Always plenty of news in the IP PBX (News - Alert) space this past week, let’s catch you up on some of the headlines.

TMC reported that netTALK.COM announced that it will now support local number portability, which means that customers in the U.S. will have the option to keep their existing landline phone number when switching from services provided by wireline carriers across the nation.

In a release, Anastasios “Takis” Kyriakides, president and CEO of netTALK, said, “Keeping your own number is a pivotal development for netTALK. We consistently find that the number porting feature is a non-negotiable feature that businesses and consumers want, as they are ready to fire their phone company and save money, but didn’t want to lose long-established phone numbers that they’ve invested in advertising among their friends, customers and colleagues.

We trademarked ‘Fire Your Phone (News - Alert) Company’ for a reason, and we remain committed to making it easier, more affordable and rewarding for consumers to make the switch.”

TMC (News - Alert) also noted that last year, the FCC (News - Alert) adopted an order aimed at reforming today’s voice-focused Universal Service program to one focused instead on bringing broadband to areas where it is not available and ensuring ongoing support for broadband.

Plans to phase down inter-carrier compensation (ICC) and to require VoIP providers to pay ICC also are encompassed in the reforms, which appear to borrow heavily on the brokered reform proposal made by large carriers and small telco associations. The order also leaves several key areas for further resolution—including how funding for rate of return and satellite carriers will be awarded and how to treat calls that are connected via the Internet protocol.

What's important to VoIP providers, whether wholesale, retail, hosted or cloud, is the part about requiring them to pay ICC (Inter Carrier Compensation). Basically that means that no longer are nontraditional voice service providers exempt from the hefty costs for intra state and intra late calls being considerably cheaper than traditional voice service providers had to endure - think of it as tilting the favor of the playing field back into the traditional providers.

And TMC had the news that Global Marine Networks announced that ship operators could place up to eight simultaneous calls using Inmarsat (News - Alert) Fleet Broadband terminals connected to GMN’s RedPort satellite VoIP phone service. RedPort VoIP works with multiple Fleet Broadband terminals without requiring modifications to existing equipment and takes advantage of Inmarsat’s VLA and SCAP data rates.

RedPort VoIP routers include a fully featured PBX, allowing for a virtually unlimited number of extensions and enabling a ship to function as a satellite office of an onshore company. The RedPort can also route calls through either four or eight analog lines depending on the router model.

Rates to commonly called destinations will be significantly less than Inmarsat’s suggested retail pricing of 55 cents per minute, which includes data service. Also, RedPort users get 20 minutes of calling time for megabyte of Fleet Broadband data.