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I disagree, I have been using internet telephony for a year now. Landline calls abroad are so expensive so I use voip systems and call quality is perfect.

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Counsel Corporation subsidiary files patent infringement suit over VoIP services – Yahoo! Canada News

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Thu Aug 27, 11:06 AM

By The Canadian Press

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TORONTO – Counsel Corp. (TSX:CXS), a Toronto-based asset management firm, announced Thursday that subsidiary C2 Communications Technologies Inc. has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Paetec Corp., Matrix Telecom Inc., Windstream Corp. and Telephone and Data Systems Inc.

The complaint alleges that the defendants’ services and systems utilizing Voice over Internet Protocol infringe on a C2 patent.

The allegations have yet to be proven in court.

The complaint was filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Oklahoma, and seeks an injunction, monetary damages and costs.

C2’s primary business is the development and licensing of its patents, which include two foundational patents in VoIP technology. C2 is also involved in the acquisition and disposition of distressed and surplus assets through its interest in Counsel RB Capital LLC.

Counsel owns 91 per cent of C2 parent company C2 Global Technologies Inc.

Last fall, C2 settled a VoIP patent infringement suit in the U.S. that brought it US$17.6 million in revenue through settlement and licence agreements with Qwest, Global Crossing and Level 3.

Other defendants in the suit who had already settled with C2 included AT&T, Verizon, Bellsouth, Sprint Nextel and Global Crossing.

Shares in Counsel Corp. were unchanged at 70 cents on the TSX.

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Print Story: Counsel Corporation subsidiary files patent infringement suit over VoIP services on Yahoo! Canada News

Thu Aug 27, 11:06 AM

By The Canadian Press

TORONTO – Counsel Corp. (TSX:CXS), a Toronto-based asset management firm, announced Thursday that subsidiary C2 Communications Technologies Inc. has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Paetec Corp., Matrix Telecom Inc., Windstream Corp. and Telephone and Data Systems Inc.

The complaint alleges that the defendants’ services and systems utilizing Voice over Internet Protocol infringe on a C2 patent.

The allegations have yet to be proven in court.

The complaint was filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Oklahoma, and seeks an injunction, monetary damages and costs.

C2’s primary business is the development and licensing of its patents, which include two foundational patents in VoIP technology. C2 is also involved in the acquisition and disposition of distressed and surplus assets through its interest in Counsel RB Capital LLC.

Counsel owns 91 per cent of C2 parent company C2 Global Technologies Inc.

Last fall, C2 settled a VoIP patent infringement suit in the U.S. that brought it US$17.6 million in revenue through settlement and licence agreements with Qwest, Global Crossing and Level 3.

Other defendants in the suit who had already settled with C2 included AT&T, Verizon, Bellsouth, Sprint Nextel and Global Crossing.

Shares in Counsel Corp. were unchanged at 70 cents on the TSX.

Technorati Tags: voip

Skype News, Headlines and Latest Stories on Yahoo! News

Last week, the original founders of Skype came to a mutually agreeable solution with eBay to their disagreement about who owned what patents to the technology underlying Skype.

Sort By:Google’s Purchase of Skype Rival Gizmo5 Could Benefit You

Has Google found the final piece of its voice-calling puzzle? Rumors have it that the acquisition-happy search giant has acquired Gizmo5, a Skype-like VoIP startup. TechCrunch is reporting that Google has plunked down $30 million in cash for Gizmo5, which offers a software app that lets you make free phone calls to other Gizmo users, as well as inexpensive calls to landlines and cell phones. It …

eBay Settles Skype Litigation, Costing It Five Percent of Skype

eBay is giving up 5% of Skype (at a valuation of $135 million) to settle litigation with Skype founders. eBay announced that the investor group led by Silver Lake, which had previously entered into a definitive agreement to acquire a majority stake in Skype from the company, has reached a settlement agreement with Joltid Limited and Joost N.V. that gives Skype ownership over all software …

New Skype Competitor: Google May Acquire Gizmo5 For $30M

Google has reportedly acquired Gizmo5, which would let it tie together some of its own telephony applications into a potential VoIP competitor to Skype.

Lessons From the War Over Skype

The dust has settled, the ink on the deal has dried, and one of the biggest sideshows in Silicon Valley this year appears to be over . The litigation between eBay , the buyers of Skype and its original founders has been dropped, and the deal, which values Skype at $2.7 billion, should close soon.

