: Denphone Digest :: February 2009 :: Volume 1, Number 3 :
Greetings
Welcome back to the second installment of Denphone Digest for 2009. This month we have a couple of interesting articles - Denphone founder Louis Leclerc talks about how he feels the PBX market will move following Nortel's Chapter 11 announcement, and we have a review of the Yamaha RTX1200 Giga Access VPN Router which is quite an interesting piece of Japanese engineering. As ever, if you would like to see something featured in Denphone Digest, feel free to contact us and we will see what we can do for you.
In this issue:
- Presidents Corner - Huw Williams
- What Nortel's Chapter 11 means for the future of Telephony Systems in Japan
- Featured product: Yamaha RTX1200 Giga Access VPN Router
- Around the internet
- Denphone News featuring Osaka 06 DID Service
Presidents Corner
Thank you for your feedback to the last edition of the Denphone Digest. We appreciate the kind comments and messages that we received and are glad that this newsletter is getting positive responses from various quarters. Business this quarter continues to be slow in terms of capital expenditure compared to last year, but we have seen a lot of movement with our call termination and Japan to overseas corporate IP telephone services as companies look to find ways to cut their phone related expenses. We are also pleased to announce that our 06 Osaka DID service will be starting later this month. You can read more about that below in the Denphone News section.
Huw R. Williams
President
Denphone K.K.
What Nortel's Chapter 11 means for the future of Telephony Systems in Japan
Simon Gibson
We spoke recently to one of Denphone's founding partners Louis Leclerc, about the recent news regarding Nortel's Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing, what this bodes for Japan, and the future of the local PBX market. Louis Leclerc hails from Canada and during the 1990's worked for Nortel which combined with his 15 years of experience working in IT and more specifically in the telephony field, gives him the ideal background to analyze the current situation.
SG: How do you think the decision by Nortel to go into Chapter 11 will impact the telephony market?
LL: Obviously this is pretty big news for the telephony industry and we have yet to see what the long term repercussions for Nortel will be. With Nortel having roughly a 5% market share here in Japan I think the next 6 to 12 months will be critical for Nortel in terms of both keeping up with advances in telephony technology as well as maintaining the ability to offer a high level of support to their customers in the Japanese marketplace. I think it highlights the importance of avoiding technologies that are very proprietary. Open standards such as SIP offer protection against just this sort of event. Using open systems, like the Asterisk open source PBX software platform that the Denphone PBX's are based on allows clients the opportunity to choose different handset and server vendors as they aren't tied in to a particular proprietary platform. There are other open platforms such as SIP Server that have similar advantages. The Cisco Call Manager platform now supports the SIP standard, and Cisco are embracing more open VoIP standards than Nortel. This seems to be a winning strategy for them going forward. Avaya, Mitel and other appear to be somewhere in the middle.
Read more about the What Nortel's Chapter 11 means for the future of Telephony Systems in Japan.
Featured product: Yamaha RTX1200 Giga Access VPN Router
Yamaha as a company is well known worldwide as a manufacturer of quality motorbikes, sports boats, engines, pro audio gear and guitars. What a lot of people don't know is that they also produce a range of highly reliable range of routers including advanced VoIP solutions, VPN routers and firewalls.
The Yamaha RTX1200 Giga Access VPN Router is one product from Yamaha that has really caught our eye. Released at the end of October 2008 as solution for small to medium sized enterprises the RTX1200 has a lot of positives. The biggest is of course gigabit - allowing seamless WAN/LAN gigabit connections. With B-FLETS, KDDI and YUSEN in some places in Japan now offering gigabit connections, you would now be able to have gigabit throughput over your home LAN with the RTX1200.
Until know it has been very difficult to source a gigabit router which offers gigabit from the WAN side through to the LAN side without paying more money than my mother-in-law spends on an afternoon's spree on the Ginza. With power requirements of 16W it is also an environmentally friendly choice. It is fanless and so very quiet, has no moving parts and doesn't suck up dust. Another advantage is that with Yamaha not being well known outside of Japan it isn't a likely target for cracking - with criminals targeting more common network OS's such as IOS.
Read more about the Yamaga RTX1200 Giga Access VPN Router.
Around the Internet
Polycom Telepresence Helps Raise "Rent" In Japan
In some positive news, American IP phone and video conferencing manufacturer Polycom have an interesting article about how their telepresence solutions were utilised to allow theater company members in Tokyo and New York collaborate virtually while working on the musical 'Rent'.
Using Polycom RPX solutions, RENT's Tokyo and New York creative teams collaborated face to face across nearly 7,000 miles as effectively as if they were in the same room. The Polycom RPX is uniquely designed as the industry's only complete room-within-a-room telepresence environment optimized to deliver natural, life-like communication among geographically dispersed groups. The immersive communication experience helped the teams accelerate decision making, reduce travel costs and improve productivity and efficiency.
"The product team here in Japan needed to work closely with the director, stage designer, and costume designer in New York, but e-mails, phone calls, and even traditional video conferencing did not satisfy our needs," said Ms. Mariko Kojima, RENT's producer in Japan. "The Polycom RPX immersive telepresence solution provides an amazing "same room" meeting experience, with clear video and acoustic technology that picks up even whispers, which enabled us to communicate very effectively despite the great distance separating our teams. A sense of "sharing the same space" was critical when making big decisions and discussing intricate details and sensitive issues. The Polycom RPX HD allowed us to have natural interaction and ultimately helped us save significant time, money and energy, while also reducing our stress levels."
