The beta release of the W400 board has just been announced. This is our first GSM capable telephony interface board. The W400 board allows IP-PBXs built with Asterisk to communicate with the GSM cellular network. It supports up to four simultaneous quad-band EGSM sessions enabling maximum compatibility worldwide. It includes onboard hardware echo cancellation, noise suppression and DTMF detection. The W400 comes in a PCIe configuration.  

If you are interested in joining the W400 beta testing program, please contact Julien Nephtali at jnephtali@sangoma.com.

                            ASTERISK-BASED SENIOR CARE SOLUTIONS DEMO                       

Xorcom Speaking Opportunity at AstriCon Featured Live Demo of ZigBee based Applications

At the annual AstriCon conference and trade show, held last week in Westminster, Colorado, Xorcom presented its “Amity” platform designed to support applications for improved senior care. Watch the video below to catch the highlights:

                             MULTI-POINT VIDEO CONFERENCING – LIVE DEMO                         

Joint Venture Integrates Video Conferencing Capability with Xorcom IP-PBX

Another exciting demonstration took place in the Xorcom booth at the AstriCon Expo. In the video below, Surf Communication Solutions CTO Avi Fisher provides an overview and live demonstration of the new video conferencing functionality while Ariel Mapelman, Xorcom’s Channel Manager for LATAM, Spain & Portugal, simultaneously translates into Spanish:

                  ADVANCE NOTICE: MAINBOARDS UNDERGOING REDESIGN                  

Improvements Will Increase Reliability

We are in the final testing stages and plan to start using the new mainboards in all of our equipment in about two months’ time. The new boards are designed to remain at moderate temperatures and include other improvements that will be detailed in a service bulletin just prior to their release.

As a useful indication for support purposes, the new boards will be printed on a blue PCB (printed circuit board) to help differentiate them from the existing (green) mainboards.

Announcing the availabililty of the beroNet GSM Modules for PCI and PCIe cards and Gateways.

How to sell VoIP PBX to GSM Integration in your market:

► Sell as an Add-on to any PBX in your Market and get new customers

► Earn commissions/provisions from Mobile carriers

► Save your customers’ money on fixed to mobile calls

► Guarantee your customers 100% availability and connectivity

► Free inter-company mobile calls

► Enter a new market sector with Mobile PBX

► Up-sell a Managed and Monitored service through the beroNet cloud

The Benefits of beroNet

Cloud Managed and Monitored

Remotely Monitor, Update, upgrade, provision, back-up, recover, create projects and schedule automatic tasks straight from your browser

Driver Free Technology

The world’s first driver free VoIP Card and Gateway technology running on all operating systems without the need to install drivers.

5 Minute Installations

Fast & Easy. The berofix solution is recognized as a network card in your system, it’s simply Plug & Play.

Modular Technology

Very flexible. You start with the berofix main-board and then just plug-in BRI, PRI, Analog, BRI/FXS Hybrid & GSM modules as your project needs.

Xorcom are introducing another telephony interface board to their product family, P/N XR0126. It will contain two FXS ports and six FXO ports. Like its “older brother”, the XR0035/XR0036, which has six FXS ports and two FXO ports, it will be connected to the mainboard using two cables and identify itself to the Asterisk server as two modules.

The price and assembly policy are identical to those of the existing combination board; it can be used in the Astribank and all IP-PBX models (factory installed only), with no other modules present.

The formal announcement will take place later this month, and all marketing materials (including the price list) will be updated at that time.

The new GXP1100/GXP1105 target those customers who want an entry-level, flexible, and high performance phone with HD audio and robust telephony functionalities but don’t need to invest in more sophisticated multi-line phone models with LCD displays. The GXP1100/1105 supports a number of popular telephony features of Grandstream’s more advanced GXP21xx/14xx series HD phones,  such as security protection using TLS/SRTP/HTTPS, 802.1x, automated provisioning using AES encrypted XML configuration file and TR069, comprehensive voice codecs including the wideband G.722, etc.

More specifically, the two new models of GXP phones support these features:

GXP1100: entry level business HD IP telephone supporting single SIP account, up to 2 calls, 4 programmable keys, HD Handset with wideband audio, single 10/100Mbps network port, wall-mountable design with a desktop stand, 7 dedicated function keys for Hold, Flash/Call-Waiting, Transfer, Message, Mute, Volume, Dial/Redial.  The phone is energy green efficient with an average power consumption of less than 1W. Its Web configuration interface also supports multi-languages including English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Chinese, Korean, and Japanese.