Skype helps LaGrange school laud Mainers serving in Iraq

LAGRANGE, Maine — Thanks to an Internet video communication service called Skype, Jen Baker can talk to her husband, Tech. Sgt. Joe Baker, in Iraq from their home in town as many as three times a week.

International Children’s Charity Cuts Costs and Enhances Communications With VoSKY and Skype

Children International, a global charity helping children living in extreme poverty, has deployed VoSKY’s PBX-to-Skype Gateway to enable free Skype calling for employees, cutting the cost of long distance and international calls and improving collaboration and communication.

Skype links students to troops serving in Iraq

By Deb Pint, Correspondent It got up close and personal for some eighth-graders at Hidden Oaks Middle School in Prior Lake Nov. 4, when students visited via Skype video teleconferencing with servicemembers stationed in Iraq. The 15-minute conversation, part of the “Adopt-a-Troop” project, was the students’ first teleconference with the military soldiers. read more

Rdio: First Screenshots Leaked of Skype Founders’ New Music Service

We’ve been lucky enough to get our hands on leaked screenshots from one version of Rdio , the forthcoming music app from Skype, KaZaA and Joost creators Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis. Zennstrom and Friis were the original financiers behind peer-to-peer file sharing site KaZaA , but Rdio won’t be following a free-for-all sharing model. Instead, Rdio will be a subscription music site similar to …

Solider station in Iraq visits daughters via Skype

Technology is helping families with those involved in the military stay in touch via the World Wide Web. It allows soldiers contact with their family members back home.

Last week on TechCrunch: The Skype settlement, Hitler vs Obama in the app store, Scamville, SnapNames and more…

I’d love to have witnessed the scene at eBay’s house back in 2005 when the FedEx guy delivered their exciting new purchase… “Hey, guys! Skype’s arrived!” “Awesome! Quick – open it…” “Wait, what the hell… this isn’t what we ordered. It’s just a big box full of users with the word ‘Skype’ written on the side in Sharpie – none of the core p2p technology is in here.” “What? Didn’t you read the …

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AT&T Will Allow VoIP Calls From Apple's iPhone – Yahoo! News

VoIP over 3G is coming to the iPhone. On Tuesday, AT&T announced that it had “taken the steps necessary” so Apple can enable Voice over Internet Protocol calls on the iPhone through the carrier's 3G network. Before this announcement, VoIP on the iPhone could only work with Wi-Fi.

AT&T has allowed VoIP apps to work on some of the other wireless devices it offers over 3G, 2G and Wi-Fi.

Evaluating Expectations

AT&T President and CEO Ralph de la Vega said the move came “after evaluating our customers' expectations and use of the device compared to dozens of others we offer.”

Sometimes called Internet telephony, VoIP allows voice and video communications over IP networks such as the Internet. This contrasts to using the public switched network, through which ordinary phone calls are made.

The leading free VoIP application is Skype, which allows a user to make free phone calls to another Skype user and charges a small amount to call a regular wireless or landline phone. Various commercial services, such as Vonage, also offer VoIP. Until now, AT&T has blocked Skype on the iPhone.

Because Skype-to-Skype calls are free, and Skype-to-phone calls are very cheap, the Skype application has been seen as a key driver in lowering the cost of voice calls. Because of this, carriers are trying to add as many non-voice, paid services as possible. Even with Skype on the iPhone, however, the user must still subscribe to a wireless data plan.

'Surprised and Not Surprised'

Bill Ho, an analyst with Current Analysis, said he was “both surprised and not surprised” by AT&T's announcement. He said he's surprised because carriers have made “the technical argument that VoIP calls occupy the entire data channel” and it was better to keep the data channel open to be used for other things as well. But, Ho surmised, “technology marches on, and apparently they've found a way to do this” that doesn't hog the data channel.

The reason he's not surprised, he said, is that “there has been so much pressure from the Federal Communications Commission and the media to be able to do this. “VoIP over 3G on the iPhone,” Ho said, opens up “a whole universe of other AT&T phones” that might also get VoIP.

Recently, the FCC has been looking at whether network-neutrality principles, which it wants to apply to any Internet access or bandwidth provider, should also apply to wireless data providers such as AT&T.

Network neutrality means, among other things, that an Internet service provider cannot pick and choose which Internet services and sites to carry. AT&T has opposed applying net-neutrality rules to wireless networks.

Technorati Tags: voip

If you are working on running a business, it is very important that you need to be able to give and receive telephone calls sometimes from all over the world. The use of a telephone in a business is a lot!

