever needed, all from a web-based portal
  • Predictability of costs during the peaks and valleys of user count

  Benefit #6 – Multi-Location Business

  Being able to standardize IT across every location of a business is ideal. Whether an employee is part of headquarters or a remote office, they all work in the same way, accessing the same applications and tools, under the same secured environment. And if there are any IT policy changes or software updates required, the changes are done quickly, from a central location, for all the locations at one time.

  Connected Workspace offers SMBs with the ‘any device, anywhere access’ type of workflow that increases the productivity of the business; the integration of Star2Star’s voice, messaging, and video applications further improves worker collaboration. For businesses that are compliance driven, such as financial, legal, healthcare, and hospitality, Connected Workspace is definitely a benefit. And with no seat minimums, businesses can adopt the technology right away when they hit the ground running.

  ---

   
  Want to see Connected Workspace in action? Schedule a free demo to learn more!

  The post Top 6 Reasons Your Business Needs Collaborative Workspaces appeared first on Sangoma.

August 11, 2021

• WebRTC Hacks Dealing with HTMLMediaElements and srcObjects in WebRTC applications

  Philipp Hancke discusses a how to properly release Media Element resources with WebRTC and a recent Chrome issue that apps to stop handling larger numbers of participants.

  The post Dealing with HTMLMediaElements and srcObjects in WebRTC applications appeared first on webrtcHacks.

August 10, 2021

• Digium What is Unified Communications?

  What is Unified Communications? It may seem like a simple question, but the answer is not so simple. On the surface it just means unifying different types of communications together. Sending a voicemail to your email inbox for example is a form of Unified Communications. And 20 years ago, that was pretty much the only unifying of communications you could do. But that’s a long time ago and as the years have gone by, integrating other communication mediums, as seen in this graphic, has expanded the meaning of Unified Communications.

  But why am I writing this blog in the first place? Someone can search for “Unified Communications” and get a definition. But this seemingly simple question has been coming up a bit more to me. Why? Because given the explosion of video over the past year and a half, some people these days are saying Unified Communications is just video, screen sharing (collaboration), mobility and presence/instant messaging. And they are saying that because it suits them to say that.

  Take a look at the graphic again. It’s no accident Sangoma puts voice at the top. Because no matter how many video calls you do, or how many chats you do, voice is still the predominant business communication medium. Your customers call you!! And you need to be able to route the calls to the right place, and answer the calls on your deskphone, your mobile phone or your desktop. Your business cannot ignore this. And so implicit in the “phone call” is not just the phone call, but contact center functionality such as call routing, call analytics, etc. The definition of Unified Communications will always continue to expand.

  The post What is Unified Communications? appeared first on Sangoma.

• FreeSWITCH Sharon’s Top 12 Reasons to Come to ClueCon – Part 1

  By Sharon White

  Sharon White has been the main organizer of ClueCon for many years! This is a little behind the scenes look into ClueCon and all her favorite things about the conference.

  Click here to learn more and register for ClueCon TGI2021!

  I first came to ClueCon years ago to hang out with my best friend for a week. I started helping to clean up the registration desk, then before I knew it I had taken over all of registration, and by the next year I had taken over all of ClueCon. It’s been a crazy ride, so I thought I’d share some of my favorite things that you can look forward to at ClueCon this year!

  12. The Most Dangerous of Demos

  The first time I saw a Dangerous Demo I thought “this is weird, they want to fail?” But as it turns out, that’s what makes it so fun. Dangerous Demos was started 12 years ago by industry veteran James Body for developers to prove their experience and abilities by pushing the envelope of new ideas in a competitive environment. I have seen the craziest demos over the years. One year a cell phone encased in bubble wrap was volleyed all over the giant conference hall and it still worked. Another time, the MC’s hotel room was broken into by the demo contestants who used a raspberry PI to hack into his keycard and project a video of it onto the huge screens for everyone to witness. And my least favorite, a demo where after calling a phone number you must choose a number. Choose the wrong one and it plays the “Baby Shark” song… over and over and over. It’s maddening!

  Several awards are given out, including the Crash and Burn prize for the demo that fails the most spectacularly.  But not all the demos fail! Check out this demo from our virtual ClueCon in 2020, one of my favorites, by SignalWire CTO Evan McGee. My face in the video tells you all you need to know.

  11. Boats and the Night Sky

  Some of the greatest moments at ClueCon happen during our all inclusive evening events. One of my favorites is the Sunset Boat Tour we host Thursday night on the last day of the conference after all the great speakers finish presenting for the week. Everyone at the conference walks the two blocks to the pier, often stopping for some ice cream from a street vendor close to the dock, to board the boat and set out onto Lake Michigan to witness the Chicago skyline at sunset. 

  My first year of the boat tour I was so naive, staying on the top deck of the boat. That was before I realized the lower deck is where the cool kids go. The fully stocked bar (not only alcohol) is the first place you should hit. Then take your drink to the front of the boat to chat with other developers and the ClueCon team. By the time the sun begins to set over Chicago the boat is positioned out on the lake and the view is astounding. 

  Usually, ClueCon is in August, when the weather is warm and the sun sets quite late in the day. This year it will be in late October, and the Midwestern chill of autumn will start to settle over Chicago. But don’t worry! The boat is heated.

  10. It’s all fun and games: The Coder Games

  ClueCon’s hack-a-thon is a day filled with games and fun for every attendee, whether you like to code your way to the prize or you’re a builder at heart. You can work as a team or go solo as you utilize the provided materials to build your creation and win prizes! The day is planned for months in advance to be fun, challenging for most, and inclusive for all.  We now have 3-4 standard games you can play each year.  The Maker Challenge is meant to test your coding knowledge, while games like the FreeCYCLED Challenge are meant for all ages and all skill levels, where there is a simple goal such as making a ping pong ball travel 2 feet using everyday random items like straws, toilet paper rolls and poster board. 

  Abbi Minessale, daughter of FreeSWITCH founder Anthony Minessale, is the Coder Games Queen, and has hosted the hack-a-thon for several years. Abbi works for the better part of a year with the help of some developers to come up with the challenges, and she also designs the Coder Games t-shirt and other activities. One of the best is our classic “Cards Against Technology” game that was given to each attendee as a gift at the last in-person ClueCon.  

  The first time I attended the Coder Games I didn’t have any idea what could actually be made during the games. One of our sponsors brought in a 3D printer that year. During the Maker Challenge, one of the contestants used it to print an old vintage telephone, hooked it up to the internet, and actually made a phone call! It was very impressive. One of my other favorites was the year we had contestants build a little remote controlled car using the Cards Against Technology game as a track for a race at the end of the day. It’s always the most creative day of ClueCon!

  

  

  9. The Softest T-Shirts in the World

  This may come as a surprise, but every single person I know, no matter the age, owns a t-shirt.  At conferences they are a staple. If you attend a conference and don’t come out of it with 2+ t-shirts… you chose not to take them. And ClueCon has the BEST t-shirts. 

  The ClueCon Team takes t-shirts very seriously. The design alone takes months to plan. The shirts are always styled after the conference theme, and that design is followed in the show guide and other printed materials. You also never know what kind of easter eggs you might find in the t-shirt design. One of my favorites was when we had two different designs of the same theme that signified emerging AI technology and the human brain.

  At the dawn of the universe, there was nothing, then boom. The big bang sent six elemental t-shirts hurtling across the virgin universe. These infinity shirts each control an essential aspect of existence: Space, Reality, Power, Soul, Mind… and ClueCon. After sending monks, sheikhs, gurus, and a shaman to the vast reaches of Mount Everest on an epic quest to retrieve the most sought after ClueCon Infinity Shirt, the shirt is taken to an underground lab in Atlantis that creates the softest and most durable synthetic material known to man. You will not want to miss out on the best t-shirt ever created!

  To be continued….

  The post Sharon’s Top 12 Reasons to Come to ClueCon – Part 1 appeared first on FreeSWITCH.

August 05, 2021

• Digium Let’s Talk Virtual Desktop Security

  You’ve heard the term DaaS or Desktop-as-a-Service before but didn’t really buy into it. But since the release of Microsoft’s Virtualized Desktop service, it seems to have grown into an actual discussion for many businesses now. You may be starting to understand the benefits businesses can achieve by virtualizing their desktop machines and moving them to the cloud, creating a central management point, with a significant reduction in IT hardware costs on workstations, and delivering high performing desktops to users from any device. Also how it eases IT management burdens and a total cost of ownership (TCO) from servers, storage, and network connectivity to desktop applications.

  However, one of the major topics of concern regarding DaaS is security. Since customers’ corporate infrastructure is moved from on-premise into the cloud, there is a tendency to worry about losing control of private data. Let’s demystify these security concerns so that you can rest assured your customers are safe and protected.

  In-House IT vs. DaaS Service Provider IT

  While a business may have trusted and reliable in-house IT staff for their local infrastructure, it doesn’t compare to the far greater security resources of a cloud service provider. With a DaaS service provider, businesses can leverage their expertise to improve their security policies and compliance. Security is not a one time ‘set it and forget it’ process and requires constant attention with frequent software updates at all entry points to the network. All it takes is one exposed area, such as a security patch not installed on a device, to allow hackers in. Businesses tend to forget all this when things are going well, so making sure there are resources always dedicated to these types of things is a must. And, allowing the DaaS provider to take over enables in-house IT to focus on company strategy and forward thinking.

  Remote Working

  With the onset of the pandemic, remote working has risen and become of significant importance for IT departments to secure and manage. Users need to be able to access corporate and confidential information while outside the corporate network, from any remote location, which can be complex. Local routers, firewalls, or environmental factors can restrict a remote user’s PC from connecting with services at headquarters. It becomes a balance of flexibility vs. security; the easier you allow users to connect to the corporate network, the more businesses put themselves at risk of threats.

  A virtual private network (VPN) connection has been a typical way to address this need, however, it is not the best answer! While connected to VPN, any threats that are exposed to the user’s PC can travel through the connection and infect the entire corporate network, spreading viruses, malware, ransomware, and so on. If a user checks their personal email, for example, and downloads a file, which is unknowingly ransomware, it will now travel to headquarters. Malware and anti-virus protection on each user’s PC can help, but is not perfect and ends up being a burden for IT to manage. Furthermore, the requirement to maintain VPN servers, software updates, and the huge cost associated with intrusion detection and protection (IDS/IPS) services becomes problematic because the cost may go overlooked and creates another hole in the security protocols of the business.

  DaaS platforms take care of all this without requiring VPNs or worrying about user PC malware protection and allow users the flexibility to connect to the corporate network over any internet connection, from anywhere.

  User Credential Protection

  While it is true that businesses are more exposed to hackers being out in the cloud, they are at less risk of credential-based attacks when using a decent DaaS platform, than with in-house infrastructure. DaaS services will typically have one secured entry point for access to all of a business’ tools and applications, with single single on (SSO) from a web portal, whereas on-premise infrastructures have many. So hackers can attempt to steal user credentials for possibly many unsecured areas in a network. A DaaS platform should have at least two-factor authentication, but one with multi-factor authentication (MFA) is best as it makes it impossible for hackers to steal credentials.

  BYOD

  DaaS enables users to access all their tools and apps from any device, anywhere, using any internet connection, which is one of its major benefits. The security aspect is handled between the users’ connection to their DaaS account, not the hardware they are using. This isolation also prevents users from copy and pasting, downloading, or drag and dropping from, and to, their virtual desktop to the local machine. In other words, what happens in the cloud stays in the cloud. And if a user loses their device, there is no risk since no data is stored on the device and the user’s account can be remotely disabled, immediately.

  Malware, Ransomware & Viruses

  We hear about these threats happening every day, and growing in scale too. In fact, check out this report of the world’s largest ransomware attack, which includes businesses in the USA. Hackers are taking advantage of infrastructure not properly protected and with out-of-date security policies and procedures. They are skilled in getting into networks via exposed servers with weak credentials and via end user activity.

  All it takes is a user to open an email and download an unsuspecting malicious file for a hacker to begin developing a ransomware attack. This can also happen in a DaaS environment that isn’t properly secured. In fact, in a recent event, one particular title company in Grand Rapids, Michigan, which will remain nameless for confidential reasons, was one of many in the area hit with ransomware, being locked out of all their DaaS user accounts, crippling them for days. On a positive note, Star2Star ended up saving this business by migrating them over to our Connected Workspace DaaS platform. This is why checking the built-in protocols for mitigating risk is critical when choosing a DaaS platform; you need to know the work-arounds and restoration procedures in the unfortunate event of a successful attack.

  ---

  Connected Workspace by Star2Star, A Sangoma Company

  Connected Workspace is a DaaS service by Star2Star, A Sangoma Company. The service is bundled with voice and video collaboration tools, enabling businesses with the complete ‘office’ experience, wherever they are, from any device.

