VoIP News and Notes - Monday September 2 2007

It may be Labor Day, but there are a few interesting tidbits floating around today.

Engadget rumors that more news about the GPhone from Google may be forthcoming. Mobile Entertainment Biz suggests it will offer VoIP via GTALK. Om Malik has a great deal to say about it with insight and sources.

Up next is the FCC telling the three remaining Baby Bells it is now "okay" to merge long distance and local. This will eliminate a lot of duplication of costs and in theory puts the Bells on the same playing field as the Cable operators and upstart VoIP providers. It will also likely put a lot of people out of work in the telecom world in marketing and sales. It also paves the way for more integration of selling of IP communications, data and voice networks, etc. I see this as very good news for IBM, Cisco and Microsoft who will be able to quickly take advantage of what all this means just by sheer size and name recognition.

This also puts pressure on companies like Sprint, Level3 and Global Crossing to market smarter and better as well as the cable MSOs who have had the ability to sell one combined offering, but have really been dragging in the business market compared to the telcos.

The Seattle Times writes about VoIP quality being inconsistent and extolling the virtues of Skype Voice Mail.

Broadband acceleration in the UK is rising. That means VoIP won't be far behind. BT now has over 4 million subscribers for broadband.

A new series of Samsung monitors have Voice and Video capabilities embedded in. What's interesting is Samsung appears to have developed their own applications as well as making it possible for the monitor to work with third party software also.

EQO is entering the mobile game with SIM's that offer dual mode mobile and VoIP capability.

VoIPBuster now has their SIP based phone service working with the Nokia N and E series devices too. Hat tip to VoIP Weblog

John C. Dvorak riffs on the same way I did over the weekend about Muni WiFi.

GigaOm has a post about Cisco and Microsoft and how they really aren't friends.