Rick Segal is pondering the effect an Outlook Add-in would have in the conferencing world if it worked seamlessly with Outlook Calendar and simply called everyone at the time of the meeting.

Rick has perfectly described the Lypp service and our Outlook Add-in.

Microsoft has recently published a case study on Lypp for our involvement with their Small Business Phone System - Response Point.

It also mentions our plans to deliver a last mile broadband offer that will potentially make VoIP for Small Businesses a viable solution in Canada.

Thanks to Rex Backman at Microsoft for putting this together.

Just a quick post… We quietly launched our International service for Lypp teleconferencing this evening. Users from Australia, UK, Germany and many more countries, can now sign-up and start using Lypp teleconferencing. Existing and new users in North America can also now include participants from 20+ countries. We only charge you for minutes you use and there are NO additional long distance costs if you use the outbound calling feature.

Since Lypp calls you and your attendees there is little or no need for an International Toll Free number. Use the Lypp for Outlook Add-in or the Lypp.com website and simply set it and forget it. Lypp notifies and calls everyone for you at the time of the meeting. The only thing you have to remember is to answer the phone when it rings.

Yes, Conference Calls and now International Conference Calls are just that simple at Lypp.

Due to this news Lypp is receiving a bit more attention and I have recently been asked by a few interested parties, “What are you going to do with Lypp?”.

The short answer is “We are building a profitable company.” The long answer is, “We are building a profitable company.”

Next week as we will be announcing the availability of the Lypp Teleconferencing service in more than 20 countries Worldwide with more to come shortly thereafter. Countries in this next release include; UK, Australia, Germany, Netherlands, Hong Kong and 15 more.

The international rates will be competitive, as an example Australia will be the same price as our North American rate at 9 cents/min with zero long distance calling costs. International Toll Free will be unnecessary considering Lypp calls all the meeting participants, in all countries served, at the time of the meeting.

So that is what is going on with Lypp. We are on track and I am thrilled with our progress. Yes, there are some interesting conversations in play and we will see where that takes us but the end game is to create a healthy company that continues to grow.

Word on the street is that Navigata (a subsidiary of Sasktel) is shutting down it’s Linksys One offer and is giving it’s customers until the end of October to get off their Linksys One network.

Since Response Point provides some great features and offers the best of the VoIP and analog phone word, it is looking like it could be a good fit for some of those customers looking to get off the Linksys One platform.

The good news is that the SIP trunks that we make available via SMBPhoneSystems.ca to our customers are indirectly hooked into the Navigata network so moving phone numbers from Linksys One to a SIP Trunk should not cause the customer any unnecessary pain.

WebHuddle’s Web Conferencing and Desktop Sharing solution has integrated Teleconferencing / Conference Calling via Lypp.

WebHuddle is an open source Web Conferencing & Desktop Sharing solution that works on both Mac & Windows. It is both free to download and use. For a limited time WebHuddle is offering free Teleconferencing via Lypp as well. WebHuddle + Lypp works rather well even though it is in early beta.

Aastra really went the distance on the IP Phones for their initial roll out of AastraLink RP™. They incorporated some features you are not going to find on any other Response Point handset, namely the cordless version (6757i CT RP) seen above.

Microsoft® Response Point™ is now available in 3 flavors; D-Link, Syspine and now Aastra. They each have their strong points and all will certainly be contenders in the rebirth of this market. They can all be bought online at SMBPhoneSystems.ca

I will be doing a full review of the AastraLink RP system once I have find time to write it up.

Although it may seem like there is no shortage of choices for Business Internet Phone Services most of the service providers are still not delivering IP business phone lines in any way that the consumer can understand.

There is also a misconception that Internet Phone Service and Business Phone Service delivered over the Internet are the same thing, they are not. In fact, they are quite different.

Many of the companies out there are marketing these service as if they are the same thing and many SMBs are being fooled into thinking that this is the case. This could easily spell certain disaster for Small Businesses and does the entire small business community a disservice.

Best efforts Internet phone services have zero Quality of Service (QOS). This includes Vonage, Packet8, Lingo and there are many more. These services should NOT be used as a replacement for your primary business lines.

QOS is an important piece of any Phone Service that many Internet Phone Service providers prefer not talk about, it’s their Achilles’ heel.

Without a guaranteed Quality of Service your provider can not say if your call experience will be mostly good or mostly bad. I don’t care who they are or what they say, there is nothing that any service provider can do today to deliver a reliable best efforts Internet Phone Service unless they own the Internet service as well.

About the only company out there that seems to have done this reasonably well is Cbeyond. Their website says..

Designed with small businesses in mind, Cbeyond offers flexible services and fully-loaded packages that meet your needs. Explore our packages that integrate high-speed T-1 internet access, local and long distance voice service, toll-free numbers, mobile and more— delivering all your communication needs on a single bill.

Sadly, their service area is limited:

* Atlanta
* Chicago
* Dallas-Fort Worth
* Denver
* Detroit
* Greater San Francisco Bay Area
* Houston
* Los Angeles
* Miami
* Minneapolis/St. Paul
* San Diego

No, I do not own stock in Cbeyond, but maybe I should buy some considering the lack of competition out there. Especially since their stock price is a mere 30% percent of it’s 52 week high.

Canada is even worse off than the US. Not only is their no Cbeyond but there is no real T-1 infrastructure that’s affordable. Shaw is probably the most competitive in the West for T-1s, but at $400/month it’s nothing a Small Business in Canada would get excited about.

So the question is, who will deliver Business VoIP service for the rest of us? I think there is a huge opportunity here and it doesn’t seem to be something that the incumbents are likely to be all that motivated to pursue anytime soon.

Rogers in Canada is also suffering from the ill effects of a ‘not so well’ thought-out activation system and it would seem this could also be related to iTunes. Although, some are saying different.

No matter how you slice it, at least from a sales perspective, this will be remembered as a major success for Rogers and Apple. If you are selling that many phones, life is grand.

VON might be history, but Jeff is far from done.

In his last blog post, Jeff talks about exclusive federal jurisdiction for VoIP and how important this is to the communications industry as a whole.

It’s a good read, here is an excerpt…

Yesterday six major high-tech associations collectively representing the growth engines of the economy (generating billions of economic activity every year, employing millions of workers, and representing thousands of companies) filed a friend of the court brief in support of the FCC’s decision to provide a single national policy framework for VoIP.

This is a big deal, and a part of a broader effort to remove barriers that could determine how and when consumers benefit from the lower prices, new services, and advanced communication features that VoIP can deliver.

Check out the entire post: http://pulverblog.pulver.com/archives/008352.html