  Security protection is a key aspect of Connected Workspace, from multi-factor authentication (MFA) for our SSO web portal, to our fully dedicated platform engineers taking care of migration, monitoring, and maintaining of your customer’s service.

  To help mitigate the risk of malware, such as ransomware and viruses, all files opened on each users’ virtual desktops are scanned and virus definitions are updated and automatically applied if necessary every two hours. Email threat protection is also applied to all Star2Star Managed Office 365 accounts. We have proprietary policies, procedures, and processes in place that alert us upon user access attempts to unauthorized files. Additionally, we do not allow access to the platform outside of the Citrix Workspace connection (part of the Connected Workspace infrastructure) for any third party, as well as no tunnelling, direct connection, etc. allowed to our multi-tenant environment. All of these solutions are in place to ensure that all connections route through a single fabric ensuring that the platform is monitored for any potential anomalies that represent a threat allowing us to respond in kind to mitigate said threat.

  In the unfortunate event of a data breach or a ransomware attack, all files in your customer’s Connected Workspace storage, should they become compromised, are isolated in order to remove the threat of further corruption. A restoration to known safe media is performed in an isolated environment. All virtual delivery agents (VDAs) are shut down and forced to restart from Gold Image. The isolation environment is then migrated back, only after file remediation is completed in the isolation environment. We work diligently at all this and can get customers back online quickly, thanks to our dedicated platform engineers. For instance, based on standard data size of 1 terabyte, the mean time to recover is estimated at 4 hours. This is something to consider when customers choose a DaaS provider: is there support available when it’s needed the most? This is one such reason why the previously mentioned title company moved away from their previous DaaS provider to Star2Star’s Connected Workspace.

  Can I bundle my security services with Connected Workspace?

  You sure can! As a channel partner, you can implement a third party email security solution and for our private cloud offering (single-tenant service for customers looking for a more isolated set up) you can offer your existing ransomware, malware, and/or endpoint monitoring additions.

  Now that we’ve secured your understanding, connect with us to learn more about Connected Workspace and how it can help you communicate securely in the cloud!

  The post Let’s Talk Virtual Desktop Security appeared first on Sangoma.

August 03, 2021

• Digium Why a Video-centric Business Communication System is Problematic

  Let’s examine a bit more why starting with a video-centric UC platform could be problematic for your business.

  First of all, most video calls are handled on the internet. High bandwidth enables 1:1 and large group video calls. And most of us have been on them – with a large group of friends, team meetings at work, etc. It’s a great tool to use at work. And since many people are using it at work, they’re thinking, “why don’t I just use this all the time to do the calls I need to make?” Well, precisely because it’s pretty much fully internet-focused, it’s “heavy lifting” for this class of communication type to be the PBX or UC platform for the business.

  For example, you need to set up phone numbers; you need to set up SIP trunking; there is network interoperability and least cost routing to be put in place. Your “phone” vendor has been dealing with this for years and knows how to do this. Your phone vendor also knows how to fax and send and receive text messages integrated into your UC clients.

  One of the hardest parts about telephony is when the company receives a call. Call routing rules need to be put in place, IVRs set up, etc. Telephony-centric vendors have been doing this as their business for years and years. They understand this ‘hard stuff.’ It is not easy to replicate. And as indicated above, the majority of customers are still calling you. You want to answer them with a telephony-centric, integrated system. Not a video-centric, non-call control centric system with add-ons galore.

  And what about physical phones? Many businesses, while using UC mobile and desktop clients, are also still primarily using physical phones. And many of those call control type functions described above, such as IVR, UC clients, and call routing, are deeply integrated with the physical phones.

  So, if you have a business to run, start with a UC system (such as provided by Sangoma) because you need to talk to customers, and then add on a video meeting service (such as also offered by Sangoma ).

  The post Why a Video-centric Business Communication System is Problematic appeared first on Sangoma.

July 29, 2021

• Digium 4 Reasons Why Businesses Are Moving To Connected Workspaces

  Digital transformation is creating significant changes in how businesses operate, as well as how partners sell into new markets. Desktop-as-a-Service (DaaS) plays a significant part in this. Let’s get down to the nuts and bolts of why businesses deploy DaaS and why it’s important for you to sell into this market.

  What Is DaaS All About?

  Simply put, DaaS takes the end-user desktop environment and turns it into a cloud-hosted service. Users log into their DaaS workstation via an online portal, and using their internet connection, run the same productivity and collaboration tools as they would use on their traditional PC.

  Why Are Businesses Using DaaS In Their Organization?

  Businesses in all sectors are making the switch to DaaS. In fact, Gartner forecasts that the number of users for DaaS will grow by over 150% between 2020 and 2023, as more companies move their infrastructure to the cloud. Here are the top four reasons why:

  Secure Remote Working

  The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic rushed businesses to enable remote working capabilities within their infrastructure, significantly increasing the chances of threats and malware being introduced within their organization. Without the necessary preparation, a remote worker using a virtual private network (VPN) or remote desktop protocol (RDP) connection to the head office was also a target for malware that could infiltrate their local PC and exploit their connection to corporate infrastructure. Remote workers logging into corporate applications via their credentials from completely unprotected networks also posed serious risks.

  DaaS solves these security concerns by enabling secure remote access with a fully encrypted connection, decoupled from the device. This allows users to log in from any device, over any network connection, from anywhere in the world, without worry. In the case of a security concern, the IT administrator can disable privileges or lock out the entire account instantly without further jeopardizing the company’s infrastructure.

  Disaster Recovery

  Since user desktops are hosted virtually in the cloud, in the event of device failure, fire, flood or other catastrophic scenarios, users continue to work, logging into any device of their choice, from anywhere, anytime.

  Simplified Management

  DaaS cuts down the time and hassle involved in having to manage and maintain individual users’ desktops, which is a big job the more employees there are. Users access their desktops via the cloud by simply logging into a web page to access all their tools. Software updates or security patches are performed from one centralized location, updating the entire infrastructure almost instantly. Users can conveniently log in with their personal devices, which is not a security problem because it’s the connection to the service that is secured. This can save the business on hardware costs too, by allowing users to log in to the service using their personal devices or by deploying Zero Client devices (cost-effective PCs with minimal hardware and software on them) where users simply log in to their accounts and work through the cloud connection.

  Onboarding new employees is pain-free; with a few clicks, their accounts are set up and users can log into their environments and start working immediately, without waiting for a PC to get provisioned and possibly needing to be shipped to a remote worker.

  Enabling Remote Work

  Remote work is on the rise more than ever now that businesses are more comfortable hiring talent away from the office. DaaS makes it easy to collaborate, improve productivity, and allows workers to transition to and from the office, since their desktop follows them wherever they go on whatever device they have.

  ---

  Connected Workspace by Star2Star, A Sangoma Company

  In addition to all of the DaaS benefits discussed so far, there are other considerations as well when it comes to choosing the right solution for your business. For instance, our DaaS solution, backed by industry leading Citrix workspace technology, combines our award-winning UCaaS with the secure, device-agnostic DaaS platform. With their communications backbone built-in to virtual desktops and SaaS software, users can leverage high-quality voice, messaging, and collaboration tools right from their DaaS web portal, transforming DaaS into a unique “Connected Workspace”. Everything from our softphone apps, voice, fax and video conferencing services, contact center, Microsoft Teams integration, and more are available to DaaS users from any device and location.

  This level of connectivity is unmatched in the industry. We even went a step further and integrated UCaaS within the SaaS and legacy applications customers use most frequently. For example, Salesforce users can make a phone call to their customer within Salesforce without needing to switch to another device or window, keeping them focused and productive.

  Connected Workspace is designed for ease of use. Users log into a Single Sign-On (SSO) web portal and simply click on the tile of the application they want to use, whether it be SaaS tools such as Salesforce, Office 365, their virtual desktop, or migrated legacy applications. Best of all, there’s no need to remember passwords to all these tools since the SSO takes care of logging users in, along with self-serve password resets. IT admins love the simplicity in that, as well as the ability to disable access on-the-fly, if needed.

  For the first time, users have everything they need, from productivity applications to voice, video, and messaging, accessible from any device and delivered via the cloud, without security, network problems, or IT assistance. Connected Workspace essentially eliminates the “office” and transforms the business into a flexible, adaptable hub for productivity no matter where employees are logging in.

  Why You Should Sell DaaS

  Now that you know all the benefits and why your customers want DaaS, here’s what that means for you.

  Are You a Managed Service Provider (MSP) selling IT Services? Great!

  You can add Star2Star’s DaaS platform or Connected Workspace solution to your IT offerings, and significantly increase your value to your customers. And the best part is you have nothing to manage, no on-site servers, or support to deal with. Star2Star handles all the hardware, software, support, you name it! You just handle the commission.

  Are You Hosting Your Own Cloud Services?

  Eliminate the time and cost of self-hosting data centers and customer support. Keep your existing infrastructure while you migrate to Connected Workspace. There are no large upfront hardware purchases or capital expenditures to deal with as your business grows.

  Want to Diversify Your Product Portfolio?

  Differentiate your business amongst your competitors and create additional revenue opportunities within your existing customer base when you add Star2Star DaaS and Connected Workspace to your portfolio.

  Simple Pricing Model & Flexibility

  Star2Star DaaS offers a simple and predictable pay-as-you-go subscription model, making it easy to scale up or down on-demand. The Connected Workspace is also highly configurable, tailored to the users’ needs based on the tools they use, effectively eliminating the ‘one-size-fits-all’ model. This saves your customers a lot of money since they don’t need to choose between existing Office365, Virtual Desktop, Microsoft Teams, or Contact Center investments.

  Self-Serve Customer Management Portal

  The Star2Star DaaS portal lets you completely manage your customers. Add new customers, add new users, and adjust the features for each, whenever you want and have the changes take effect almost immediately.

  Poll: How Would DaaS Help Your Business?

  

   
  Want to know more about Star2Star DaaS? Contact one of our DaaS solution specialists

  The post 4 Reasons Why Businesses Are Moving To Connected Workspaces appeared first on Sangoma.

July 27, 2021

• Digium The Case for UC Systems Needing Tight Integration with Physical Phones

  A business communication system connects to a phone. But how tightly integrated does the phone need to be? Does it just need to make and receive phone calls, or should it do more?

  Let’s examine a few business communication system functions that enjoy tight integration with physical phones. Desktop phones now come with visual displays, and these visual displays enhance the user experience immensely. For example, when on the phone, a presence indicator to the rest of the UC system would show potential instant messengers that you are busy and on the phone. Provisioning of the phones from the admin is also tied to the system. For example, the admin can remotely set up your phone and even push updates to the phone. There are also many shortcuts the phone can utilize if it’s tightly integrated with the phone system.

  So to answer the question at the end of the first paragraph, yes, it should do more. The phone needs to be tightly integrated. You want your phone to get the most out of your system and be a true productivity tool.

  The post The Case for UC Systems Needing Tight Integration with Physical Phones appeared first on Sangoma.

July 22, 2021

• WebRTC Hacks Identifying Shared Tabs using Capture Handle (Elad Alon)

  Introduction to capture handle - a new Chrome Origin Trial that lets a WebRTC screen sharing application communicate with the tab it is capturing. Examples use case discussed include detecting self-capture, improving the use of collaboration apps that are screen shared, and optimizing stream parameters of the captured content.

  The post Identifying Shared Tabs using Capture Handle (Elad Alon) appeared first on webrtcHacks.

July 20, 2021

• Digium The Case for Applications Supplementing the UC System of Tomorrow

  Besides a proper multi-modal communication system that handles all that voice entails, what else will be needed in tomorrow’s Unified Communication system? The system of tomorrow will need to be able to handle new business communication needs deftly.

  For instance, applications we all became familiar with in 2020 were the “curbside pickup” application or the “ready to come up for your appointment” application. Many businesses scrambled to deploy them.

  And these applications needed to be tied into the communication system because they involved texting and maybe phone calls if there were questions. The ability of your system to create these applications linked to the UC system is critical for business success. Successful businesses discovered this. And successful companies are also thinking of ways to deploy other integrated applications to help them succeed even more.

  Tomorrow’s reality for business communication includes multi-modal communication, where voice and video are essential, connecting to all types of networks is a reality, and tight integration with all your business communication functions saves you time and money. And it will also involve business efficiency and nimbleness. Make sure your UC system can do all of that and all of that well.

  The post The Case for Applications Supplementing the UC System of Tomorrow appeared first on Sangoma.

July 15, 2021

• WebRTC Hacks Making Zoom’s Smart Gallery on the Web with MediaPipe and BreakoutBox

  How to seperate multiple people in the same camera feed into their own unique video streams that can be individually transmitted Google's MediaPipe and the W3C's new MediaStreamTrack API

  The post Making Zoom’s Smart Gallery on the Web with MediaPipe and BreakoutBox appeared first on webrtcHacks.

