AT&T recently filed a complaint with the FCC charging that Google was violating communications guidelines by blocking phone calls to certain areas. Google’s response was that because Google Voice does not actually provide the backbone that carries the actual calls Google is not subject to those same guidelines. Gizmo5 puts some holes in that defense.

Google Voice has generated a lot of excitement providing a diverse set of advanced voice and messaging capabilities, but without Gizmo5 Google Voice relies entirely on your existing voice services. Google Voice is basically an extended feature pack that you implement with your existing mobile and landline phones.

By purchasing Gizmo5, Google now has its own VoIP capabilities and can beef up Google Voice to compete directly with Skype. The bigger picture, though, is what Gizmo5 provides Google in terms of expanding the unified communications functionality of Google Wave.

I have not been overly impressed with the early release of Google Wave, but the initial demonstration Google used to unveil Google Wave was quite impressive. If Google manages to mature the current Google Wave beta into the Google Wave it displayed for us at Google I/O 2009, and adds in SIP-based VoIP capabilities, Google Wave could be a potent unified communications platform and offer an impressive, cost-effective alternative to existing unified communications systems.

Sprint SIP trunking customers will be able to leverage Sprint’s Global MPLS network and utilize a single IP network connection to facilitate voice, date, and video conferencing connections.

SIP trunking and VoIP enable customers to save significantly over traditional local and long distance expenses, and it is also a key component of unified communications.

1. SIP at a Glance
2. The Case for SIP
3. How SIP Transforms Communications
4. SIP Interoperability
5. SIP in the Contact Center
6. SIP and Intelligent Communications
7. Ten Reason to Use SIP-Enabled Solutions by Avaya

In the Foreword, Johnston says “So what is SIP and why is the industry buzzing about it? This book will tell you. What can you use SIP for? This book will tell you that too. Why is SIP so important? You’ll find that here too.”

The last chapter is obviously a little self-serving, but it is sponsored by Avaya. Overall the booklet is a good primer on SIP and is a solid resource. The price is right, so you can’t fault Avaya for plugging its products in the process.

It is definitely worth a read. Check out SIP Communications for Dummies – 2nd Edition.

Organizations have all kinds of potential reasons for adopting unified communications. Cut costs. Improve efficiency. Communicate more effectively. Streamline business processes. Converge voice / network administration. The list goes o.

But what’s in it for you? Beyond from the hyperbole and and grandiose claims in marketing brochures, the ultimate promise of unified communications from a user perspective is the single number / single device access.

It’s nice to be able to use Presence to see if someone is available and choose the best method of communication based on that individual’s current status. What would be even better is if you only had one method of contact for the individual- his SIP URI for example- and the unified communications environment would intelligently route the communication based on Presence and preferences. Let the recipient choose the best method of communication instead of the sender.

We’re not there (obviously). Most people still have an email address, a desk phone number, and a mobile phone number at a minimum. Many people carry multiple mobile phones to stay in touch with different parties. Cutting Through the Clutter for Unified Communications takes a look at the current state of affairs and explores how we get from here to that UC Utopia of single number / single device communications.

The convergence of voice and data that comes with VoIP and unified communications deployments means that voice networks are now accessible- and exploitable- via many of the same vectors traditionally reserved for attacks on data. Attacks can be automated, they can be executed faster, and they can do more damage in less time thanks to the processing power and bandwidth available to work with. Read The 9 Deadly Security Gaps: Protecting Against the Rising Risk of Toll Fraud to learn more about the threats and how you can defend your VoIP / UC network from attack.

Too often, organizationsgo down the path of deploying new technology with old technology principles in mind and UC is no different. Many of the early adopter deployments of VoIP and UC were designed exactly the same as the old systems, severely limiting the overall value of UC, which is a highly flexible, IP-based solution.

Migrating from traditional trunk lines to SIP trunking is a very simple, cost-effective change to open doors to other advanced services that can enhance a UC deployment. SIP trunking will allow companies to recognize the following benefits:

• Dramatically lower the overall cost of communications
• Extends UC to software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications and other cloud-based options
• Accelerates UC deployments through the simplification of network design
• Easier migration to other advanced services such as mobile integration and MPLS networks

For more about SIP trunking and the impact that SIP trunking has on a successful UC deployment, check out this TechTarget presentation: SIP Trunking Is Key to Accelerating Unified Communications Deployments

With VoIP alone, standard best practices suggest keeping the voice VLAN and the data VLAN separate so that a compromise of the voice network would not have any effect on the data network. However, we live in a converged world. Unified communications merges voice and data and requires that they all play nice on the same network. Where does that leave us? That leaves us with some new security concerns to be aware of and guard against.

This post from Nortel’s Voice Security Blog, in conjunction with Sipera Systems Chief Marketing Officer, Eric Winsborrow, provides some additional detail and illustrates some potential scenarios that could exploit a vulnerable VoIP system and lead to a compromise of the UC or data network.

Cisco is another story. At one point Microsoft and Cisco made a very public showing of burying the proverbial hatchet and vowing to cooperate in the best interests of corporate customers and unified communications in general. That cooperation lasted right up until they started rolling out products at which time the mud-slinging began. Each declared their approach and solution superior and slammed the other.

Whether they want to admit it or not though, they are sort of forced to play nicely together (sort of like the nerd and the playground bully while the teacher is actually monitoring recess activities). Cisco is a dominant player in network infrastructure and VoIP communications. Microsoft has a virtual monopoly on the PC desktop and a significant share of the enterprise server market. There is a high probability that a prospective customer is already using Cisco networking in conjunction with  their Microsoft Windows network, so that prospective customer may very well wish to continue that balance as they move forward into unified communications.

Thankfully for the prospective customer, Cisco Unified Communications Manager (CUCM) does integrate with the Microsoft Office Communications Server environment. It isn’t always pretty, but it works. Mike Stacy, a Director with Evangelyze Communications, provides an illustrated step-by-step guide to configuring direct SIP connectivity between the Cisco and Microsoft communications products.

This excerpt from the VoIPshield press release explains the issue further:  “Most of the attention in enterprise VoIP/UC security has been paid to the control channel, where SIP and other signalling protocols are used,” said Ken Kousky, CEO of security research and analysis firm IP3 and advisor to the VoIP Lab at Illinois Institute of Technology. “Until now, the media stream has been largely ignored by the security community as a source of malicious activity.  But attacks from these vectors have the potential to be dangerously persistent and widespread.”

There are an estimated 250 million computers running at least one of these applications. If exploited, the discovered vulnerabilities could result in a DoS (denial-of-service) attack that impacts not just the affected application, but the entire computer system. VoIPshield’s research and disclosure are specific to the Microsoft products mentioned, but they note that these same protocols are used elsewhere and that other VoIP and communications applications are likely impacted by similar vulnerabilities in the media delivery channel.