You can read the rest of the Polycom press release "Polycom Telepresence Helps Raise "Rent" In Japan" here: http://www.polycom.com/company/news_room/press_releases/2009/20090205.html
Cisco Security Advisory: Multiple Vulnerabilities in Cisco Wireless LAN Controllers
Cisco Systems announced Wednesday February 4th 2009 that Cisco 4400 Series Wireless LAN Controllers, Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series/7600 Series Wireless Services Module (WiSM) and Cisco Catalyst 3750 Series Integrated Wireless LAN Controllers running WLC software version 4.2.173.0 face a number of vulnerabilities - 3 types of Denial of Serice (DoS) vulnerabilities and one type of Privilege Escalation vulnerability. If you are using any of these products, you are advised to contact your service representative, or to download the free software updates that address these vulnerabilities.
Cisco described the impact of these vulnerabilities as follows
Successful exploitation of the denial of service vulnerabilities may cause the affected device to hang or reload. Repeated exploitation could result in a sustained DoS condition. The privilege escalation vulnerability may allow an authenticated user to obtain full administrative rights on the affected system.
Cisco has released free software updates that address these vulnerabilities. Prior to deploying software, customers should consult their maintenance provider or check the software for feature set compatibility and known issues specific to their environment.
Customers may only install and expect support for the feature sets they have purchased. By installing, downloading, accessing or otherwise using such software upgrades, customers agree to be bound by the terms of Cisco's software license terms found at http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/prod_warranties_item09186a008088e31f.html, or as otherwise set forth at Cisco.com Downloads at http://www.cisco.com/public/sw-center/sw-usingswc.shtml.
Denphone News
Denphone to Offer Osaka 06 Direct Inward Dialing over IAX2 and SIP
Denphone is proud to announce the introduction of its' Osaka 06 Direct Inward Dialing (DID) service. This service will allow Denphone customers to connect VoIP services directly through Denphone's hosted equipment in Osaka.
Direct Inward Dialing (DID), also called Direct Dial-In (DDI) in Europe, is a feature which allows customers to connect to the PSTN or publicly switched telephone network when given a range of numbers or DID's to use. As calls are presented to the PBX, the number that the caller dialed is also given, so the PBX can route the call to the desired person or section within the organization. Denphone has been offering Tokyo DID'S for the last 3 years and this is a positive move that will allow users both in Japan and abroad to connect to the PSTN via 06 Osaka numbers. One major benefit of this is the ability for customers in Osaka to call directly to a 06 number and thus not have to pay toll charges that may otherwise apply.
Denphone President Huw Williams said, "We are happy to be first company offering Osaka 06 DID's over IAX2 protocol as well as the SIP protocol from Japan. This service should be of great benefit to our partner companies, enabling them to leverage access to the 06 range of DID's at a low cost. We look forward to working with your company by providing reliable long term support for all of your telephony needs in Japan, including 03 Tokyo and 06 Osaka DID's over both the IAX2 and SIP protocols."
For further information about Denphone 06 Osaka DID's, give Denphone a call on 03-4550-1405, via this contact page or by reply to the address this magazine was sent from.
Denphone Website Redesigned
Denphone is proud to annouce that its' website - http://www.denphone.com has been redesigned. After 5 years of running Drupal, a switch was made to the Habari Blogging platform - Habari has support for Postgres as well as MySQL and sqlite. Habari is a Swahili word that means "What's the news?" and is used much like "What's up" - so perhaps there is a hint of homage to Ubuntu there.
There are many options out there for CMS systems, and initially we were considering continuing with Drupal or moving to Wordpress. However the version of Drupal we were using was running with Postgres on the back-end, so updating Drupal would have required major changes to the code. Wordpress also is only available / supported with MySQL so that really wasn't an option either.
After a bit of searching, we came across the Habari website (http://habariproject.org/en/ - there is a nice video introducing the Habari install process). Developing themes for Habari is quite similar to Wordpress so that went quite smoothly. Overall we have been very satisfied with Habari as a platform for the new Denphone website.
If you have any feedback regarding the new website, including things that you think could be done better, we would really love to hear from you.
VoIP & Asterisk Lounge February 12th, 2009
The next VoIP & Asterisk Lounge will be held Thursday, February 12th, from 6pm at Cafe Lolita in Azabujuban, Tokyo. This monthly event is a great chance to meet and network with other Asterisk and VoIP users and developers in the Tokyo region.
- Cost: Free Entrance (drinks are between 500 and 900yen)
- Directions: From Azabujuban Station Exit 7 (Oedo or Namboku Lines),turn right and walk 2 minutes towards Roppongi Hills.
- Alternatively, exit at Roppongi station and walk down the hill towards Azabujuban (10 minute walk). Turn left when you get to Tsutaya. Cafe Lolita is on your left.
We look forward to seeing you there!
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About Denphone
Denphone K.K. is Japan's leading provider of open PC based VOIP Telephone PBX systems. Denphone supplies Digium / Asterisk solutions, Cisco, Polycom, snom and Grandstream phone and video systems as well as our own bespoke solutions.
Contact Denphone
Denphone is centrally located in Tokyo's Minato Ward in Azabujuban. We can be contacted by telephone on 03-4550-1405, via this contact page or by reply to the address this magazine was sent from.
Our postal address is: #402 Azabu Nagasaka Bd, 1-4-8 Azabujuban, Minato-ku, Tokyo 106-0045 Japan.