July 13, 2021

• Digium Sangoma Proud to Claim 5th Spot on the Omdia North American UCaaS Scorecard

  In May, Omdia released their UC as a Service (UCaaS) Scorecard, ranking the top 10 UCaaS providers in North America. We are proud to say Sangoma not only made the list but earned the 5th spot. Omdia identified the leading service providers in terms of the number of seats for UCaaS in North America and then evaluated them based on the following four criteria:

  • Financial stability
  • Market share momentum
  • Service development
  • Customer reviews

  Sangoma/Star2Star earned the 5th spot because we are in the top 10 in terms of the number of UCaaS seats in North America and because as a financially strong public company we received an excellent score on financial stability.

  We will continue to do our very best to continue to place well in this report.

  To read excerpts of the report, please go here.

  The post Sangoma Proud to Claim 5th Spot on the Omdia North American UCaaS Scorecard appeared first on Sangoma.

• ng-voice ng-voice at the MWC 21: what was it like to return to the most important trade show in our industry?

  From the 28th of June until the 1st of July, the Mobile World Congress 2021 took place in Barcelona, Spain. It is not only the most important global event for the telecommunications industry, but the first hybrid event that we attended after the start of the pandemic, with both an online and an in-person agenda.

   

  With a series of covid-19 prevention measures such as mandatory testing to access the facilities, no touch policy and no exchange of physical materials, the event was smaller than previous editions – however the business interactions were more productive than ever. It was great to safely meet-up with potential customers, suppliers, partners and the general public, be updated about the latest industry trends, and recharge after a long series of lockdown restrictions. 

  

  
  How was ng-voice present at the event?

  ng-voice brought to the MWC our fully containerized and cloud-native IMS core – the first and most containerized IMS core in the market, which was nominated for the GLOMO Awards. We exhibited in this year’s MWC with two booths: an exclusive booth in Hall 1, and as part of the CLOUD CITY by Telco DR in Hall 2. As part of our team of delegates, we had our CEO David Bachmann, our CTO and Founder Carsten Bock, our Chief Technologist Cloud and Virtualization Abdul Basit Alvi, and 5 other team members from both technical and business teams. 

   

  In both booths, we had a live demo of our fully containerized and cloud-native IMS core, allowing attendees to test it and see how easy the setup is. Our flagship product is flexible, scalable, resource-efficient, and easy to deploy and manage, allowing operators and enterprises of any sized to deploy innovative voice services on their LTE/5G networks.

  

  

  

  
  The event’s outcome and expectation for the next year

  We at ng-voice were so excited that the telecom industry could finally come together safely and connect at the MWC21, after over a year of pandemic restrictions. The innovative hybrid model of the event proved to be a success and we hope that it sets the new benchmark for future events. According to our CTO and Founder Carsten Bock, “Being in the epicenter of the industry, meeting with potential clients, partners, and even colleagues, is inspiring. We had great business opportunities, and are looking forward to next year”.

   

  Also, according to our CEO David Bachmann, this year’s MWC proved how new innovative cloud-native players are disrupting the market. “Being a part of the Cloud City by TelcoDR was a great opportunity to showcase the capabilities of cloud-native suppliers. New innovative players like ng-voice are vital to build 100% software-based and cloud-native mobile networks, which are more flexible and secure, and potentially reduce the cost of building and operating 5G networks significantly.”

  Our team at the MWC - opportunity for professional development

  Being at the MWC also brings our team the opportunity to update their market knowledge, fill the needs for self-development, and expand their network. Our Finance and Impact Manager, Seon Lee, tells a bit about how she used the opportunity of being at the MWC to network and bring new ideas to her role at ng-voice.  

   

  I took full advantage of attending in person by scheduling an appointment on the MWC21 networking app connected to LinkedIn and bookmarking the sessions before flying to Barcelona. This gave me a sense of excitement and an overview of what to expect during the four-day conference.

  
  The first session I attended was called “How to Become a More Sustainable Startup?” in the #4YFN – 4 years from now – section. I learned how most businesses like ng-voice are using impact assessment tools and gained ideas on how to implement similar initiatives at ng-voice. After that, I met a representative from Tech2Impact to learn about where to find the relevant, up-to-date resources. I also attended the Diversity4Tech Summit which builds on the success of Women4Tech, reflecting the growing attention and voices in the industry and “expanding conversations to include the wider case for equality, diversity, and inclusion.” While acknowledging the long way to go, seeing new initiatives to push for systematic changes in our industry was inspiring.

  

  

  The next MWC is scheduled to happen in Barcelona from 28th February to 3rd March 2022.

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  Barbara Silva

  Marketing Lead

  Publisher Bio

  After 10 years of working for Telefonica as a Business Development and Marketing Manager, along with developing serval projects in Latin America. Barbara’s plans to connect and share her own experience in Branding and growth strategies with the readers. She enjoys talking about any topics, from Netflix series to Politics, making her a versatile and fun person to talk to.

July 12, 2021

• FreeSWITCH The Instagram ‘Like’ Experiment

  What do ‘likes’ do to our brains? What would happen if we couldn’t see them? Would we be happier without them? Instagram performed an experiment to find out. 

  People have spent years wondering about the addictive nature of social media, writing think pieces and voicing concern for young people who grew up in the digital age. Many tend to believe that social media changes their behavior, and can worsen symptoms of depression and anxiety from the pressure of social validation through numbers that the whole world can see on the internet. 

  About 50% of the global population uses social media in some form – billions of people. So surely, even if we scoff at the idea, we’ve all been there, sharing a photo or a joke and feeling our brains light up with dopamine when the ‘likes’ flood in. Our brains are hardwired to feel good from social interactions, and we read digital social interactions such as a simple ‘like’ in the same way.

  We spend an average of over 2 hours a day scrolling through social media, and we check our smartphones between 83 and 101 times per day. We know other people are looking. And that’s a lot of pressure to deal with. The association we make between social media and deteriorating mental health in young people especially has been popular for over a decade – the early 2010’s were steeped in research and books around the topic. Studies have shown a link between depression and extremely high social media use, notably in teens. And Instagram, image-sharing platform known for its plethora of unrealistic photoshopped-to-death pictures, has been framed as one of the worst culprits.

  So, back in 2019, after years of people blaming the app for its horrible effects on mental health, Instagram decided to test out hiding ‘like’ counts in certain countries. But there was insane backlash to this concept. Many influencers were unhappy with the idea. When using social media to sell products and make money, many worried the removal of ‘likes’ would be catastrophic for spreading around posts and gaining business from advertisers. 

  But it wasn’t that serious. The ability to ‘like’ a post was not removed entirely – instead, in this test phase, a user’s feed would show them how many hearts a post had earned, and it would simply be hidden from public view to remove pressure and unnecessary competition from what was meant to be a fun experience. So, ‘likes’ were never actually removed altogether. Algorithms could still pick up on posts and use ‘likes’ for data-gathering purposes

  After two years of testing, Instagram announced that removing ‘likes’ didn’t really seem to change much. Some people enjoyed the feature, others were annoyed by it. So, in 2021, a compromise was reached: optional ‘like’ counts. The idea is that if you aren’t an influencer, just a person with a normal social media account posting pictures of friends and family and daily life, removing the added stress of ‘like’ counts could be nice. The default, though, will remain as displaying ‘like’ counts, and users have to go out of their way to hide them. A user can now simply opt to hide their own ‘like’ counts from public view, or opt to hide ‘like’ counts on posts in their feeds if they don’t care about what’s trending.

  Not having any public metrics like view counts, likes, and followers could have been quite a revolutionary change to the way we use social media, especially on a platform like Instagram. Very few popular apps function this way, though they exist, such as Snapchat – so we know it can be done. But coincidentally, as this experiment played out since 2019, more studies began to show there might not be as much of a link between social media use and mental health decline as many people once thought.

  A 2021 Oxford University study claims there’s less of a link between technology and deteriorating mental health than we previously believed. This study involved over 430,000 adolescents in the UK and the US since 1991, and though the researchers confirmed a correlation between social media use and depression, it wasn’t a huge link; at least, not nearly enough to support the widespread panic about social media addiction of the past decade. The researchers concluded that the problem with placing the blame on social media use and chasing ‘likes’ for a rise in mental health problems is that it prevents us from having a real conversation about bigger systemic issues that could also be the cause.

  Research like the Oxford University study is meant to challenge the idea that technology is the main cause of mental health problems in young people, not to say heavy social media use is good for us or that addiction to these apps isn’t real. There are so many different factors and correlations when it comes to mental health impact that it’s not so clear-cut. If a person isn’t eating right or getting enough sleep, the impact that has on a person’s health is much, much clearer than social media use, for example. So, while Instagram performed its experiment on removing ‘likes,’ we got some new data that suggests perhaps widespread panic about social media use and chasing those ‘likes’ is a bit misplaced. The researchers instead concluded that we need more transparency from these companies to unlock their data and investigate further into the specifics of how people use social media. 

  Facebook has now followed Instagram in creating an option to hide ‘like’ counts from your view, or to hide your ‘like’ counts from others. But, at the end of the day, visible ‘like’ counts are still the default – for now. Given the backlash to the experiment, it’s unsurprising Instagram never went as far as completely wiping away ‘like’ metrics. So, a happy medium has been reached. ‘Likes’ will stay, but only if you want them to. Companies and influencers don’t have to worry about not being able to see numbers and results gained from posts, but if you find yourself stressing about what should be a fun experience, shutting off the numbers and scrolling through a non-competitive feed is now an option for you.

  If you use Instagram yourself, consider following the FreeSWITCH Project for fun updates on what the team is up to! 

  The post The Instagram ‘Like’ Experiment appeared first on FreeSWITCH.

July 08, 2021

• Digium The Digital Workplace & Connected Workspace Technology

  The concept of the “digital workplace” has become increasingly popular in recent years, especially as necessity dictates that organizations must increasingly rely on cloud-based services. This form of “as-a-Service” software supports virtual rooms for collaborating, communicating, and sharing work with others during times when person-to-person contact is not practical or possible.

  Generally speaking, a digital workplace includes solutions like connected workspaces that support the tasks companies need to conduct business from various devices and locations. Connected workspaces offer many of the common tools, apps, and shared elements for working together while apart, and feeling continuously connected while doing so.

  Digital Workplace Security & Flexibility

  These cutting-edge productivity tools also feature embedded security elements to protect mission-critical workflows, including sensitive files and communications. This aspect–defending against network penetration–is almost universally crucial across any corporate environment.

  In spite of the importance of security, however, it is hardly the only necessary consideration for the remote workforce enterprise. Organizations require a collaborative environment that is device agnostic. Users need to be able to collaborate, regardless of their hardware – and, in some cases, software – of choice. A virtual workplace must also support specific, common connected worker apps and collaboration tools, while simultaneously backing up one’s vertical integration plans as the application is moved up the supply chain.

  Finally, there is always the need for automated provisioning to reduce and eliminate complexity within the day-to-day work environment. No longer are workers’ bound by extensive binders of notes when collaborating with their peers. Today’s workforce can have access to all of the tools and resources needed to accomplish complex tasks, potentially from a device no larger than one’s cellphone.

  Connected Workspaces Are The Future Of Work

  Of course, the benefits to deploying such a package are far more extensive than simply easing the burden of one’s remote workforce. One of the most practical reasons to use the software is to save money. Enterprises continually point to cost-savings benefits by eliminating physical facilities, overhead, and travel expenses. Plus, employees tend to be more productive and happy when they save money on gas, tolls, vehicle wear-and-tear, and other incidentals of travel.

  This comfort has the added benefit of bolstering employee productivity. With all of the necessary tools and resources made virtually available (in addition to the added benefit of a full night’s rest), staffers can simultaneously work faster and accomplish more, regardless of their physical location.

  As a result, whether the organization faces restrictions from a global pandemic, or simply needing a more personal touch from across the miles, digital workplace options are an effective answer to extending versatility.

  The post The Digital Workplace & Connected Workspace Technology appeared first on Sangoma.

July 06, 2021

• Digium Unified Communications & Going Back to Work

  We’re starting to see companies calling their remote workers back to work. Some have been doing it quietly, and some have been doing it more publicly. Take a drive at rush hour in your city, and you’ll see this is already happening. In Dallas, where I live, it seems like it’s back to 2019 already during rush hour.

  Yes, if vaccinated, you likely feel better about going back to work and interacting with people outside ‘your bubble’ again. But for a while, I think, it won’t really feel like normal. Many companies will likely still limit the number of people in a conference room, and many companies will probably not ask you to be in 100% of the time.

