Archive for October, 2007

eTel cancelled, but check this!

By Erik Lagerway | October 12, 2007 | VoIP Conferences | 1 Comment

 

K, so this is a bit out there but I figured what the heck…

How about a virtual conference. One where speakers address a real audience via the Internet using video, teleconferencing, presence (twitter, pownce), IM etc.

There would be a virtual hall that allowed users to navigate from session to session where they would watch or just listen via teleconference.

We could create a back-channel (they all exists anyways during these shows) and a real social networking element that could serve as method for hallway discussions?

We have the technology now to pull this off, this should be a no-brainer!

Make people PAY for it (cover the costs), in return they will get recordings of all the sessions and access to the chat back-channels.

Call me a geek but I think this would be cool would cost people much less and would likely be more a productive use of everyone's time.

There is a Facebook group coming together that might help the idea along or email me and tell me how nuts I am: erik (at) sipthat dot com.

Written by Erik Lagerway - Visit Website

eTel 2008 Cancelled

By Erik Lagerway | October 12, 2007 | VoIP Conferences | Comments Off

Wow, Andy just reported that the eTel '08 conference has been cancelled. I never made it there myself but I heard great things about it. Someone really needs to pick up the pieces.

Written by Erik Lagerway - Visit Website

VoIP Mashups and Building VoIP Applications

By Erik Lagerway | October 11, 2007 | VoIP Mashup | Comments Off

VoIP APIs + Development = VoIP Mashup 

Scoble posted a great video of a Zude demo the other day which looks to have some great promise. It's like a social network mashup within a social network. Make sense?  I am not going to go into greate detail on the service apart from saying that I was impressed with the ease at which I was able to drop code my Zude page and manipulate images with relative ease, 2 of my pet peaves with any existing web app/blog software.

So the social network scene is heating up which is a good thing, Facebook and MySpace need the competition. There has also been some action in the VoIP Mashup scene of late led primarily by Thomas Howe and Company, go Thomas!

VoIP Mashups are not really all that new. VoIP APIs / SDKs / toolkits have been used in combination with other VoIP APIs in many instances over the years to create various telephony applications. Going WAY back I can remember dorking around with the NetMeeting SDK and other toolkits to produce what could be considered an early H.323 version of Skype.

The technology has come a long way since then and SIP now rules the open standards VoIP roost and I believe we are all better off because of it. As I look back on the state of the industry from the mid-late 90's I can see some distinct similarities in the sales and marketing approach of the old school VARs and the VoIP consultants of today.

The multi-port protocols of old and the lack of support for the SDKs that were represented back then are behind us. In their place are some very well designed and thoroughly supported APIs that can deliver just about anything any company would ever dream of when building a new telephony application or integrating VoIP into an existing application.

So what's missing? If today's APIs are so great why do we need consultants to tell us which one is better for our potential projects? One theory is that we as humans are generally pretty damn lazy. As a rule we also like it when others tell us what we should do thereby averting disaster when the dung hits the fan.

Folks, there is no Black Magic required when building or integrating VoIP into your apps. Do your research and talk to as many industry professionals as possible. In some cases you will not need to know anything about VoIP, SIP or H.323 etc. Make an educated decision, then take that API and build something great.

Written by Erik Lagerway - Visit Website

Lypp’s VoIP API to be showcased at Under the Radar

By Erik Lagerway | October 9, 2007 | api | Comments Off

We're excited to announce that Lypp will be presenting at the Under the Radar Mobility conference, on November 15th at the Microsoft Campus in Mountain View. We'll be showcasing our own application and some innovative things people are doing with Lypp's brand spanking new VoIP API.

 

Written by Erik Lagerway - Visit Website

Not every VoIP API is built the same

By Erik Lagerway | October 4, 2007 | api | Comments Off

What makes one VoIP API different from another?

Having spent a significant amount of my working life immersed in IP Telephony and Voice over IP, I eventually found myself becoming frustrated by the lack of infrastructure at the edge of the network, moreover the issues that surrounded our inability to ensure QOS (Quality of Service) on a VoIP phone call.

