Demo: Start a VoIP business fast & on the cheap with VoipSwitch

VoipSwitch is one of 80 companies chosen by VentureBeat to launch at the DEMO Fall 2011 event taking place this week in Silicon Valley. After our selection, the companies pay a fee to present. Our coverage of them remains objective.

Voice over Internet protocol, or VoIP, is the technology that powers apps such as Skype, and it’s been changing the world for quite some time.

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VoipSwitch is a company that seeks to harness the power of VoIP technology by adding more features and making it even cheaper and easier for companies to get started with VoIP services for their end users, who in turn save massive amounts of money by being able to communicate through the web rather than over cellular networks.

VoipSwitch offers a software platform allowing rapid VoIP services roll-out for startups and other companies. The software package contains all the elements one would need to implement various VoIP services.

One of VoipSwitch’s main offerings is a class 5 softswitch. A softswitch is a telecom device that connects calls via the web using software. In the olden days of landlines, customized hardware such as switchboards were used to connect calls, but softswitches are the main technology used today, particularly for web-based IP-to-IP calls.

“From cellular operators all the way to end users, our software is important because we save people money by making a call through the Internet instead of the traditional cellular network,” VoipSwitch CEO Michael Bibelman told VentureBeat. “It cuts the cost of your cellular and home phone bill by up to 90 percent.”

“In 2002, we realised that there was a huge gap in the telecom industry,” said Bibelman. “If a person wanted to open their own telecom company and offer services, then they had to buy a billing program from one source, the main telecom switch from another and a calling card platform from yet another and so on. This created problems whereby one piece of software was not compatible with the other.”

To solve that problem, VoipSwitch launched its services for businesses to expand their telecom offerings or for entrepreneurs to start a new telecommunications business, all for jaw-droppingly low prices and with inclusive packaging. By bringing all the VoIP services, including voice call features, video features and text-based features such as IM and SMS under a single portal, Bibelman said the VoipSwitch team eliminated the capability problem “And by doing this, we managed to sell our software to more than 3,500 global telecom companies,” he concluded.

For example, the recently debuted VoipSwitch MVNO allows companies to provide VoIP services to residential and business end users. Features of the VoipSwitch packacges include a softswitch with integrated billing; class 5 features such as follow-me, call forwarding and voicemail; mobile video calling with the Vippie Mobile app; VoIP tunnel technology for making and receiving calls even behind VoIP blockades; a calling card platform; a robust roster of calback options; a web-based “Callshop” interface; a web-based portal for end users to make online payments and keep tabs on their accounts; SMS text messaging and IM features; call recording and a lot more.

These packages can cost as little as $4,500, making the option especially attractive to new and smaller businesses with VoIP services as a core offering. And according to the VoipSwitch team, those investments have often paid out handsome returns.

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“The majority of people that have bought our software to date have been telecom providers that have a client base and want to offer services to their end users,” said Bibelman. “People originally buying a single switch from us have now built out their business and have multiple switches. We do quite a few exhibitions around the globe on an annual basis and have people coming to tell us how we made them millionaires.”

Bibelman continued to say that VoipSwitch’s services are without question in a position to change the market for telecommunications. “That’s the reason we are winning contracts from the world’s biggest telecom companies,” he said.

“We are not looking to change the way people communicate. All we are doing is adding more features and thus saving money for the end users.”

VoipSwitch’s services for businesses also include IP-PBX (Internet protocol private branch exchange, a business telephone system designed to deliver voice or video over a data network), a VOD/IPTV platform, a fully integrated billing system, SIP (session initiation protocol) clients for just about every mobile platform and many others that will be launched in the months to come.

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As far as funding is concerned, Bibelman said the company is “open to all possibilities,” including funding or an acquisition.

VoiceServe is the parent company of VoipSwitch. VoiceServe was incoporated in the UK in March 2002 and listed on the OTCBB in the U.S.

Image courtesy of sk8geek.