  We all know the benefits of Unified Communications when working remotely. Unified Communication systems that enable your office phone number to ring your smartphone and your laptop so you can interact with customers while remote along with chat and video will still play critical roles for remote workers.

  But for employees at the office, UC still plays a significant role. You can “leave” your office to work at a nicer or quieter part of the building and not worry about missing phone calls. You can still have video meetings and collaborate with co-workers via sharing files, no matter where they are. Make the UC system you got to know so much better over the past 15 months work for you.

  The post Unified Communications & Going Back to Work appeared first on Sangoma.

July 02, 2021

• Emmanuel Schmidbauer kamailio: nats module

  I recently published a new module for kamailio which allows it to connect to NATS and consume messages using queue groups

  NATS is a very cool distributed messaging system. One of my favorite things about NATS is, there are no brokers and it’s extremely easy to setup. You can setup a nats-server cluster in about 2 minutes, connect kamailio to it and start receiving messages inside your kamailio routing configuration. Once kamailio connects to the cluster, any of the nats-servers (as long as one nats-server remains up) can be taken down without any impact to the publishers or consumers.

  In this post, I will show an example of a simple NATS cluster with two nodes and sample kamailio configuration to connect to the cluster.

  NATS Cluster

  In this example, node1 will have an IP Address of 10.10.10.11, and node2 will be 10.10.10.12.

  After you have downloaded and installed nats-server to your system. Setup node1 with the configuration file (server.conf):

  listen: 0.0.0.0:4222
  http: 0.0.0.0:8222
  
  cluster {
    listen: 10.10.10.11:4248
    routes = [
      nats-route://10.10.10.12:4248
    ]
  }

  Setup node2 with the configuration file (server.conf):

  listen: 0.0.0.0:4222
  http: 0.0.0.0:8222
  
  cluster {
    listen: 10.10.10.12:4248
    routes = [
      nats-route://10.10.10.11:4248
    ]
  }

  Start nats-server with the following command on each node:
  ./nats-server -c ./server.conf

  Kamailio Setup

  You will need to compile the NATS module since nats.c is not shipped with Debian. Once it’s compiled, you can load the module with a configuration like:

  loadmodule "nats.so"
  modparam("nats", "nats_url", "nats://10.10.10.11:4222")
  modparam("nats", "nats_url", "nats://10.10.10.12:4222")
  modparam("nats", "subject_queue_group", "voxcom:kamailio")
  
  event_route[nats:connected] {
      xlog("L_INFO", "nats connected!");
  }
  
  event_route[nats:disconnected] {
      xlog("L_INFO", "nats disconnected!");
  }
  
  event_route[nats:voxcom] {
      xlog("L_INFO", "nats payload received [$natsData]\n");
  }

  Sample NATS Publisher

  Below is a simple go application which will publish a message on the voxcom subject.

  package main
  
  import (
  	"log"
  
  	"github.com/nats-io/nats.go"
  )
  
  func main() {
  	nc, err := nats.Connect("10.10.10.12:4222", nats.Name("example"))
  	if err != nil {
  		log.Fatal(err)
  	}
  	defer nc.Close()
  
  	if err := nc.Publish("voxcom", []byte("hello kamailio")); err != nil {
  		log.Fatal(err)
  	}
  }

  Run the application with go run main.go
  You should see the “hello kamailio” text in your kamailio log.

  Stop the nats-server on node1

  If you are running nats-server in foreground, hit CTRL+C to stop it on node1.

  Kamailio should indicate disconnect from node1 but stay connected to node2. You should be able to run the go app and still publish messages. Even if both nodes go down, the nats module will automatically reconnect and begin consuming messages again.

  Documentation on the NATS module can be found here: https://www.kamailio.org/docs/modules/devel/modules/nats

June 29, 2021

• Digium Is a Video-centric Business Communication System the Right Way Forward?

  While Internet-based communication such as social media, chat, video, chatbots and push-to-talk are gaining ground, and will continue to gain ground each year, at this time still the primary real-time business communication mechanism is still voice. As referenced in an earlier blog, video is garnering all the headlines and video calls with partners and even some customers occur regularly now, and will certainly stay around to become a way to continue to communicate, but video-centricity as a way to communicate with customers is short-sighted. Because the primary real-time communication mechanism is voice.

  Making a phone call! And the making of a phone call, while sounding simple, has much that goes into it. For instance, there is a difference in making a domestic and international phone call. The dialing plans are different and the carrier interconnects are different. And call routing and setting up those rules within the business is also difficult.

  As such, when considering what type of UC platform to buy, choosing one with roots in voice, but that can also handle video, is critical right now. As discussed above, while video-based communication was all the rage in 2020, and as it continues to play a role going forward, your entire business needs to take into account its needs before your business marries a video-centric provider. Did you make that choice for your business for the long term, or are you doing it because it helped you this year? What about next year, when you need less video and more of voice and SMS?

  The post Is a Video-centric Business Communication System the Right Way Forward? appeared first on Sangoma.

June 24, 2021

• Digium Sangoma Wins 2021 Visionary Spotlight Award For Digital Transformation

  Sangoma Technologies Corporation, a trusted leader in delivering cloud-native Communications-as-a-Service solutions for businesses of all sizes, today announced that they were recognized as a 2021 Visionary Spotlight Award (VSA) winner by ChannelVision Magazine, presented by Beka Business Media.

  The 2021 Visionary Spotlight Award winners were recognized for their unique ability to navigate change, adapt to shifting buying patterns, and remain operational despite the challenges of the global COVID-19 pandemic. Sangoma’s highlighting achievement in digital transformation includes the expansion of their complete cloud portfolio to become the industry’s most complete UCaaS solutions provider. Sangoma’s product suite includes leading remote work technologies, custom development and integration options, and VDI for seamless connectivity to mission-critical processes from anywhere.

  “On behalf of ChannelVision, I would like to congratulate all of this year’s VSA winners,” said Beka Business Media President and CEO Berge Kaprelian. “The companies on this year’s list are highly resilient and resourceful, having made it through the pandemic while remaining on the cutting edge of innovation.”

  “We are honored to be recognized as leaders in digital transformation, especially in the midst of such difficult circumstances,” said Jim Machi, VP of Product Management and Marketing, Sangoma. “We owe it to our incredible Partners, Customers, and dedicated Employees for keeping us going. Our mission is always to move forward and create new and better technologies that help businesses thrive. We are pleased to have accomplished that and are looking forward to more exciting things on the horizon!”

  The post Sangoma Wins 2021 Visionary Spotlight Award For Digital Transformation appeared first on Sangoma.

June 22, 2021

• Digium Going to ITEXPO 2021

  Tomorrow I’ll be heading off to ITEXPO, an event I’ve been to countless times before. I may have even been to every single ITEXPO that TMC has ever held. Except this time, it will be different. There will be no shaking hands (for me anyway, still not quite there yet), and I’ll probably have a mask on much of the time. And many of the people I know well from being in this industry a long time and typically see a couple of times a year wouldn’t have seen since the last ITEXPO.

  Because the last ITEXPO was the last event before we all shut down. And this ITEXPO is the first event since some semblance of normalcy is returning.

  And in that respect, this ITEXPO will be the same as all the other ITEXPOs I’ve been to. I’ll be in a lot of business meetings. And I already have many business meetings set up. And I’ll try and go to a few talks when I have time. Just like all the other ITEXPOs.

  I’m looking forward to it and looking forward to many more!

  The post Going to ITEXPO 2021 appeared first on Sangoma.

June 18, 2021

• ng-voice ng-voice is exhibiting at the MWC Barcelona 2021 – From June 28th to July 1st

  This year, the GSMA returns with the Mobile World Congress Barcelona 2021, the world’s biggest connectivity event. From the 28th of June to the 1st of July, attendees can visit ng-voice in person following safety measures or virtually. We are located at TelcoDR’s CLOUD CITY in Hall 2 Stand 2O60, and in our own booth in Hall 1 Stand 1I49. 

   

  Meet our fully containerized and cloud-native IMS core, which is bringing a completely new approach to mobile infrastructure software and was nominated for this year’s GLOMO Awards. Based on Kubernetes architecture, with the smallest container sizes, high level of automation, and efficient use of resources, our IMS core is scalable, flexible, and easy to deploy and manage, offering operators and enterprises of any size innovative voice services on LTE/5G networks.

  About the MWC

  The GSMA’s MWC is the world’s largest exhibition for the mobile industry. It brings a thought-leadership conference featuring the most important executives representing global mobile operators, device manufacturers, technology providers, vendors, and content owners.

  This year’s edition is about Connected Impact, a theme which fosters the most ground-breaking technology of today and explores how it can shape the way we live tomorrow. The event is where our industry meets to discuss future trends and define the path of our businesses.

  About TelcoDR’s CLOUD CITY

  TelcoDR has taken over Ericsson’s landmark space in Hall 2, in the heart of one of the world’s largest telco events, to create a ‘Cloud City’ that will be the center of gravity for public cloud vendors and evangelists at MWC Barcelona. 

   

  CLOUD CITY will educate and inspire telco executives, both virtually and in person. TelcoDR believes the future of telecom can best be delivered by the public cloud and is going to prove it live with the most cloud-native innovative players in the market taking the central stage at the MWC 21. 

   

  To meet ng-voice at the MWC 2021, in person or virtually, please contact us at info@ng-voice.com.

  Share this article via:

  Share on facebook

  Facebook

  Share on linkedin

  LinkedIn

  Share on twitter

  Twitter

  

  Barbara Silva

  Marketing Lead

  Publisher Bio

  After 10 years of working for Telefonica as a Business Development and Marketing Manager, along with developing serval projects in Latin America. Barbara’s plans to connect and share her own experience in Branding and growth strategies with the readers. She enjoys talking about any topics, from Netflix series to Politics, making her a versatile and fun person to talk to.
• ng-voice ng-voice is exhibiting at the MWC Barcelona 2021 – From June 28th to July 1st

  This year, the GSMA returns with the Mobile World Congress Barcelona 2021, the world’s biggest connectivity event. From the 28th of June to the 1st of July, attendees can visit ng-voice in person following safety measures or virtually. We are located at TelcoDR’s CLOUD CITY in Hall 2 Stand 2O60, and in our own booth in Hall 1 Stand 1I49. 

   

  Meet our fully containerized and cloud-native IMS core, which is bringing a completely new approach to mobile infrastructure software and was nominated for this year’s GLOMO Awards. Based on Kubernetes architecture, with the smallest container sizes, high level of automation, and efficient use of resources, our IMS core is scalable, flexible, and easy to deploy and manage, offering operators and enterprises of any size innovative voice services on LTE/5G networks.

  About the MWC

  The GSMA’s MWC is the world’s largest exhibition for the mobile industry. It brings a thought-leadership conference featuring the most important executives representing global mobile operators, device manufacturers, technology providers, vendors, and content owners.

   

  This year’s edition is about Connected Impact, a theme which fosters the most ground-breaking technology of today and explores how it can shape the way we live tomorrow. The event is where our industry meets to discuss future trends and define the path of our businesses.

  About TelcoDR’s CLOUD CITY

  TelcoDR has taken over Ericsson’s landmark space in Hall 2, in the heart of one of the world’s largest telco events, to create a ‘Cloud City’ that will be the center of gravity for public cloud vendors and evangelists at MWC Barcelona. 

   

  CLOUD CITY will educate and inspire telco executives, both virtually and in person. TelcoDR believes the future of telecom can best be delivered by the public cloud and is going to prove it live with the most cloud-native innovative players in the market taking the central stage at the MWC 21. 

   

  To meet ng-voice at the MWC 2021, in person or virtually, please contact us at info@ng-voice.com.

  Share this article via:

  Share on facebook

  Facebook

  Share on linkedin

  LinkedIn

  Share on twitter

  Twitter

  

  Barbara Silva

  Marketing Lead

  Publisher Bio

  After 10 years of working for Telefonica as a Business Development and Marketing Manager, along with developing serval projects in Latin America. Barbara’s plans to connect and share her own experience in Branding and growth strategies with the readers. She enjoys talking about any topics, from Netflix series to Politics, making her a versatile and fun person to talk to.

June 17, 2021

• Digium The Continuing Journey Of Cloud Education Technology

  School’s out for summer, so this is the perfect time to reflect on the learning technologies that help students and teachers succeed. With the chaos of an abrupt switch to virtual learning behind us, there are many opportunities to learn how we can overcome past challenges in adopting new technology.

  With the switch to remote learning in various stages of adoption across the country, cloud-native solutions were an obvious choice for many schools. Although the COVID-19 Pandemic sped up the process for many counties and school districts, there are still many unknowns for fully adopting new technologies.