Best-efforts VoIP is not quite what it is cracked up to be, creating a decent experience for the residential, SOHO or even Enterprise users has become somewhat of an art form.

In the meantime the mobile world was innovating at a rapid pace, bringing the cellular telephony on par it would seem with the traditional office or home phone in terms of volumes of usage. I am not sure about the rest of you but my mobile phone seems to have become affixed directly to the side of my head, surgery may be required.

For me, the perfect VoIP API would take advantage of all the good things that VoIP brings but not rely on the edge of an IP network to deliver a good experience. At the same time it would also need to take advantage of the growing mobile user base and not be device-specific, meaning proprietary software is not required to be installed on the device.

The answer for me pointed away from IP endpoint software and towards the core of the IP network leveraging existing mobile and legacy wired networks. I think this is what gets me so excited about the Lypp VoIP API. It does not require IP connectivity to any endpoint and certainly does leverage our tendency as humans to move around.

The one thing that really left me scratching my head about the various VoIP SDKs, APIs, and Developer Toolkits out there were how terrible they were written. With the technology we have in front of us now we should be capable of building flexible, very extensible APIs that leverage ActiveResource and REST to provide a Web 2.0 approach to integrating and building VoIP applications and features.

Another pet peeve of mine was the overly difficult manner in which APIs were made to integrate with the VoIP switches. In most cases you needed a degree in IP networking and equal experience in SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) in order to pull that off.

Lypp’s API is bundled with wholesale termination provided by the nation’s largest VoIP network partners including Level 3, XO and Global Crossing, making deployment of said telephony features a snap.

So that’s my rant. I don’t mean for this to sound like a sales pitch but I can’t help it! I really am excited bout this VoIP API and what it means for the growth of IP Communications.

I would love to get your feedback on the Lypp API and the Lypp.com service <- built on the API. Email me or leave a comment. 

Written by Erik Lagerway - Visit Website

Lypp Launches VoIP API and Wholesale Termination Service

By Erik Lagerway | October 2, 2007 | Conferencing | Comments Off

In addition to the Lypp service, Lypp is offering an API that allows developers the ability to create his/her own telephony feature in an application… 

VANCOUVER, October 2, 2007 – Lypp (http://lypp.com) announced today the availability of its first API (Application Programming Interface) and wholesale VoIP termination service, decreasing time to market for developers when integrating Internet Telephony into any application.

"We have built a REST-based VoIP API that will fast track VoIP Integration for any developer that understands XML," said Lypp CEO Erik Lagerway. "Until now the only way developers could integrate scalable and reliable telephony was through acquisition of expensive equipment and infrastructure. Lypp has removed those barriers by building a simple API and allowing our customers to leverage our access to the North American PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network) including but not limited to TELUS, Rogers, Bell, Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, SBC and BellSouth, through the most trusted interconnect providers in the business including Level 3, Global Crossing and XO. We are working with the best partners to deliver the best call experience in North America and we're excited that our partners can leverage our API to deliver this experience to their customers."

The Lypp API enables rapid VoIP feature implementation, including: Click-to-Call and Click-to-Conference, virtual phone booth calling features, and integration of basic and advanced telephony such as embedded email and profile call links for FaceBook, MySpace and other web-based applications and services.

The Lypp API is available online now at http://lypp.com/api. To obtain a username and password for the API developers will need to put in a request by email to api@lypp.com.

About Lypp

Lypp is disrupting the telecommunications industry by using the data
connections and applications that already exist on cell phones and mobile
devices to give users features and pricing that the wireless carriers don't,
won't or can't offer. Lypp also provides wholesale services leveraging its
REST-based API to enable integration of VoIP features with other web-based
applications and services.

The Lypp service is operated and owned by Gaboogie Canada Inc.

For further information: Daniel Gibbons, (778) 998-9543, press@lypp.com

Written by Erik Lagerway - Visit Website
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