GXP1105: Includes all of the same features and functionalities of the GXP1100 but it additionally offers integrated Power-over-Ethernet (PoE).

“In 2011 Grandstream placed focus on, and successfully gained significant momentum in, the sub-$99 IP phone category by introducing a wide assortment of HD IP phones that meet the varying size and application needs of SMBs and enterprise customers,” said David Li, CEO of Grandstream Networks. “The release of the new GXP 1100/1105 phones demonstrates our continued commitment to serving this fastest growing market segment with a variety of innovative, high quality and affordable product offering.”

For more information on the GXP1100/1105 please Contact Us.

Your Digium Switchvox SMB customers will be able to access their voicemail, check their call history, change out-of-office greetings and make calls from Switchvox through Switchvox Mobile. It makes it easy to place calls from their Switchvox extension and then transfer the call or record the call through the InCall Menu. Contact Us to find out more about Switchvox Mobile and how to extend the power of your Switchvox solution on Android mobile devices.

	Make Calls Call your clients or your coworkers from Switchvox Mobile, and the call looks like it’s coming from your desk!
	Check Voicemail Listen to your voicemail and return calls right from the Voicemail screen.
	Check Calls Call Logs show your incoming, outgoing, and missed calls. You can easily return calls right from the Call Log.
	Manage Greetings You can choose which of your voicemail greetings your callers hear.
	Company Directory The Directory lets you quickly find your coworkers’ extensions and email addresses, then call or send an email. iPhone Activate Call Rules
	Activate Call Rules Activate your call rules right from your smartphone. If you’re in an offsite meeting and can’t be disturbed, it’s easy to send your calls to voicemail.

In order to maximize protection there needs to be a collaborative effort between:

• the PBX supplier and the reseller
• the phone service provider and the end-user network engineer

This article is intended to prepare Xorcom Resellers to deal with toll fraud issues – before and after they occur. Below are some frequently asked questions about PBX toll fraud and the relevant Xorcom responses.

1) If the phone company expects full payment for calls not made by their customer, what arguments, if any, can the Xorcom Reseller provide the end user so the phone company can give their customer some relief on the bill?

Xorcom Response: As the phone company is the “service provider” for their clients, they should have safeguards in their Central Office to ensure that if they see an unusual increase in “minutes of use” (MOU) for their customers, they should shut down the phone lines, or at least inform their client!

Unusually high phone traffic should be treated by phone companies just like credit card fraud is treated by credit card companies. If a credit card begins to register unusual charges, the credit card company shuts it down and forces the client to call. The same rules should apply for long distance charges. Customers should be allowed to set a maximum MOU amount per day for their phone service.  If the specified MOU amount is exceeded, or there are many more international calls than normal for the client, then the phone lines should get shut down automatically.

PBX toll fraud is not a new problem and not doing anything about it in the network to protect customers from toll fraud is a lack of responsibility on the side of the service provider.

2) Should I be advising my clients to have insurance, if it exists, to protect them against PBX toll fraud and hacking?

Xorcom Response: We’re not sure an insurance policy exists to protect against toll fraud. However, the mere fact that the Sony Play-station network got hacked not once but twice shows how sophisticated hackers are getting.  Think about that – Sony gets hacked and over a million customers have supplied their credit cards through Sony play stations to get their games, and Netflix movies, and the Sony engineers could not keep it from happening a second time?  We believe Sony employs some pretty smart network engineers, but even they could not prevent hacking. So the answer is yes – if such insurance exist, recommend buying it.

3) What is Xorcom’s position on PBX toll fraud and/or hacking, with regard to taking responsibility?

Xorcom Response: We do our absolute best to prevent hacking by including software to detect bad logins, and highly recommend the use of strong passwords, etc.  But Xorcom, along with any PBX manufacturer, is not in charge of the client’s network or Internet services and cannot be responsible for damages incurred. We will provide our best efforts in technical support to help prevent fraudulent intrusion into the PBX.

4) What advice would Xorcom give the Reseller on how to respond, if the customer asks the Reseller to pay the bill?

Xorcom Response: We would give the same response we suggest our resellers give their customers (see question #3).  If you happen to be the person in charge of managing the customer’s router and firewall and providing Internet services – then see our suggestions in question #1, in order to prevent this kind of request from ever arising…

5) What proof can the Reseller offer the end-user, to demonstrate that Xorcom and the Reseller did everything reasonably expected to protect against hacking?

Xorcom Response: We are aware of security threats and post them to our blogs (see http://blog.xorcom.com/?p=381 for example), and inform our Resellers about this and how to take action to prevent hacking. We also added our own script files to enhance passwords, but hackers keep getting more sophisticated with password discovery software to break these codes.

