SkySwitch Blog
Is a Polycom-Mitel Merger on the Horizon?
An interesting article on CRN – Mitel CEO Talks Possible Polycom-Mitel Merger, M&A Strategy – quotes Mitel CEO Richard McBee as stating that a shareholder with a large stake in both companies is pushing them to explore a merger. I don’t as yet have an opinion about the end result of such a merger, but the…
Read More
Quantum Networks Will Change Everything
When it comes to science, I am hard pressed to explain the difference between a photon and a proton. Still, it doesn’t take a degree in physics to notice that the telecom world is soon to be rocked by an esoterically named phenomenon called quantum teleportation. Although the term teleportation brings images of Scotty beaming…
Read More
SkySwitch Unveils Click-to-Call Extension for Google Chrome
At SkySwitch, we strive to constantly improve our Hosted PBX Reseller platform. Within the past year we have had requests from resellers for click-to-call functionality in Salesforce.com, Sugar CRM, Zoho CRM, Agile CRM, Sage CRM and Quickbooks Online, among others. Initially, we created a Salesforce app to provide click-to-call and other* functionality inside the Salesforce.com user…
Read More
Attract and Retain Customers with SkySwitch Instant Messaging
SkySwitch has recently added XMPP Instant Messaging (IM) to the core set of UCC tools it makes available to Resellers of the WebCentrex hosted PBX service. This addition presents yet another opportunity for differentiation in an industry where competitors often appear to offer me-too products, and it is difficult for the end-user to compare competing solutions beyond the…
Read More
WebCentrex Feature Preview: Voicemail Transcription
One of the best aspects of the SkySwitch White-Label PBX platform model is that hosted PBX Resellers automatically get access to the latest Unified Communications features without doing a thing. At SkySwitch, we work hard to develop, test and deploy system upgrades so that our Resellers don’t have to. One such feature that we are very…
Read More
Getting Alerts from your SIP Devices
I recently came across Papertrailapp.com, a cloud service that could very well change your life if you are a VoIP engineer and part of your job requires you to monitor SIP devices. The service collects logs from any networking device that is able to send logs to a syslog server, and provides analytics through the web portal.…
Read More
WebRTC: It Isn’t Just for Real Time Communications Anymore
An interesting blog post from WebRTC expert Tsahi Levent-Levi points out that the New York Times has started using WebRTC to detect the private IP addresses of its readers. Because real time communication protocols need to know a user’s private LAN IP address to establish media sessions, this information is now available to any web server…
Read More
FCC Allows VoIP Providers to Obtain (but not Port) Telephone Numbers Directly
The FCC has finally decided to allow VoIP providers to obtain telephone numbers directly, rather than having to purchase them through a third party organization. The decision, released on 22 June 2015 in this Report and Order, paves the way for VoIP Providers to avoid a lot of administrative burden by interacting with the North American Numbering…
Read More
Why Does “admin” Keep Calling My SIP Phone?
“Why does Admin keep calling my customer’s SIP phone? And when they answer nobody is there.” This is a question that we receive frequently from new hosted PBX resellers. Usually followed by the observation that there are no call logs available on the switch to evidence the call. The answer is usually that the customer has become a…
Read More
Polycom Gets Smart with the Cone of Silence (aka Acoustic Fence)
A new Polycom feature called Acoustic Fence reminds me of one of my favorite childhood TV shows, a Mel Brooks comedy from the 60’s called Get Smart. The show featured a plethora of futuristic gadgets including telephones that were built-in to almost everything. Anyone that has seen the show will remember the shoe-phone, a device that required…
Read More