  Cloud Education Technology Integration

  Students in a K-12 setting are still learning about their own individual learning styles, and cloud-native solutions allow them to explore different learning styles in a setting which can give them the best chance at success. While there are plenty of challenges in an entirely virtual environment, students are learning new ways to adapt. The ability to learn from home and not be tied to a physical classroom offers increased flexibility, fewer logistical distractions and challenges, and may even help motivated students to learn at more advanced levels.

  A dual system, virtual and physical, can also be applied and with the help of CaaS. These systems of integration are important, not only for access to information, but also as a learning tool for the types of technologies that students will continue to encounter once they leave school. Familiarity with common technologies is a basic skill requirement for most workers.

  Higher Education

  More frequently than ever, people are entering higher education. As the number of students seeking higher education increases, the cost to both students and educational institutions follows suit. These costs are shouldered primarily by the students themselves, shown in increased tuition costs and debt. Cloud computing is a solution to this phenomenon, as it allows institutions to exponentially increase their offered technological solutions to their students and faculty with decreased costs rather than increased costs.

  Technological solutions in higher education are now necessary; one of the major roadblocks for many higher education institutions is the necessary migration of their older systems to a newer, more streamlined and robust system. Fortunately, cloud-native platforms and knowledgeable solution providers can make the transition as painless as possible with little to no downtime.

  The Ongoing Challenge

  As more of the world turns to technology for its solutions to problems, the world of education is falling behind, struggling to keep up with emerging technologies. Both higher and lower educational institutions have not yet reached their full potential for technological advantages, let alone cloud computing.

  As virtual learning has taken a front seat with the current events of the world at play, robust technological solutions are more important than ever. Students have access to technology that can help them learn even in stressful situations and the skills they learn in navigating those technologies will help them as they continue to grow and learn.

  Remote learning technology is here to stay, and cloud computing is a growing industry that has already had an impact on educational facilities across the globe. Slowly but surely, the rest of the educational world will begin to adopt these new technologies and learn how to use them to benefit students and faculty alike.

  The post The Continuing Journey Of Cloud Education Technology appeared first on Sangoma.

June 15, 2021

• Digium Connecting with Customers and Co-Workers in Today and Tomorrow’s Reality: Part 2

  Why is communicating with customers and co-workers different? Let’s start with connecting with co-workers. In a work environment, we all have the same tools, so it’s easy to chat / instant message, go to the Intranet, or place calls. Indeed, we’ve all been on a lot of video calls.

  You can say video calls have replaced what we used to call “conference calls.” It’s to the point where setting up video calls in meeting invites is now de rigueur. Also, you can quickly start conversations with chat that might seamlessly switch to video calls because we’re so used to it now. We’ve been on so many video calls lexicon such as “video meeting fatigue” has entered everyday usage.

  With customers, it’s very different.

  Customers don’t have the same connected tools as you do and aren’t behind your firewalls anyway. So, a click on the same tool is not so easy. Connecting with customers is more varied.

  Many customers just want to make an appointment, call about an issue, or find out what time you are open (or even if you are open). As such, with customers, the name of the game is to offer as much self-help as possible and be available in real-time when needed. Thus, we see what at one time were genuine innovations such as phone apps, websites, and IVRs now become centerpieces of today’s customer communication.

  But there is also a need for real-time communications, and we see the need for multi-modal forms of real-time communications such as texting, chat, and apps, in addition to voice. In this case, video is part of the overall picture but not nearly as front and center as intra-company communication. As such, real-time business communication is pretty nuanced, and video is not the centerpiece. In next week’s blog, we’ll examine why video not being the centerpiece of customer communications could present a problem if you choose a video-centric business communication system.

  The post Connecting with Customers and Co-Workers in Today and Tomorrow’s Reality: Part 2 appeared first on Sangoma.

June 14, 2021

• WebRTC Hacks FaceTime finally faces WebRTC – implementation deep dive

  Deep dive analysis on how FaceTime for Web uses WebRTC. Philipp "Fippo" Hancke uses webrtc-internals, Wireshark, and reviews the JavaScript implementation to expose Apple's implementation details.

  The post FaceTime finally faces WebRTC – implementation deep dive appeared first on webrtcHacks.

June 11, 2021

• FreeSWITCH The Remote Work Revolution is Here

  In a post-COVID world, what’s going to happen to all those office jobs that went remote last year? In mid-2021, as vaccines roll out across the globe, more and more companies are having to grapple with this question. It’s estimated there’s been an 87% increase in remote work from pre-pandemic levels. Now that more workers than ever have had a taste of what it means to work remotely, will they give it up without a fight? Will they even have to? 

  The FreeSWITCH project and SignalWire have been staffed with fully remote employees since the beginning. For tech jobs in particular, this isn’t as uncommon as it is in some other fields. And those that work in tech love their remote jobs – recently, in a survey by Hackajob, 86% of tech professionals disclosed they never want to go back to the office full-time. Many employees are open to the idea of a hybrid work environment, where they might go to the office a few days a week, but not being able to work from home at all is becoming a huge deal breaker as the world slowly opens back up.

  The benefits of working remotely are undeniable, for employees and employers alike. Many surveys and polls have been conducted over the past year to provide some data and clarity on the situation. Certainly, COVID being the driving force of working remotely complicated things a little bit – being forced to stay at home in unusual situations, stuck with rowdy children or not being able to leave or see another person for days at a time, aren’t situations that accurately represent the typical state of the world or working remotely.

  In spite of these challenges, working remotely has been viewed positively by most who have tried it. And many benefits were provided to workers without losing productivity! In a survey by Mercer, 94% of employers said productivity was the same or higher than before the pandemic. As many as 30% of workers believe that they’re even more productive working from home than in an office. And is this really surprising? Remote workers have no commute, less or no small office talk, and more time for family and exercise during the day, leading to a higher quality of life and better work-life balance. A survey report by Owl Labs showed that remote workers are 22% happier than workers always on site in an office. And why wouldn’t a less exhausted, happier employee be more productive and enthusiastic about work? 

  This same survey by Owl Labs collected a few snippets of data to highlight the benefits of remote work. Employees save both time and money leaving the traditional commute behind: an average of 40 minutes per day, and an estimated $6000 per year. On top of that, 20-25% of companies are paying at least part of the cost for equipment and furniture. And monetary benefits extend to employers too! It’s estimated that companies can save up to $11,000 per year per employee when ditching the office from a combination of reduced office costs, increased worker productivity, and less turnover. Not to mention attracting top talent – 59% of those surveyed said they would be more likely to choose an employer that offered remote work over one that did not. 

  When talking about worker benefits from working remotely, it’s impossible not to zoom in on the lack of commute a little bit more closely. It is consistently listed as being the best quality of remote work, far ahead of factors like flexible childcare, hanging out with pets during the day or wearing sweatpants to meetings. In the U.S. in particular, 2019 time spent stuck in traffic was as much as 70-120 hours per year for the typical commuter – a number that dropped to a national average of 23 hours in 2020. Collectively, people saved 3.4 billion hours in commute time, according to a report by Automotive News. The benefits extend beyond individual workers to the planet as a whole when 28% of greenhouse gas emissions come from cars and 86% of U.S. workers drive a private vehicle. When time spent on the road is cut significantly, a positive impact on the environment is the direct result.

  All these benefits are clearly no small thing. They upgrade quality of life in almost every way imaginable, and employees are prepared to quit instead of giving them up. A Bloomberg poll asserts that 39% of workers would quit before going back to the office. And that number rises to 49% for Gen-Z and Millennials. Remote work is so desirable it even undercuts monetary considerations – 23% of those surveyed said they would take a 10% pay cut in order to keep working remotely permanently. 

  Some executives, however, are pushing the importance of working in person, claiming remote work diminishes collaboration and company culture. As many as 29% of executives surveyed by PwC believe at least 3 days per week in the office are required to maintain company culture, and 21% believe 5 full days are needed. The number that believe no days at all are necessary was a measly 5%. 44% of companies still don’t allow remote work, and a mere 16% of companies hire remote-only workers. So will companies be able to keep up with worker demand for more remote jobs?

  It’s difficult to know where this is all heading; at the moment, less than 30% of workers are back in the office. In spite of this, it’s been estimated the percentage of employees working remotely full time could nearly double in 2021 from last year. And none of this is even to mention that many employees still have concerns about unvaccinated colleagues and COVID precautions. Let’s not forget that though things are getting better in some places, the pandemic rages on. But pandemic or not, if everyone is saving money and time, is happier and more productive, why shouldn’t we embrace working remotely as a common fact of modern life?

  The post The Remote Work Revolution is Here appeared first on FreeSWITCH.

• François Marier Using a Let's Encrypt TLS certificate with Asterisk 16.2

  In order to fix the following error after setting up SIP TLS in Asterisk 16.2:

  asterisk[8691]: ERROR[8691]: tcptls.c:966 in __ssl_setup: TLS/SSL error loading cert file. <asterisk.pem>
  

  I created a Let's Encrypt certificate using certbot:

  apt install certbot
  certbot certonly --standalone -d hostname.example.com
  

  To enable the asterisk user to load the certificate successfuly (it doesn't have permission to access the certificates under /etc/letsencrypt/), I copied it to the right directory:

  cp /etc/letsencrypt/live/hostname.example.com/privkey.pem /etc/asterisk/asterisk.key
  cp /etc/letsencrypt/live/hostname.example.com/fullchain.pem /etc/asterisk/asterisk.cert
  chown asterisk:asterisk /etc/asterisk/asterisk.cert /etc/asterisk/asterisk.key
  chmod go-rwx /etc/asterisk/asterisk.cert /etc/asterisk/asterisk.key
  

  Then I set the following variables in /etc/asterisk/sip.conf:

  tlscertfile=/etc/asterisk/asterisk.cert
  tlsprivatekey=/etc/asterisk/asterisk.key
  

  Automatic renewal

  The machine on which I run asterisk has a tricky Apache setup:

  • a webserver is running on port 80
  • port 80 is restricted to the local network

  This meant that the certbot domain ownership checks would get blocked by the firewall, and I couldn't open that port without exposing the private webserver to the Internet.

  So I ended up disabling the built-in certbot renewal mechanism:

  systemctl disable certbot.timer certbot.service
  systemctl stop certbot.timer certbot.service
  

  and then writing my own script in /etc/cron.daily/certbot-francois:

  #!/bin/bash
  TEMPFILE=`mktemp`
  
  # Stop Apache and backup firewall.
  /bin/systemctl stop apache2.service
  /usr/sbin/iptables-save > $TEMPFILE
  
  # Open up port 80 to the whole world.
  /usr/sbin/iptables -D INPUT -j LOGDROP
  /usr/sbin/iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 80 -j ACCEPT
  /usr/sbin/iptables -A INPUT -j LOGDROP
  
  # Renew all certs.
  /usr/bin/certbot renew --quiet
  
  # Restore firewall and restart Apache.
  /usr/sbin/iptables -D INPUT -p tcp --dport 80 -j ACCEPT
  /usr/sbin/iptables-restore < $TEMPFILE
  /bin/systemctl start apache2.service
  
  # Copy certificate into asterisk.
  cp /etc/letsencrypt/live/hostname.example.com/privkey.pem /etc/asterisk/asterisk.key
  cp /etc/letsencrypt/live/hostname.example.com/fullchain.pem /etc/asterisk/asterisk.cert
  chown asterisk:asterisk /etc/asterisk/asterisk.cert /etc/asterisk/asterisk.key
  chmod go-rwx /etc/asterisk/asterisk.cert /etc/asterisk/asterisk.key
  /bin/systemctl restart asterisk.service
  
  # Commit changes to etckeeper.
  pushd /etc/ > /dev/null
  /usr/bin/git add letsencrypt asterisk
  DIFFSTAT="$(/usr/bin/git diff --cached --stat)"
  if [ -n "$DIFFSTAT" ] ; then
      /usr/bin/git commit --quiet -m "Renewed letsencrypt certs." letsencrypt asterisk
      echo "$DIFFSTAT"
  fi
  popd > /dev/null
  

• François Marier SIP Encryption on VoIP.ms

  My VoIP provider recently added support for TLS/SRTP-based call encryption. Here's what I did to enable this feature on my Asterisk server.

  First of all, I changed the registration line in /etc/asterisk/sip.conf to use the "tls" scheme:

  [general]
  register => tls://mydid:mypassword@servername.voip.ms
  

  then I enabled incoming TCP connections:

  tcpenable=yes
  

  and TLS:

  tlsenable=yes
  tlscapath=/etc/ssl/certs/
  

  Finally, I changed my provider entry in the same file to:

  [voipms]
  type=friend
  host=servername.voip.ms
  secret=mypassword
  username=mydid
  context=from-voipms
  allow=ulaw
  allow=g729
  insecure=port,invite
  transport=tls
  encryption=yes
  

  (Note the last two lines.)