Xorcom USA is now in the process of developing software that will measure minutes of use on the Complete PBX, since it seems that service providers don’t want to do it, where the customer can set a maximum amount of minutes of use per day and if the limit is exceeded it shuts down all trunks. We hope to have this done sometime during Q3/2011.

Additional Notes

PBX toll fraud is not a new issue, however, with the advent of IP PBXs, which are connected to Local Area Networks (LANs) and have access to the public Internet through the company’s router, hackers now have a new way to enter the PBX to cause damage.

This is a complex issue and at Xorcom we take it very seriously. In order to maximize protection there needs to be a collaborative effort between:

• the PBX supplier and the reseller
• the phone service provider and the end-user network engineer

Finally, installing a phone system on your local area network normally involves upgrading the elements of your network in order to properly facilitate new features like voicemail-to-email, fax-to-email, proper control and registration of IP Phones (which can be local or remote), and a Web-based operator panel.

Most large companies have already invested in high-end firewall appliances and routers with VoIP security capabilities, and rarely get hacked (even with all the protection they have, some still get hacked, but they plug the holes fairly quickly).

It is typically the small business owner that is the victim of toll fraud. Often, a new IP PBX is installed but the customer fails to invest in a proper firewall or router, mostly due to cost, and does not enhance the network to minimize hacking. These are the customers that need to be advised most strongly about the dangers of skipping these important steps.

For more on configuring your own VoIP System please see the Xorcom Configurator

Patton, the leader in business and carrier-class network access, connectivity, VoIP and mobile video-surveillance equipment—announces mutual certification for Microsoft Office Communication Server (OCS) and SmartNode VoIP gateways.

Microsoft certified SmartNode media gateways (R5.6 and newer) in its Unified Communications Open Interoperability Program for Office Communications Server while Patton lists Microsoft as a Certified IP-PBX Partner.

Having announced IBM Lotus Sametime certification in March, Patton anticipates completing Microsoft Lync certification in Q3.

The Microsoft-Patton certification enables enterprises and integrators to select, specify and implement SmartNode-enhanced OCS solutions with utmost confidence. Patton’s SmartNode-OCS configuration guide facilitates trouble-free system turn-up.

Most Microsoft-certified VoIP gateways are less scalable for interface types, port counts, and number of concurrent calls, yet Swiss engineered, US-manufactured SmartNode™ VoIP equipment typically costs less than any reliable alternative.

“How do you fix a price on peace of mind?” said Burton A. Patton, Executive Vice President. ”Award-wining SmartNode VoIP equipment is industry-renowned for high quality and set-it-forget-it stability. Once you configure one you won’t touch it again. SmartNode™ just keeps on working.”

Featured in an interview entitled “Patton Rocks the VoIP World with SmartNode,” Mr. Patton appears on the cover of April’s InfoTECH Spotlight magazine.

According to Wainhouse Research (Implementing Microsoft’s OCS 2007 in Real-World Telephony Environments), few organizations rip and replace their existing voice networks when implementing unified communications. Most companies prefer less radical—and less costly—gradual migration to IP telephony.

Enabling the smooth transition, SmartNode™ offers a Unified Communications Agent (UCA) that integrates existing PBX phone systems and/or PSTN connections with such unified communications systems as Microsoft OCS and IBM Lotus Sametime.

Providing any-to-any multi-path switching, Patton’s UCA supports simultaneous SIP, H.323, ISDN, and POTS calling—plus T.38 and SuperG3 FAX—with routing and conversion for TDM/PSTN and IP/Ethernet traffic. The UCA includes SIP Registrar for presence/reachability; dial-backup and IP-link redundancy for VoIP-and-data survivability, and VoIP-over-VPN for secure IPsec-encrypted voice and data with Internet Key Exchange (IKE).

SmartNode further enriches unified communications solutions with intelligent least-cost call-routing, QoS, traffic management, voice prioritization, and protection for critical data with call limiter and PSTN overflow.

Patton recently expanded the SmartNode T1/E1/PRI Series, adding the SN4940 VoIP Gateway and SN4950 VoIP Gateway-Router to the SN4960 Enterprise Session Border Router.

About SmartNode VoIP Solutions

Award-winning SmartNode™ equipment delivers state-of-the art VoIP technology that integrates seamlessly with existing analog POTS and digital ISDN infrastructures. Proven interoperability with all major brands of softswitches and IP-PBXs makes it easy for carriers and enterprises to deploy future-proof VoIP systems quickly and profitably today. Tens of thousands of SmartNode products are up and running in enterprise networks and carrier deployments worldwide, including one of Europe’s earliest first-line VoIP services.

