January 24, 2008

VoIP ? Security & Emergency Services Issues ? An Australian View

Tip! With VoIP service in North America, ?local' is always inclusive of US, Canada, some countries in Western Europe, parts of Asia, and parts of Latin America. For countries which are not already included, there are international plans available which cost a lot less than that offered by the standard long distance services providers.

You only need to view a few forums or grab a few news articles to see that debates regarding encryption and other security aspects of VoIP are rife and ongoing. Whilst Skype currently receives much mention in Blogs regarding encryption, I believe this is narrow minded and an industry view approach needs to be adopted.

Security aspects The Australian Communications Industry Forum (acif) suggest that world research into security issues relating to Voice Over Internet Protocol produces a very similar list including eavesdropping, denial of service, identity related attacks, spam over internet telephony and viruses.

Acif wisely advise VoIP providers that "As VoIP becomes more widely deployed in Australian business and the community the threat level will inevitably increase accordingly". They further suggest "? that security issues have the potential to cause serious harm to the acceptance of VoIP as a viable alternative to traditional phone services" and therefore it is in their interest "?to act now and address these issues".

Emergency Services Aspects If the service provider is providing a standard telephone service as defined by the Australian Communications and Media Authority, it is mandatory that they provide emergency service access to 000 and 106 services.

Tip! When using VoIP service, you may not be able to ?activate' a new credit card, as the computer at the other end will claim that you are not calling from a home phone. The reason for this is yet unknown as VoIP providers have yet to answer this.

As many familiar with VoIP would know, the issue is not only with access to emergency service number(s) ie 000 and 106 services for Australia, 911 in the United States, 999 and 112 in the United Kingdom, but in Australia the location of the caller is critical as this dictates which state and area the emergency services call centre transfers the caller to.

Significant advice is provided by acif to service providers attempting to ensure that Standardised Mobile Service Area (SMSA) codes is attached when a customer makes an emergency services call. Additionally they direct that information such as Carriage Service Provider Code and Alternate Address Flag must be provided to the Integrated Public Number Database (IPND) to flag with emergency services "? that the calling address may not reflect the physical location of the caller".

Rightly so, acif are blunt in the fact sheet message to service providers which warns: "The lives of your customers may be at stake. So it is absolutely critical that you allocate the correct CLI and SMSA codes as well as ensure that you provide the necessary information to the Integrated Public Number Database".

Source: Tip! Call Security: A VoIP service's audio (your voice) should compress your voice into proprietary encryption packets to travel across the internet, and return back to voice at destination. That particular VoIP service should host proprietary software, and as such, the only one that can interpret the voice and data contained in those packets.

So whilst Australia is a minnow in the global VoIP developments, it is useful to note the industry forum noting the warning signs that these issues pose to the industry.

The Author has an Associate Diploma in Electronic Engineering. For further information, books or VoIP items, please visit http://www.voipworking4you.info

Filed under Voip by John

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May 8, 2008

Affiliate Lead Marketing Mlm Network

Affiliate Lead Marketing Mlm Network
An affiliate lead marketing MLM network refers to a network of people who are placed at different levels based on referrals as well as commission percentage payable. An MLM network consists of like minded people whose goal is to sell the products and services of the company that they represent to the customers directly through the internet. It becomes very necessary to maintain a certain kind of synergy between team members in an affiliate MLM network. Every MLM network has a team leader who sets up targets for his team members. The team members try their best to achieve their targets in a given period of time period.

The network should hold periodic meetings with all the members through internet or meeting physically and then do a performance appraisal. Reasons should be found out if the targets are not achieved and advice should be given as to how a particular member can achieve the targets in the future. Similarly members who have achieved their targets or overshot their targets should be rewarded and be motivated to work harder. The MLM Company may also give a raise in commission to all members in the network who have […]

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May 22, 2008

Toddler Dies After 911 Call Over VoIP

Edmonton's emergency services have issued a warning about the use of voice-over-Internet-protocol (VoIP) phone service following the death of a Calgary toddler.
Eighteen-month-old Elijah Luck died after his family called 911 over a VoIP phone and the ambulance was dispatched to their former home in Ontario instead of their current home in Calgary.
It took two ambulances 40 minutes to get to him thanks to one ambulance being dispatched to the wrong city. The tragic death of 18-month-old Elijah Luck demonstrates the critical differences between the 911 services of traditional land-lines and phone companies that now use voice over Internet technology.
Elijah Luck went into medical distress and his family made an emergency call for an ambulance. However thanks to the nomadic VOIP service they were using the emergency services were shown the wrong address information and dispatched an ambulance in Mississauga, Ontario, more than twenty-five-hundred miles away.
Comwave says the Internet phone technology is transportable so there's no physical address attached to the numbers.
Cellphones work better than "nomadic" connections — like those used by VoIP phone providers Comwave and Vonage — because emergency responders get a phone number and a location of the nearest cellphone tower, but are still more limited than landlines, […]

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