Canadian telecom giant Nortel Networks Corp. is using its wireless and voice-over-internet protocol (VoIP) technology to spearhead a push into the European communications market.

According to a recent study by Currys, students would sooner buy a wireless router than an iron. Wireless Internet access is spreading fast, from homes to cafes and hotels. There are even plans to give whole cities wireless Internet access, either using Wi-Fi (eg in Norwich and San Francisco) or using WiMax, a long-range wireless broadband technology (eg in Milton Keynes).

Panasonics new phone will allow Skype customers access to voicemail, call forwarding, and the ability to dial out from the home, office, or public Wi-Fi hotspots.

Google and eBay have joined forces in a pay-per-call deal which could act as a catalyst in helping the emerging channel gain a much bigger foothold. The partnership means that click-to-call ads will appear globally on both companies websites (and also that Googles text ads will appear exclusively on eBay properties outside the US), according to ClickZ News.

Keyspan Cordless VoIP Phone lets you use Skype without being tethered to your Mac or PC. Now you can use Skype anywhere in your home or office.

According to a testing company, Minacom, VoIP phone service worldwide "now sounds better and connects faster than the standard public-switched phone network (PSTN).". More specifically according to this report that data collected over the last 12 months by its standards-based, single-ended service quality test system show that the quality of VoIP services offered by telcos, cable operators, and broadband VoIP providers has increased steadily over the past year, with an average Mean Opinion Score (MOS) of 4.2, compared to 3.9 for the PSTN. MOS, an International Telecommunication Union standard, is commonly used to describe speech quality. It ranges from 1 (worst) to 5 (best).

San Francisco, CA and London, UK; 4 May 2006: Measures considered by some operators to block, or make illegal, the use of VoIP services on their network are a waste of time, especially given the clear signals by consumer and business users indicating a demand for these type of applications. This is one of the findings from visiongain’s new report, “VoIP in Europe 2006-2011: Market analysis and forecasts.”

Launched in 1995, SpeechTEK is recognized worldwide as the speech technology industry's premier event focusing on products, services, applications, solutions and innovations. The conference, held annually in New York, attracts a global network of speech technology providers, practitioners and enterprise network customers who are developing and implementing speech solutions.

Jabber is best known as "the Linux of instant messaging" -- an open, secure, ad-free alternative to consumer IM services like AIM, ICQ, MSN, and Yahoo (see the IM quickstart). Under the hood, Jabber is a set of streaming XML protocols and technologies that enable any two entities on the Internet to exchange messages, presence, and other structured information in close to real time

4.2 million U.S. homes now use voice over Internet protocol for at least some of their local and long-distance calling, according to the Telecommunications Industry Association, a trade group of equipment makers. The TIA predicts VOIP will expand to 18 million users in the U.S. by 2009.