The SmartNode Unified Communication Agent (UCA) provides any-to-any multi-path switching (simultaneous SIP, H.323, ISDN, and POTS calls—plus T.38 and SuperG3 FAX—with routing and conversion for TDM/PSTN and IP/Ethernet traffic. The UCA includes SIP Registrar for presence/reachability, dial-backup and IP-link redundancy for VoIP-and-data survivability, and VoIP-over-VPN for secure IPsec-encrypted voice and data with AES/DES strong encryption and automated keying via Internet Key Exchange (IKE).

SmartNode preserves all the ISDN telephony features that ISDN users depend on and network operators require (AOC, CLIP, CLIR, UD64, overlap dialing, and fax, as well as MSN and DID). Built on the industry’s most interoperable VoIP platform, the SmartNode S-DTA supports ISDN, SIP, H.323, and MGCP/IUA signaling. Patton’s SmartWare features touchless auto-provisioning, high reliability, and proven interoperability with all the major-brand softswitches and IP-PBXs.

Scaling from 2 to 120 voice calls, SmartNode VoIP gateways, routers, IADs and Session Border Controllers (SBCs) offer every industry-standard interface, including T1/E1, PRI/BRI, FXS/FXO, V.35/X.21, Ethernet, G.SHDSL, ADSL2+, and more, while Patton’s advanced DownStreamQoS technology delivers clear, toll-quality voice on every call.

Xorcom was founded in 2004, “based on Asterisk technology,” Gal said. About a year and a half ago, he told TMC’s Paula Bernier in an interview that the company was captivated by the Asterisk Open Source PBX during the time in which open source telephony was picking up speed.

“With the understanding that this approach was destined to change the market completely, we set out to become a leading vendor in open source telephony market,” said Gal.

Gal hit the company’s pricing and flexibility as two of its main market differentiators against “any other proprietary system.” They came to the show with a new release in tow — the XE series of Xorcom’s PBX’s. The company already offers the XR2000 and XR3000 series, and its XE series (XE2000 and XE3000) also handles both traditional (Public Switched Telephone Network) and VoIP calls, but comes with features rendering them a significant upgrade, such as microprocessor-based temperature control with redundant fans, redundant hard disk drives, internal backup and recovery support.

Tehrani couldn’t help but note the antenna on the box Gal brought for the interview. Gal said, “This is a completely new direction we are going in. Xorcom is the first to have integrated ZigBee technology into the PBX.” It’s a meshed wireless network, aimed not at replacing WiFi, Gal said, but more for monitoring with low bandwidth and low-power consumption.

He said it is based on feedback from Xorcom’s partners and customers, which led the company to create the XE series — “not just what we think the market wants.”

In fact, Gal called the XE the “big brother” of the successful XR series, Xorcom’s attempt to enter a bit higher-end market. He characterized the major areas of improvement as being in reliability and disaster recovery. Overall it appears to be a more robust series, geared to work which does, in fact, need to get done at night for the next day.

Asked to specify the customer Xorcom had in mind when they created the new series, Gal described existing customers across several verticals — small office operations and banks, security firms, who all want to see more reliability and monitoring built in. He mentioned customers such as Fortune 500 companies and cruise ships, “places which are naturally more sensitive and want to see more built-in reliability.”

Xorcom announced today that it is now shipping a hardware echo canceller module for its award-winning Astribank™ telephony interfaces and Asterisk-based IP-PBX appliances. The module provides a high level of echo cancellation and voice enhancement while reducing load on the CPU as compared to OSLEC, the software-based echo cancellation solution provided in the standard Asterisk framework.
New Echo Cancellation Module Increases Number of Simultaneous Calls Supported

Until now, Xorcom recommended that their customers use the OSLEC (Open Source Line Echo Canceller) provided as part of the Asterisk operating system. Central Processing Units (CPUs) are so powerful these days that normally the OSLEC has no impact on the IP-PBX operation. However, if the telephony system is used in high density call environments, and/or where additional applications are involved, such as call centers that need call recording functionality, offloading the echo cancellation processing to a separate hardware module makes sense.

“By reducing the load on the server’s CPU, the number of simultaneous calls that are supported on the telephony system is increased significantly,” states Izzy Gal, VP Innovation at Xorcom. “We’ve set the echo tail size to 128 taps and our published load tests show that we achieve the same number of simultaneous calls as when we disable the software echo cancellation completely.”