2600Hz Blog

On Monday, Cisco announced that it is acquiring BroadSoft for $1.9 billion, in an effort to move away from routing and switching and to boost its collaboration tools. The acquisition gives Cisco UCaaS capabilities via BroadSoft’s BroadWorks and BroadCloud services, which Cisco will likely tie into their own communications solution, Spark.  

Since the news broke on the Meltdown and Spectre security vulnerabilities, there have been many questions surrounding the risks and how to protect yourself. As a telecom software company, we have many years of experience dealing with security threats but have never witnessed one quite like this. Fortunately, because of our unique architecture, these vulnerabilities have minimal impact on our...

Author: Mark Diaz - Founder of Vinix Global. Twitter - Facebook - LinkedIn  

The year was 2005. Vonage, an innovative communications pioneer, had introduced a little analog to digital box that allowed residential customers the ability to connect their home phones and call over the internet for significantly lower rates than the local telecom providers. They had just closed a $40M funding round...

This year we are proud and excited to announce that we are sponsoring the Telecom Infra Project (TIP) Summit in Santa Clara! But you may ask yourself, what the heck is TIP anyways. So we figured we’d dive into how the Telecom Infra Project is making waves and why those within the communications industry should pay attention.

Another day, another telco merger! Last week Cisco announced it bought BroadSoft for $1.9 billion dollars, this week Genband and Sonus have announced the completion of their merger into a new company called Ribbon Communications. Former Sonus and Genband shareholders each own approximately 50% of the parent company, which had approximately 102 million shares outstanding post close. Genband’s...

Across the communications industry, it’s fairly common to hear or read about “distributed systems”. Yet, more often than not, as you dive deeper under the hood, the term doesn’t accurately describe the architecture/capabilities. In reality, most offer what is known as a “Hot Standby”. To better understand the differences of the two strategies, let’s first dive into how and why carriers build...

In case you missed it, we recently announced our new Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) offering. 2600Hz has utilized one of the nation’s top cellular networks to offer voice and data services. Given how fragmented the telecom landscape is, this is a revolutionary accomplishment.

In light of Uber’s recent decision to refocus their messaging services from Twilio to internal tools, Twilio’s shares have dropped by 30%. This does not come as a surprise considering Uber is their largest client. 

Twilio’s business model is built on a small number of reusable APIs that initially took the communications and developer communities by storm. This was due to qualities such as ease...

Once upon a  time, there was a venturesome, open communications company that dreamed of pioneering a new kind of mobile solution. A solution, that would enable service providers to sell mobile business services, which could seamlessly integrate across multiple PBX platforms and provide an unparallelled business communications experience. However, as the venture unfolded, the reality became...

Open source has long been considered a launchpad for developers and innovators. With a stable foundation in place, programmers could build out their own applications. The resulting products deliver all the desired functionality without a high degree of concern for reliability. It’s a way for businesses to fit into a niche and better serve their customers.

Now that 2600Hz has entered the CPaaS market via KAZOO and PIVOT, we were wondering - has anyone ever done a side-by-side comparison of the biggest CPaaS players? Who’s got an edge in the market? Do their platforms vary based on functionality, or does the big differentiator come from customer support?

The business customer today has different challenges, motivations, and needs than those who needed simple Plain Old Telephone Service (POTS) back in the day. Luckily, voice resellers have a wide array of products that can help them meet those needs. Cloud-based VoIP and unified communications technology comes packed with diverse features, new levels of scalability, and meets world-class...

When most call center managers set performance benchmarks, they’re focused on a set of broader goals. For example, picking up a customer call after twenty seconds versus ten probably won’t affect the ultimate outcome of the call. Examine those measurements at scale, however, and you could find some serious implications for productivity. Call center quality management is key to delivering...

As Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS) powers its way to the front line of the telecom market, it’s undoubtedly picking up attention from both telecom providers and the businesses they serve. While telecom giants have made moves to acquire CPaaS vendors and other providers, like Twilio, have filed IPOs, professionals familiar with the industry can discern the value between the...

What News?

Since the last reports around the end of November of this year, major telecom player Avaya stands with approximately $600M in debt, repayment of which is due in October 2017. While Avaya is still an undisputed giant in the industry, they have reported losses over several quarters since a high point of about $1 billion back in 2015. A highly trending article from the Wall Street...

When you’re dealing with technology, and more specifically, with cloud-based telephony, you’re going to come across a fair number of acronyms. An important one to pay attention to is CPaaS: Communications Platform as a Service. A number of providers, like Twilio, Nexmo, Plivo, and others offer CPaaS products to help businesses get more from their communications infrastructure. 2600Hz users...

Women Who Code Portland (WWCPDX) is the local chapter Women Who Code (WWC) - a global nonprofit dedicated to helping women to not only excel in their tech careers, but to provide paths into leadership opportunities. WWCPDX is a very active chapter and supports multiple events each month.There are lunches, study groups, networking events, and plenty of opportunities to give back to our...

When introducing customers to any new technology, there are bound to be doubts about its benefits. In the case of unified communications technology, resellers will often hit an objection or two on the first pass. The most common objections, however, can usually be countered with a little customer education. Here are five of the most common objections sales people will come across and some tips...

