We sat down recently with executives from 8x8 to talk about their growth as a Unified Communications provider and about the overall industry trend toward replacing traditional PSTN voice service and infrastructure with VoIP. The discussion comes on the heels of a solid fiscal year for the company, which saw total revenues for fiscal 2014 increase by 24% over fiscal 2013; 8x8's fiscal year ended March 31, 2014.
Blue Jeans Network, a video collaboration service provider, has introduced an online platform that gives people direct access to one another as well as to engineers, product developers, and company executives. The community is designed to give customers and the larger industry a forum to propose new product ideas, share feedback, and request support.
Oracle has just released its Communications Application Orchestrator designed to address the Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) requirements for communications service providers. Virtualized infrastructures are increasingly popular, both in the enterprise and in service provider infrastructures. Oracle's new solution is also designed to work with Oracle Communications Core Session Manager, a solution that helps CSPs virtualize network infrastructures to support NFV efforts.
We've discussed some of the advantages of transitioning the PSTN to IP, but there we haven't yet covered the environmental implications of the pending transition. At their annual partner conference Perspectives14, GENBAND hosted a discussion which addressed the power costs behind the PSTN, pointing out the benefits an IP transition.
A recent FCC study may have taken some wind out of the sails for those who suggest that ISPs are not living up to performance promises. In its fourth such annual report, "Measuring Broadband America-2014," the FCC has found that, on average, ISPs now provide 101% of advertised download speeds.
Today, we'd like to point out some highlights from two recent reports. The first report, "UC Evolves to Enhance Business Applications," was written by industry analyst and UC expert (and Network World blogger) Zeus Kerravala. The second piece is a white paper provided by Oracle titled "Centralized vs. Distributed SIP Trunking: Making an Informed Decision."
Two acquisitions caught our attention this week: Avaya has closed on its acquisition of Radvision announced earlier this year, while Verizon Communications has announced an agreement to acquire Hughes Telematics Inc.
Voice over IP is ready for prime time in the enterprise network for three reasons. First, voice over IP helps companies begin to integrate corporate data applications with voice applications. Second, voice over IP can bring significant savings on international calls. Third, an organization doesn't have to "go it alone" to make the transition to a voice-over-IP network.