  The dialplan didn't change and so I still have the following in /etc/asterisk/extensions.conf:

  [pstn-voipms]
  exten => _1NXXNXXXXXX,1,Set(CALLERID(all)=Francois Marier <5551234567>)
  exten => _1NXXNXXXXXX,n,Dial(SIP/voipms/${EXTEN})
  exten => _1NXXNXXXXXX,n,Hangup()
  exten => _NXXNXXXXXX,1,Set(CALLERID(all)=Francois Marier <5551234567>)
  exten => _NXXNXXXXXX,n,Dial(SIP/voipms/1${EXTEN})
  exten => _NXXNXXXXXX,n,Hangup()
  exten => _011X.,1,Set(CALLERID(all)=Francois Marier <5551234567>)
  exten => _011X.,n,Authenticate(1234) ; require password for international calls
  exten => _011X.,n,Dial(SIP/voipms/${EXTEN})
  exten => _011X.,n,Hangup(16)
  

  Server certificate

  After setting everything up, I saw the following error in my logs:

  asterisk[8691]: ERROR[8691]: tcptls.c:966 in __ssl_setup: TLS/SSL error loading cert file. <asterisk.pem>
  

  due to the fact that I didn't set tlscertfile in /etc/asterisk/sip.conf and that it's using its default value of asterisk.pem, a non-existent file.

  I initially thought that since my Asterisk server is only acting as a TLS client, and not a TLS server, there's probably no harm in not having a certificate. In practice however, my TLS connection was a little unreliable and it would regularly fail with the following TLS errors:

  asterisk[534775]: ERROR[534879]: iostream.c:538 in ast_iostream_close: SSL_shutdown() failed: error:00000005:lib(0):func(0):DH lib, Underlying BIO error: Broken pipe
  asterisk[534775]: ERROR[610289]: tcptls.c:553 in ast_tcptls_client_start: Unable to connect SIP socket to w.x.y.z:5061: Connection refused
  asterisk[534775]: ERROR[610289]: tcptls.c:553 in ast_tcptls_client_start: Unable to connect SIP socket to w.x.y.z:5061: Connection reset by peer
  

  I therefore decided to setup a Let's Encrypt certificate in Asterisk to eliminate the original error.

  Firewall

  This originally appeared not to be necessary, but I found that I ran into a number of intermittent connection errors such as:

  asterisk[1280841]: ERROR[1537920]: tcptls.c:553 in ast_tcptls_client_start: Unable to connect SIP socket to w.x.y.z:5061: Connection reset by peer
  

  and so I put the official firewall recommendations in /etc/network/iptables.up.rules:

  # SIP and RTP on TCP/UDP (servername.voip.ms)
  -A INPUT -s w.x.y.z/32 -p tcp --dport 5061 -j ACCEPT
  -A INPUT -s w.x.y.z/32 -p udp --sport 5004:5005 --dport 10001:20000 -j ACCEPT
  

  where w.x.y.z is the IP address of servername.voip.ms as returned by dig +short servername.voip.ms.

• François Marier Making SIP calls to VoIP.ms subscribers without using the PSTN

  If you want to reach a VoIP.ms subscriber from Asterisk without using the PSTN, there is a way to do so via SIP URIs.

  Here's what I added to my /etc/asterisk/extensions.conf:

  exten => 1234,1,Set(CALLERID(all)=Francois Marier <5555551234>)
  exten => 1234,n,Dial(SIP/sip.voip.ms/5555556789)
  

• François Marier Encrypted connection between SIP phones using Asterisk

  Here is the setup I put together to have two SIP phones connect together over an encrypted channel. Since the two phones do not support encryption, I used Asterisk to provide the encrypted channel over the Internet.

  Installing Asterisk

  First of all, each VoIP phone is in a different physical location and so I installed an Asterisk server in each house.

  One of the server is a Debian stretch machine and the other runs Ubuntu bionic 18.04. Regardless, I used a fairly standard configuration and simply installed the asterisk package on both machines:

  apt install asterisk
  

  SIP phones

  The two phones, both Snom 300, connect to their local asterisk server on its local IP address and use the same details as I have put in /etc/asterisk/sip.conf:

  [1000]
  type=friend
  qualify=yes
  secret=password1
  encryption=no
  context=internal
  host=dynamic
  nat=no
  canreinvite=yes
  mailbox=1000@internal
  vmexten=707
  dtmfmode=rfc2833
  call-limit=2
  disallow=all
  allow=g722
  allow=ulaw
  

  Dialplan and voicemail

  The extension number above (1000) maps to the following configuration blurb in /etc/asterisk/extensions.conf:

  [home]
  exten => 1000,1,Dial(SIP/1000,20)
  exten => 1000,n,Goto(in1000-${DIALSTATUS},1)
  exten => 1000,n,Hangup
  exten => in1000-BUSY,1,Hangup(17)
  exten => in1000-CONGESTION,1,Hangup(3)
  exten => in1000-CHANUNAVAIL,1,VoiceMail(1000@mailboxes,su)
  exten => in1000-CHANUNAVAIL,n,Hangup(3)
  exten => in1000-NOANSWER,1,VoiceMail(1000@mailboxes,su)
  exten => in1000-NOANSWER,n,Hangup(16)
  exten => _in1000-.,1,Hangup(16)
  

  the internal context maps to the following blurb in /etc/asterisk/extensions.conf:

  [internal]
  include => home
  include => iax2users
  exten => 707,1,VoiceMailMain(1000@mailboxes)
  

  and 1000@mailboxes maps to the following entry in /etc/asterisk/voicemail.conf:

  [mailboxes]
  1000 => 1234,home,person@email.com
  

  (with 1234 being the voicemail PIN).

  Encrypted IAX links

  In order to create a virtual link between the two servers using the IAX protocol, I created user credentials on each server in /etc/asterisk/iax.conf:

  [iaxuser]
  type=user
  auth=md5
  secret=password2
  context=iax2users
  allow=g722
  allow=speex
  encryption=aes128
  trunk=no
  

  then I created an entry for the other server in the same file:

  [server2]
  type=peer
  host=server2.dyn.fmarier.org
  auth=md5
  secret=password2
  username=iaxuser
  allow=g722
  allow=speex
  encryption=yes
  forceencrypt=yes
  trunk=no
  qualify=yes
  

  The second machine contains the same configuration with the exception of the server name (server1 instead of server2) and hostname (server1.dyn.fmarier.org instead of server2.dyn.fmarier.org).

  Speed dial for the other phone

  Finally, to allow each phone to ring one another by dialing 2000, I put the following in /etc/asterisk/extensions.conf:

  [iax2users]
  include => home
  exten => 2000,1,Set(CALLERID(all)=Francois Marier <2000>)
  exten => 2000,2,Dial(IAX2/server1/1000)
  

  and of course a similar blurb on the other machine:

  [iax2users]
  include => home
  exten => 2000,1,Set(CALLERID(all)=Other Person <2000>)
  exten => 2000,2,Dial(IAX2/server2/1000)
  

  Firewall rules

  Since we are using the IAX protocol instead of SIP, there is only one port to open in /etc/network/iptables.up.rules for the remote server:

  # IAX2 protocol
  -A INPUT -s x.x.x.x/y -p udp --dport 4569 -j ACCEPT
  

  where x.x.x.x/y is the IP range allocated to the ISP that the other machine is behind.

  If you want to restrict traffic on the local network as well, then these ports need to be open for the SIP phone to be able to connect to its local server:

  # VoIP phones (internal)
  -A INPUT -s 192.168.1.3/32 -p udp --dport 5060 -j ACCEPT
  -A INPUT -s 192.168.1.3/32 -p udp --dport 10000:20000 -j ACCEPT
  

  where 192.168.1.3 is the static IP address allocated to the SIP phone.

• François Marier Connecting a VoIP phone directly to an Asterisk server

  On my Asterisk server, I happen to have two on-board ethernet boards. Since I only used one of these, I decided to move my VoIP phone from the local network switch to being connected directly to the Asterisk server.

  The main advantage is that this phone, running proprietary software of unknown quality, is no longer available on my general home network. Most importantly though, it no longer has access to the Internet, without my having to firewall it manually.

  Here's how I configured everything.

  Private network configuration

  On the server, I started by giving the second network interface a static IP address in /etc/network/interfaces:

  auto eth1
  iface eth1 inet static
      address 192.168.2.2
      netmask 255.255.255.0
  

  On the VoIP phone itself, I set the static IP address to 192.168.2.3 and the DNS server to 192.168.2.2. I then updated the SIP registrar IP address to 192.168.2.2.

  The DNS server actually refers to an unbound daemon running on the Asterisk server. The only configuration change I had to make was to listen on the second interface and allow the VoIP phone in:

  server:
      interface: 127.0.0.1
      interface: 192.168.2.2
      access-control: 0.0.0.0/0 refuse
      access-control: 127.0.0.1/32 allow
      access-control: 192.168.2.3/32 allow
  

  Finally, I opened the right ports on the server's firewall in /etc/network/iptables.up.rules:

  -A INPUT -s 192.168.2.3/32 -p udp --dport 5060 -j ACCEPT
  -A INPUT -s 192.168.2.3/32 -p tcp --dport 5060 -j ACCEPT
  -A INPUT -s 192.168.2.3/32 -p udp --dport 10000:20000 -j ACCEPT
  

  Network time synchronization

  In order for the phone to update its clock automatically using NTP, I installed chrony on the Asterisk server:

  apt install chrony
  

  then I configured it to listen on the private network interface and allow access from the VoIP phone by adding the following to /etc/chrony/chrony.conf:

  bindaddress 192.168.2.2
  allow 192.168.2.3
  

  Finally, I opened the right firewall port by adding a new rule to /etc/network/iptables.up.rules:

  -A INPUT -s 192.168.2.3 -p udp --dport 123 -j ACCEPT
  

  Accessing the admin page

  Now that the VoIP phone is no longer available on the local network, it's not possible to access its admin page. That's a good thing from a security point of view, but it's somewhat inconvenient.

  Therefore I put the following in my ~/.ssh/config to make the admin page available on http://localhost:8081 after I connect to the Asterisk server via ssh:

  Host asterisk
      LocalForward 8081 192.168.2.3:80
  

  Allowing calls between local SIP devices

  Because this local device is not connected to the local network (192.168.1.0/24), it's unable to negotiate a direct media connection to any other local (i.e. one connected to the same Asterisk server) SIP device. What this means is that while calls might get connected successfully, by default, there will not be any audio in a call.

  In order for the two local SIP devices to be able to hear one another, we must enforce that all media be routed via Asterisk instead of going directly from one device to the other. This can be done using the directmedia directive (formerly canreinvite) in sip.conf:

  [1234]
  directmedia=no
  

  where 1234 is the extension of the phone.

• François Marier Mysterious 'everybody is busy/congested at this time' error in Asterisk

  I was trying to figure out why I was getting a BUSY signal from Asterisk while trying to ring a SIP phone even though that phone was not in use.

  My asterisk setup looks like this:

  phone 1 <--SIP--> asterisk 1 <==IAX2==> asterisk 2 <--SIP--> phone 2
  

  While I couldn't call SIP phone #2 from SIP phone #1, the reverse was working fine (ringing #1 from #2). So it's not a network/firewall problem. The two SIP phones can talk to one another through their respective Asterisk servers.