Earlier this month PDXWIT (Portland Women in Tech) hosted a workshop by our very own lead software architect - James Aimonetti titled, "Demystifying Telecom". James has been a member of the 2600Hz team since 2010, and as the lead software architect of KAZOO, James has quite a bit of telecom development expertise to share.

"Demystifying Telecom" was a talk that focused on providing an entry...

There are many options on the market for enterprise communications. It’s easy to get distracted by nice-to-have features and easier still to get bogged down in competitive pricing. The problem for VoIP resellers is that they need to be confident in their service offering right from the first pitch. To determine if your offering is a modern and capable voice system that’s reliable and flexible...

There’s always an opportunity for a business to expand its offerings. Voice over IP (VoIP) telephony is unique in that it can be added to nearly any technology reseller’s repertoire. The training required to understand the fundamentals of VoIP is relatively low compared to other technologies, and wholesale vendors are usually there to support their reseller network with any troubleshooting,...

We had a great time sharing news and ideas with others at KazooCon this year in San Francisco. It’s possible, however, that we may have thrown too much information at you, so we wanted to take an opportunity and break down some of the highlights of the event. For our beloved attendees and the friends who couldn’t make it, here’s the inside scoop:

Since Kazoo 4.0 is currently being polished for release, we thought it was a good time to discuss some of the new features that will be available when your system is upgraded.

There’s a slew of new updates to come in the neatly wrapped package that is Kazoo 4.0.

Enterprise businesses are too big to rely on copper-wire telephone service anymore, so they use the cloud as a platform for their voice systems. Cloud, however, seems to still be regarded as an amorphous term in 2016, so let’s provide some simplified definitions around key terms regarding cloud communications and clear the air.

When enterprise businesses search for a voice solution, a complete cloud communications solution is frequently presented as an option.

We’re so excited to officially announce sponsors and the agenda for KazooCon 2016. The event will be hosted on October 17th – 18th at Broadway Studios in San Francisco, CA. Inspired by Kazoo’s VoIP open-source platform and hosted by 2600Hz, KazooCon brings together developers, managed service providers, carriers and telecom evangelists to create unified communications systems.

Imagine this: You’re on the phone with a customer, nailing down your VoIP deal, when you say, “Alright, I’ll set you up in the XYZ user portal and you’ll be good to go!.” The customer responds, “XYZ? What’s that? You don’t make your own products?”

How is media handled?

When we talk about media, we are talking about the audio packets going to and from an endpoint, where an endpoint could be your desk phone, fax machine, an upstream carrier, etc.

Let's assume you're calling a number not managed by the Kazoo installation.

When we gather for KazooCon 2016 on October 17 & 18, we, as a community of voice resellers, do more than just network and evangelize our products. Together we solve problems and bring about change to the business voice industry. Collaboration is one of the single most powerful actions we can take.

Nexmo operates a cloud communications platform that develops APIs for SMS, voice, and phone verifications. In June 2016, Vonage acquired Nexmo, positioning the combined company as a best-in-class leader across the two dominant modes of communication today – voice and messaging.  

Learn about our Kazoo 4.0 Release and much more at KazooCon 2016! Only 10 more days until Early Bird Pricing ends!

Want to learn more? Check out What to Expect at KazooCon 2016.

KazooCon is about the communications revolution, and this year we’re introducing the voice advances that enterprises have been waiting on.

Only 40 days to KazooCon 2016, and Super Early Bird Tickets are expiring this Friday 9/9!

We are thrilled to announce that our 4th Annual KazooCon is happening October 17th-18th in beautiful San Francisco, California.

San Francisco, CA - April 1st, 2016 - With skyrocketing demand for integrations between different services, 2600Hz is staying ahead of the competition with a unique integration named “Carrier Pigeons”.

Open-Source is an enormous component of what powers 2600Hz. Not only are we supporting and contributing to other open-source projects, the Kazoo platform is open-source.

The Accounts Manager App is a dynamic web portal providing multi-tenant functionality for worry-free scaling. Manage all of your accounts, and provide granular control to ensure customers have an enjoyable experience.

People love to talk about scale. Some vendors pitch that their systems easily support 100,000 simultaneous calls, or 500 calls per second, etc. The reality is, in the real world, people’s behaviors vary and the feature sets they use can cut these numbers down quickly.

In a competitive market, high quality voice services alone are rarely enough. Lon Baker speaks about the customer lifecycle, back office systems from Sales to CRM to deployment, and how to drive profitable growth while delivering an excellent customer experience.

Telnexus CEO Vernon Keenan discuss how he built the Managed Service Provider Telnexus from the ground up and the lessons he has learned in the process.

Founder and CEO Mikhail Rodionov discusses all the projects and code contributions that they have built for Kazoo over the past year.

The team at ThinQ show how to set up your routing profile, carrier selection, high volume traffic management, and LCR routing.

Product Director Aaron Gunn discusses billing options for SaaS and IaaS customers. This includes CDR API, AMPQ, and integrating VoIP billing platforms.

CTO Karl Anderson discusses the state of Kazoo. This includes integrations with FreeSWITCH, erlang, and Kamailio. Reseller milestones include the release of whitelabeling, webhooks, migration, carriers, debugging, account management and more.

The Voxter team discuss code contributions to the Kazoo platform, discuss how they are utilizing the platform, and give an in-depth demo of WhApps.