Now, think about how many of these telephone calls are long distance and cost more by the minute than a local phone call. This costs a lot more money since businesses use the telephones a lot to call other towns. This is where voip becomes a cost saver.

Voip stands for voice over ip which means that you make the calls over the web instead of the telephone lines that a regular telephone uses. Since you are using the web the only price to you would be the internet service charges. And usually, your business already has the internet.

One of the types of businesses that can benefit the most from a voip set up would definitely have to be a call center. Not only does it save a lot of money but it is a lot easier to upgrade by adding new lines since it means just a call to your service provider.

Voip also provides all the features that a regular telephone line would provide. Three way calling, call waiting, telephone caller display, voice mail and many more features are available. Usually these come in convienent packages as well with help you save a little money that way as well.

Luckily, these days voip is getting more popular and there are a fair number of choices in different voip service providers in business right now. This allows you to do a lot of comparison shopping for the best deals in price and services.

Voice Over Internet is VOIP

Out of all the questions I bet you thought you would ask yourself I bet it wasn’t “Whats VOIP” or even “Free VOIP”? Words Like VOIP and Internet Protocol, used to be the language of geeks only, but now they are the new EMO. You may know those odd people that wear black, cloths, hair, eyes, hoods and make up. Well these are the new people, the new era of GEEKS that we are looking at now days.

The word geek isn?t really used that much anymore even though words like voip and other acronyms are practically everyday language. It is true, voip stands for voice over the Internet protocol. It is a lot of jargon for four simple words but it does create mass confusion in heads of The IT challenged, unfortunately this term stands for most of the planet.

Really how much is Free?

So is free voip what I need, or want, and will I be able to use it, for free? Understanding what voip is, the rest is going to be easy to comprehend. It cannot be any simpler. Time to explain what free voip is, and how to get it for free.

Lets put it nice and simple

In simplicity, VOIP is a small software package that allows you to talk via your Internet line without increasing your normal telephone bill. Free voip is free to use with most adsl packages that are available. So therefore, you are still chatting via your internet which you have already paid for.

It does seem to be a cheaper way of having a conversation if you have adsl at home, but it is definitely not the same as talking via a web cam, which guzzles your bandwidth superfast.

So it goes to show, there is no real free voip anyway, you paid for the services that you had installed anyway. If you are trying to make free voip calls you will soon find out that it does not cost much, as you may have to load some airtime to use anyway, but the calls are charged at such a low rate, but your bandwidth does decrease while you are doing your so called free voip call.

The only part of it is that if you receive calls while you are on your PC, but for the person actually calling, nothing is free!

Did you ever wonder what it takes to get your own toll free number? These days it is actually a lot easier than you might think. Read more below to see how easy it is to obtain a toll free number.

To Get a toll free number may seem a giant mystery to many looking for a 800 number for personal or business purposes. Understanding what it is and how it works hopefully will clear some confusion and allow you to proceed with the purchase of a toll free number more easily.

A toll free number pretty much works sort of like long distance but in reverse. With a toll free number you pay per minute for calls made to your number. These rates vary from carrier to carrier, but usually you can easily find a good flat rate 800 number provider.

With most toll free services you will need existing phone service. Chances are your current carrier can get you a number simply by you calling them and requesting the service. The service however may have high per minute rates which you will want to avoid. Shopping outside your carrier can give you a better rate for toll free numbers depending on your carrier.

Many carriers may have good per minute rates, but be aware that some surcharges may be applied for certain circumstances so read all of the fine print. You do not want to end up paying too much if there are too many per connection fees associated with your plan.

Now additional per call connection fees might have you worried, but there is a way around these fees. Most of the time these connection fees are added for calls originating from outside the U.S. or from pay phones. Many toll free number providers give you the option to block these types of calls to help eliminate these unwanted costs. Some toll free numbers may require a monthly fee for continued service.

NOTE: If you are thinking of ordering a personal toll free number for the family, you will want to keep your payphone calling option open. This is good for emergencies.

It is important to remember that toll free service does not replace your phone number. Whoever has your toll free number can call the number to reach you, but whoever has your original phone number can call you as well. Toll free numbers come in the prefixes of 800, 888, 877, and 866. In many cases 877 and 866 numbers are cheaper than an 800 or 888 number.

Digital phone service providers are now offering toll free services as well. If you subscribe to a VoIP provider, you might want to ask if they offer such services and for how much, chances are it costs very little.