By Mark Wilson

A couple of years ago, I blogged about getting my Cisco 7940G IP Phone working with SIP firmware and an external VoIP provider (in my case, it was Sipgate).  I also wanted to get a couple more Cisco IP Phones working – the Cisco IP Communicator softphone and a 7911G for my wife’s business but, unlike the 7940 and 7960, these phones use a different configuration file format – an XML file that I’d never managed to get working properly. [..]

The Federal Communications Commission this week started laying the groundwork for switching to an all-VoIP phone system by seeking public comment on whether to transition from the current system to an IP-based system.

What started out as an upgrade to the phone system at Ottawa Regional Hospital and Healthcare Center became a badly needed network overhaul that lowered costs and included a conversion to VoIP.

Mitel has integrated its telephony products with VMware to offer virtualised voice.

Skype said it has named Jonathan Rosenberg as its chief technology strategist.

A market research report found that VoIP services worldwide topped $20 billion in the first half of the year and were set for even more growth, as recession-plagued customers turn to VoIP to save money.

By Greg Ness (Infoblox)

Virtualization and cloud computing have generated plenty of buzz because of their potential to reshape the economics of information and technology.  Yet most of that potential is still “cooped up” in the VLAN, driving impressive gains in server management, yet within strict confines.

Currently carriers have four business days to transfer consumers' existing phone numbers to new providers.

Siemens' unified-communications-in-the-cloud experiment with Amazon.com could result in services that avoid capital costs and provide an easy exit plan if customers decide to bail out of individual service elements.

As storage vendors debate encryption key management, experts weigh in on steps you can take to protect your data now.