  This is the error message I could see on the second asterisk server:

  $ asterisk -r
  ...
    == Using SIP RTP TOS bits 184
    == Using SIP RTP CoS mark 5
      -- Called SIP/12345
      -- SIP/12345-00000002 redirecting info has changed, passing it to IAX2/iaxuser-6347
      -- SIP/12345-00000002 is busy
    == Everyone is busy/congested at this time (1:1/0/0)
      -- Executing [12345@local:2] Goto("IAX2/iaxuser-6347", "in12345-BUSY,1") in new stack
      -- Goto (local,in12345-BUSY,1)
      -- Executing [in12345-BUSY@local:1] Hangup("IAX2/iaxuser-6347", "17") in new stack
    == Spawn extension (local, in12345-BUSY, 1) exited non-zero on 'IAX2/iaxuser-6347'
      -- Hungup 'IAX2/iaxuser-6347'
  

  where:

  • 12345 is the extension of SIP phone #2 on Asterisk server #2
  • iaxuser is the user account on server #2 that server #1 uses
  • local is the context that for incoming IAX calls on server #1

  This Everyone is busy/congested at this time (1:1/0/0) was surprising since looking at each SIP channel on that server showed nobody as busy:

  asterisk2*CLI> sip show inuse
  * Peer name               In use          Limit           
  12345                     0/0/0           2               
  

  So I enabled the raw SIP debug output and got the following (edited for clarity):

  asterisk2*CLI> sip set debug on
  SIP Debugging enabled
  
    == Using SIP RTP TOS bits 184
    == Using SIP RTP CoS mark 5
  
  INVITE sip:12345@192.168.0.4:2048;line=m2vlbuoc SIP/2.0
  Via: SIP/2.0/UDP 192.168.0.2:5060
  From: "Francois Marier" <sip:67890@192.168.0.2>
  To: <sip:12345@192.168.0.4:2048;line=m2vlbuoc>
  CSeq: 102 INVITE
  User-Agent: Asterisk PBX
  Contact: <sip:67890@192.168.0.2:5060>
  Content-Length: 274
  
      -- Called SIP/12345
  
  <--- SIP read from UDP:192.168.0.4:2048 --->
  SIP/2.0 100 Trying
  Via: SIP/2.0/UDP 192.168.0.2:5060
  From: "Francois Marier" <sip:67890@192.168.0.2>
  To: <sip:12345@192.168.0.4:2048;line=m2vlbuoc>
  CSeq: 102 INVITE
  User-Agent: snom300
  Contact: <sip:12345@192.168.0.4:2048;line=m2vlbuoc>
  Content-Length: 0
  
  <------------->
  --- (9 headers 0 lines) ---
  
  <--- SIP read from UDP:192.168.0.4:2048 --->
  SIP/2.0 480 Do Not Disturb
  Via: SIP/2.0/UDP 192.168.0.2:5060
  From: "Francois Marier" <sip:67890@192.168.0.2>
  To: <sip:12345@192.168.0.4:2048;line=m2vlbuoc>
  CSeq: 102 INVITE
  User-Agent: snom300
  Contact: <sip:12345@192.168.0.4:2048;line=m2vlbuoc>
  Content-Length: 0
  

  where:

  • 12345 is the extension of SIP phone #2 on Asterisk server #2
  • 67890 is the extension of SIP phone #1 on Asterisk server #2
  • 192.168.0.4 is the IP address of SIP phone #2
  • 192.168.0.1 is the IP address of Asterisk server #2

  From there, I can see that SIP phone #2 is returning a status of 408 Do Not Disturb. That's what the problem was: the phone itself was in DnD mode and set to reject all incoming calls.

June 10, 2021

• Digium Why is Switchvox the Best Business Phone System for SMB Customers and Resellers?

  You might be a small business owner looking to upgrade your phone system, or perhaps an IT administrator tired of dealing with the headaches of maintaining an outdated legacy phone system. Or perhaps you’re a Unified Communications vendor looking for a solution that will help set you apart from the competition.

  No matter the case, Switchvox is the best business phone system for small business owners looking to upgrade their communications set-up, and the perfect fit for vendors searching for a new competitive advantage.

  Switchvox offers three key benefits that make it a perfect fit for both users and UC resellers:

  #1: No à la carte business phone system pricing – all features are included for every user

  One of the great benefits of Switchvox for both users and partners is that Switchvox features an all-inclusive pricing model. Traditionally phone systems would require individual feature licenses for major applications like voicemail, faxing, and IVRs, but with Switchvox you get mobile apps, call recording, desktop faxing, call routing, presence, and much more all at one affordable price. This is especially helpful for those who are new to the world of VoIP telephony and Unified Communications for business.

  Sometimes it can be overwhelming trying to figure out all the features your business may or may not need in a phone system. Fortunately, with an all features included pricing model you get the freedom to choose the functionality you want and not have to worry about paying for add ons and additional licensing for features you may need down the road.

  Switchvox’s all features included pricing model not only makes buying a new business phone system less stressful but also simplifies the purchase process. Instead of worrying about how much it’ll cost to add on something like call center functionality, all you have to do is choose which deployment (on-premise or Cloud) best fits your requirements and how many users and phones you’ll need. And this means no more lengthy line item quotes, which makes quoting super easy for resellers.

  #2: Switchvox is both a scalable and flexible Unified Communications platform

  Another benefit of Switchvox is that it offers flexibility to both users and partners. Sangoma recognizes that businesses come in all shapes and sizes, and that you need a phone system that can adapt as your business grows.

  In order to accommodate a variety of businesses, Switchvox can be deployed as an on-premise phone system or as a hosted cloud phone system. This gives both users and partners plenty of options in terms of cost and phone system management. With an on-premise phone system deployment, businesses can pay for Switchvox as a capital expenditure and manage their phone system using their own IT staff.

  Alternatively, if you’re not looking to pay an upfront capital expenditure and don’t feel comfortable managing your phone system, a hosted phone system deployment allows you to simply pay a monthly subscription and the vendor will manage your system in the Cloud.

  If choosing between a cloud or on-premise deployment seems like uncharted territory for you, you’re in luck. Switchvox is not restricted to either an on-premise or cloud deployment. Fortunately, if you decide your company has outgrown a hosted deployment, you can move seamlessly from Switchvox Cloud to an on-premise solution with no set-up and no change to your user experience. Or, if you started out with a Switchvox on-premise system and down the road determined that a cloud system better fits your needs then you can easily switch and the interface and behavior of Switchvox will remain the same.

  Choosing between on-premise and cloud isn’t the only aspect of the flexibility offered by Switchvox and Sangoma. Sangoma offers all of our own UC devices and network connectivity that you will need — including SBCs, SIP trunking, phones, headsets, and gateways. So, if you want to upgrade your phone system and utilize existing infrastructure, you still have options and compatibility. With the help of Sangoma gateways, you can avoid going through a third party vendor and use Switchvox while keeping your existing analog/PRI lines.

  Plus, with Sangoma handling all your UC surround, you don’t have to worry about calling three different technical support teams for any issues or troubleshooting. It’s as simple as calling one number for all your support needs.

  #3: Switchvox offers advanced business phone system features and is easy to use

  Part of what makes Switchvox a great solution for users and resellers is the fact that it offers advanced phone system features and functionality without sacrificing ease of use. Oftentimes people are hesitant to get a new phone system because they don’t want to deal with a cumbersome installation process or the headache of learning how to use a new phone system.

  Fortunately, Switchvox is easy to deploy and can be scaled up or down with our pre-provisioned phones. This means you don’t have to worry about contacting us or your Sangoma reseller for help adding a new user or moving an employee from one office to another. It’s as simple as plugging in your new phone or unplugging your existing phone and moving it to another office. However, if you do have any trouble setting up or using your phone system, we have a dedicated support team to ensure you receive the support and installation services you need.

  Once you’ve got Switchvox set-up, we make it easy to learn your new phone system. Sangoma offers lots of free training available to both our users and partners so that you don’t have to spend weeks trying to learn your new phone system. In addition to our free training and demo center, we offer in-depth online and classroom training courses available to our partners and customers through Sangoma University.

  ---

   
  These are just a few of the many features and benefits that Switchvox offers to both users and resellers. If you’re interested in learning more about Switchvox, phone system deployment options, or partnering with Sangoma be sure to check out these links below:

  • What is a Switchvox Phone System?
  • Hosted vs. On-Premise UC: Which is right for you?
  • Why Partner with Sangoma?

  The post Why is Switchvox the Best Business Phone System for SMB Customers and Resellers? appeared first on Sangoma.

• Enable Security Abusing SIP for Cross-Site Scripting? Most definitely!
  Executive summary (TL;DR) SIP can be used as an attack vector for AppSec vulnerabilities such as cross-site scripting (XSS), potentially leading to unauthenticated remote compromise of critical systems. VoIPmonitor GUI had one such vulnerability which highlights this attack vector exceptionally well. The following writeup explores how persistent backdoor administrative access can be obtained by sending malicious SIP messages. This vulnerability was reported by Enable Security and fixed in VoIPmonitor GUI back in February 2021, using standard cross-site scripting protection mechanisms.

June 08, 2021

• Digium Connecting with Customers and Co-Workers in Today and Tomorrow’s Reality: Part 1

  In 2020, we all utilized new and potentially innovative ways to connect with co-workers and customers. And if we didn’t already use Unified Communication phone systems, we quickly learned that a key tenet of Unified Communication systems was the mobile and desktop clients, enabling your work phone number to be used (calling in, calling out) from these clients. As such, you could take your work remotely. Perfect for 2020.

  And video literally entered the picture and became a primary connection mechanism. The fact that technology and today’s excellent broadband networks enabled video calls to happen enabled many businesses to continue operating and continue operating at a high rate. However, while video (rightly) garnered all the headlines, we should not forget about the other tried and true communication types because they are well “tried and true.” We have to remember that connecting with customers and co-workers is different. What works for co-workers likely does not work with customers. Let’s examine this more in next week’s blog.

  The post Connecting with Customers and Co-Workers in Today and Tomorrow’s Reality: Part 1 appeared first on Sangoma.

June 02, 2021

• Enable Security SIPVicious OSS v0.3.4 released with exit codes and automation features
  We just made SIPVicious OSS v0.3.4 available, so go get it! Or install it via pip: pip install sipvicious --upgrade What’s new? Two main things: Exit codes, just like SIPVicious PRO’s Integration with Github Actions This release makes it much easier to use SIPVicious OSS within your CI/CD pipelines and other automation systems. One should, of course, read the documentation on automation for more information. But here’s an example script to get the idea of what can be done:

June 01, 2021

• Digium Telecom APIs Move to the Next Phase – Packaged Applets

  Telecom APIs in the form of CPaaS (access to telecom functions that reside in the cloud, paid for as you use them) have spurred much innovation and disruption in the communications industry. Developers can easily incorporate these functions to enhance an application (maybe voice enable or text enable an existing application) or create a voice centric communications application from scratch.

  Looking at it from a different perspective, if the application is connected to the internet (via mobile, WiFi, or wired), which means most applications these days, access to these APIs is available. That’s powerful and that’s why this model was disruptive. As such, if you have any idea, it is easy to test and try things this way, it is easy to roll them out, and it is scalable as well.

  And while there are a few stand-alone CPaaS companies out there (such as Twilio), a few UCaaS companies (such as Sangoma) have their own CPaaS platforms as well. Why is that? Well, for one thing, the customer is already accessing the UC application in the cloud and they are comfortable with cloud-based communications. And we can better enable our UC customers with enhancements they might want to do on top of our UC platforms.

  But have we entered another phase in CPaaS, possibly predictable even, where we see more broad industry needs and thus create a catalog of applets / applications that our UC customers can use? Certainly, we see that. So, we have started to create a category of “connected worker” applications, and the incorporation of text messaging for connectivity. And that’s important so we can help our customers service their customers better.

  Sangoma is committed to helping our customers service their customers better, so this model is important to us. Expect to see additional applets and applications like this as we see general needs emerge.

  The post Telecom APIs Move to the Next Phase – Packaged Applets appeared first on Sangoma.

May 27, 2021

• Digium Returning Back To Normal Part 3: Restaurants

  Throughout this series, we have been exploring the impact of COVID-19 on various industries, and how organizations are recovering.

  One sector that was hit particularly hard was the restaurant industry. To date, about 17% of U.S. restaurants have permanently shut down, and many more are struggling to profit due to ongoing restrictions.

  Even more troubling is the fact that most new restaurants that closed were not new establishments. On average, they had been in business for 16 years.

  Restaurants that have managed to hang on throughout the pandemic are now facing uncertain times, as returning back to normal continues to be a slow process. Many organizations would not be able to survive another prolonged shutdown or unstable conditions much longer without taking drastic measures.

  How Restaurants Are Returning Back To Normal With Cloud

  A growing number of restaurants are now using cloud communications solutions to improve operations and lower costs. Here are some of the ways restaurants are benefiting from cloud communications in the post-COVID era.

  Cost-effective Voice

  Budgets have always been tight for restaurants dealing with high rents, exorbitant food costs, and a variety of operational challenges. Today, budgets are tighter than ever leaving less room for excess spending.

  Many businesses are switching to cloud communications systems that use VoIP, to lower costs while maintaining open lines with customers, team members, corporate partners, and vendors. Switching to a cloud-based phone system is an easy way to cut monthly communications costs.

  Improved Communication & Collaboration

  Restaurant owners and managers can’t always be on-site to deal with questions and problems when they arise, like social distancing issues and health restrictions. However, running a restaurant can be very challenging due to the variety of restrictions that businesses are now facing.

  A growing number of businesses are now using mobile communication and collaboration apps to help team members work together and maintain operations. Team members can connect over one app for voice, SMS, and even image and video sharing. This type of system can provide a great framework for solving problems keeping restaurants running smoothly.

  Curbside Service

  One of the most popular cloud technologies to emerge during the pandemic was curbside service. In fact, curbside service kept many businesses running throughout the pandemic, enabling them to process orders and distribute them safely to customers.

  Curbside service comes ready to use, guaranteeing easy deployment and management. Deploying curbside service can enable easy SMS and web interactions, with flexible, automated workflows for employees.

