Today Cisco got antitrust approval from two key government bodies to complete its acquisition of TANDBERG. The European Commission approved the transaction while U.S. Department of Justice said it would not challenge the purchase. While the approval from these two bodies was the last real hurdle for the merger to go through, the deal is still under review in Brazil. The two companies plan to complete the purchase in the coming weeks. As part of the approval deal with the European Commission, Cisco had to make a few concessions. For one, Cisco had to divest ownership of its TelePresence Interoperability Protocol (TIP) and the library of open source software useful to implementers of TIP to an independent industry body while providing all other rights necessary to implement TIP and authorize the industry body to license those rights to any interested party, [+]

Small- and medium-sized businesses are moving to VoIP and other IP communications with rapid speed, and Verizon has joined the movement by offering some specifically targeted VoIP and internet packages. Verizon's Global Wholesale division is offering three new packages to wholesales with the first being a combination of Verizon's SIP Gateway Service with its router hardware which will give wholesale customers an easy way to get SMBs into the VoIP game fast. Verizon has also launched the Internet Dedicated T1 which will combine discounted services with hardware--a 30 or more user connection for transmitting high-volume email, files, and web hosting. Heavy data users will benefit from Verizon's third offering called Internet Dedicated Ethernet which will provide discounted ethernet bundled with a Samsung iBG1000. "By creating new VoIP and Internet packages that include both services and hardware, we're giving our wholesale [+]

Cisco just announced its CRS-3, a blazing fast router. It moves 322 terabits per second, can download the entire printed collection of the Library of Congress in one second, or transmit all the movies ever made in about four minutes according to the company. I am sure from such numbers, the ramifications for the future of IP communications are obvious. To make the possibilities just a little clearer Cisco offered up this in their press release: Cisco CRS-3 can enable "every man, woman and child in China to make a video call, simultaneously." That's a pretty amazing idea. Now, of course some of the data transfer will be used for all our other Internet capabilities and communications, but take a few of these routers combined with high speed networks and the future of IP communications is upon us. Well, at [+]