  The post Returning Back To Normal Part 3: Restaurants appeared first on Sangoma.

May 25, 2021

• Digium Voice in a Video World – A Webinar with Omdia

  On June 9th, Omdia will be hosting a webinar titled ”Making Sure Voice Is Heard In a Video World.” If you want to register, please go here. Omdia’s Diane Myers (Chief Analyst, Collaboration) will talk with myself and David Portnowitz of Star2Star, A Sangoma Company about this topic.

  

  So, what are we going to discuss? As we all know, in 2020, we all got real familiar with video calling and collaboration platforms. And that’s great for internal communications and some partner and customer communications.

  But, is that the way forward in the world, especially as related to actual paying customers? Because customers use different methods to connect real-time with your business, the most common is voice calls. We’ll explore why a voice-centric platform that also does video, chat, and SMS is the way forward because of the call control and call routing features in such platforms and because of the tight integration with phones these platforms can provide. In other words, why a Unified Communication platform that has time-tested voice functionality is an excellent choice for today and tomorrow.

  Please register here for the webinar.

  The post Voice in a Video World – A Webinar with Omdia appeared first on Sangoma.

• Enable Security DEMO - An overview of the VoIP and RTC offensive security toolset, SIPVicious PRO
  We pushed out a video that introduces the basics of SIPVicious PRO by demonstrating some of the attack tools and showing the building blocks for automating security testing of VoIP and WebRTC applications and infrastructure. What follows is a transcript of the video. Introduction Hello, I’m Sandro Gauci from Enable Security. In this video, I’d like to show you what we have been working on, SIPVicious PRO! Let’s start by introducing the tools.
• Enable Security An overview of the VoIP and RTC offensive security toolset, SIPVicious PRO
  We pushed out a video that introduces the basics of SIPVicious PRO by demonstrating some of the attack tools and showing the building blocks for automating security testing of VoIP and WebRTC applications and infrastructure. What follows is a transcript of the video. Introduction Hello, I’m Sandro Gauci from Enable Security. In this video, I’d like to show you what we have been working on, SIPVicious PRO! Let’s start by introducing the tools.
• WebRTC Hacks How to Leverage the AWS WebSocket API for Serverless WebRTC signaling

  How to use the AWS API Gateway WebSocket API functionality with Lamdba functions to implement a serverless WebRTC signaling architecture

  The post How to Leverage the AWS WebSocket API for Serverless WebRTC signaling appeared first on webrtcHacks.

May 24, 2021

• FreeSWITCH What to expect from our first Hybrid ClueCon!

  Join us in Chicago or online October 25th-28th, 2021!

  The world of events changed for everybody in 2020. Usually, every August would mark the time for our annual developers’ conference in Chicago, ClueCon, which has been around for 17 years. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, August 2020 instead brought about an experiment for the ClueCon team – we hosted ClueCon completely virtually, with almost everything that makes the conference what it is: our Coder Games hack-a-thon, networking opportunities, and the informative presentations and workshops that make the conference an educational opportunity for our community.

  ClueCon Deconstructed turned out to be a huge success, and served as a useful experience for launching SignalWire Events and the SignalWire Work platform. Since then we have greatly improved how we host virtual events. We now have an extremely skilled team that works specifically in the world of online events, and with the help of this team and a much more structured process, in February 2021 we held a mini-ClueCon to focus mainly on workshops and presentations.

  As the world slowly and hopefully changes for the better in 2021, we are looking forward to gathering together in Chicago this October at the beautiful Intercontinental Hotel on the Magnificent Mile. However, as everywhere in the world is on a different timeline in combatting the pandemic, for the first time we will be welcoming remote attendees to the party too! Using the improved platform and virtual events process we’ve built since ClueCon 2020, we’ll combine everything we know about hosting ClueCon virtually with the classic format of an in-person conference.

  The ClueCon team has already been fully vaccinated and we welcome anyone who is comfortable traveling during this time to join us on October 25-28, 2021. There will be plenty of masks and hand sanitizer available for all attendees to make sure everybody there feels comfortable and safe. The health of all the team members and attendees is our first priority, and we are only having the in-person conference as we feel it is safe to do so. That being said, we recognize it simply won’t be feasible for everyone to commit to coming to Chicago this year, and it’s difficult to know what the state of the world will look like over the next 5 months. Because of this, we’re doing everything we can to accommodate those who will be joining us virtually from anywhere in the world!

  Attendees joining us online will be able to partake in all parts of the conference – there will be screens all over the venue to allow those attending in-person to interact with those online, and you’ll even be able to join us for networking events like the classic Gigabit Reception. So grab some snacks and your favorite drink! Nothing will be off-limits to remote attendees; join us for each presentation, workshop, our Coder Games hack-a-thon, and all the networking events!

  Additionally, we will have some of our speakers with us in Chicago, and other speakers will be calling in virtually from other parts of the world. We’ll be integrating the virtual conference as best we can with the in-person conference, so you’ll still be able to interact with speakers, other guests, and the ClueCon team no matter how you choose to participate! This is our plan to slowly bring more people together during this uncertain time, and we hope you’ll join us either in Chicago or from the comfort of your own home. We’re confident that the tech we’ve built, along with the events team we’ve curated, will make this experimental hybrid event a success. 

  If you want to explore Chicago and you feel comfortable doing so, we highly recommend joining us at the Intercontinental Hotel! Unfortunately, virtually we won’t be able to provide you with the tasty meals and experience of the city – so if that’s a priority for you, do consider joining us in-person!

  Over the next few months we will have more details available, including a list of speakers and a week-long schedule of the event. In the meantime, you can take advantage of early-bird pricing. Registration is open at cluecon.com/register.

  We can’t wait to see you there!

  The post What to expect from our first Hybrid ClueCon! appeared first on FreeSWITCH.

• ng-voice ng-voice’s fully containerized and cloud-native IMS core is shortlisted for GLOMO Awards at MWC Barcelona 2021

  This year, the GSMA returns with the Mobile World Congress Barcelona 2021, the world’s biggest connectivity event. From the 28th of June to the 1st of July, visitors can attend the event in person following several safety measures set by the organizers due to the pandemic as well as virtually, creating a unique hybrid environment. The GLOMO (Global Mobile Awards) ceremony happens during the MWC and celebrates key innovations and achievements that stand out in our industry, being considered by many to be the most prestigious and highly anticipated award ceremony of the year.

   

  With the shortlist being announced for 2021, ng-voice is proud to be nominated for GLOMO Awards for the Best Mobile & Network Software Breakthrough (Companies under $10 million Annual Global Revenue). At ng-voice we are honored to be part of this list with the industry’s most influential players, showcasing the best and most innovative mobile products and services.

   

  David Bachmann (CEO of ng-voice) talked to us about being nominated for this award: “We are very excited to be shortlisted for the most prestigious awards ceremony in the industry. This is a great recognition of the hard work that we have been investing into developing the most innovative IMS core in the market “.

  ng-voice’s fully containerized and cloud-native IMS core brings a completely new approach to mobile infrastructure software. Based on Kubernetes architecture, with the smallest container sizes, high level of automation, and efficient use of resources, our IMS core is scalable, flexible, and easy to deploy and manage, offering operators and enterprises of any size innovative voice services on LTE/5G networks.

   

  The GLOMO winners are going to be announced on Wednesday 30 June 2021 at 1 pm – 2 pm (CEST) at MWC Barcelona. Stay tuned and subscribe to our newsletter to find out the winners of the upcoming GLOMO awards, or get in contact to learn more about our IMS solution.

   

  To learn more about MWC Barcelona 2021 and the awards ceremony, visit www.mwcbarcelona.com.

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  Khaled Amirian

  WS Content Marketing

  Publisher Bio

  During his academic and professional career, his curiosity to learn different business functions such as HR and marketing allowed him to gain valuable insights. Khaled aims to provide unique perspectives on topics in digital marketing and HRM. His interests in the digital world helped him become a key community member among Esports player.

May 20, 2021

• Enable Security SIPVicious PRO 6.0.0-beta.4 getting close to take-off!
  This one’s a bit of a boring update for SIPVicious PRO. That’s because we’re getting to a stable place where flag names and values do not change too often. Which means, we’re getting out of beta rather soon! However, it is still a major update because we made a significant number of internal changes. For example, we standardized a number of flags to be the same across all tools. We discovered that we can minimize each tool’s flagset by making use of config flags such as --auth-config that allows you to configure behaviours specific to how SIPVicious handles authentication (e.

May 19, 2021

• Digium Sangoma Launches Value-based IP Phones

  Many companies are upgrading their communication equipment to improve productivity and make offices more attractive to workers who are returning to desks.

  Finding the right IP phone, depending on business needs, can be challenging: every additional feature, which you may not require on a phone, brings up the cost significantly, especially on large-scale deployments.

  Today, Sangoma is launching entry-level value phones designed with the specific features you need, with maximum functionality and performance, at a budget price.

  Introducing the P310 & P315 IP Phones

  These phones can be deployed in just about any setting, with a focus on three customer segments in mind.

  • Manufacturing: Manufacturing plants require rugged and durable phones that can withstand harsh environments. Sangoma’s new value-based IP phones are durable and reliable enough to keep job sites connected and communicating throughout the day.
  • Education: Schools today are challenged to offer high-quality communications without going over budget. Sangoma’s new phones are an affordable option for teachers and administrators, offering the full functionality of a desk phone at a budget price.
  • Retail: Retailers require phones that are easy to deploy and use. Sangoma’s phones can be easily deployed with minimal training, making them perfect for retailers of all sizes — from small businesses to large enterprises.

  Sangoma’s P310 & P315 IP Phones Details

  The P310 and P315 desk IP phones come with simple plug-and-play deployment, enabling them to seamlessly work with Sangoma’s unified communications portfolio, including Switchvox, PBXact and FreePBX.

  Both phones offer high-definition call quality, two VoIP lines, and built-in Electronic Hook Switch (EHS) support for wireless headset compatibility. They also come with critical security capabilities, including TLS, SRTP, and VLAN support, while supporting six phone applications, including contacts, call logging, status, call parking, call forward, and hot-desking (for Switchvox >= 7.8).

  Key Differences: P310 vs. P315

  The P310 and P315 are similar models. Both phones come with 2.4-inch 320 x 240-pixel backlit color LCDs, four feature keys and four context-sensitive soft keys, and six-way key navigation.

  The difference between the two is that the P310 supports two switched 10/100 Mbps Ethernet connections, and the P315 supports two switched 10/100/1000 Mbps (Gigabit) connections.

  A phone that supports Gigabit connectivity becomes very enticing in those scenarios where only one network connection is available at the user’s workstation. With the P315, users will connect their network cable connection into one of the Gigabit ports on the phone, then connect another cable from the second Gigabit port to their workstation, effectively delivering full-speed network access to the laptop/desktop computer through the phone.

  “I was very impressed with the P315, and at an amazing price point,” explained Darin Gull from TRACI.net. “Feature-rich, two gigabit Ethernet ports, color display, headset & EHS port, and it integrates beautifully with our Switchvox solutions for $79 purchase price. Great phone for entry-level workers, patient rooms, lobbies, call center desks, etc. Well done, Sangoma!”

  For complete product specifications, visit sangoma.com/value-based-phones/.

  The post Sangoma Launches Value-based IP Phones appeared first on Sangoma.

May 18, 2021

• Digium Integrating Video Into our Future Business Communications

  I’ve been writing a lot about video lately, because I’ve been thinking a lot about video lately. As many people get vaccinated, we’re starting to see some businesses coming back to “working in the office”. I took my first business trip in a long time recently to our site in Huntsville, Alabama and had the pleasure of actually interacting with many of our folks face to face.

  And it got me thinking even more about video. Given video has been the ‘de facto’ way to hold a meeting, even a 1:1 meeting for over a year, how will we integrate video into our business communications going forward?

  I mean, think about meetings two years ago. Likely there were many people in a room and also likely there were 1 or 2 people calling in remotely. And let’s say someone went up to a whiteboard to draw something. If you were a remote person, you were lucky if someone remembered to even try to explain what people were talking about. This wasn’t a problem during the past year because everyone truly was equal – everyone was remote and everyone saw whatever everyone else saw, or if someone was sharing.

  Will everyone now, even those in the actual room, automatically go to video so everyone is still “equal”? It’s hard to know. That did happen with me when I went on that trip, with a group meeting where one other person was in the room, but we’re all still in our video phase now. Still very aware. But it was bizarre being in a room and people were all staring at their laptops.

  I’m guessing the meetings will occur on video, and people will be more aware. But we’ll start to turn cameras off, and we’ll use the video for collaboration purposes. We’ll see. I’ll visit this topic one year from now. Should be interesting!

  The post Integrating Video Into our Future Business Communications appeared first on Sangoma.