Market trends toward mobility, unified communications, fixed mobile convergence and cloud computing stand to change Skype’s value proposition and reputation in the telecom marketplace, said the peer-to-peer VoIP provider’s chief strategy officer, Christopher Dean, in his joint keynote address on service provider transformation Wednesday at VON and Channel Partners.

Next week, the feds will announce the first round of broadband stimulus grant winners. But don’t forget – the stimulus initiative isn’t just about building the networks to bring broadband to unserved and underserved areas.

So how does an operator monetize and maximize its investments in Service Assurance? That’s what we set out to explore, and let me tell you, an hour is scant time for such a subject. We covered the highlights and then some in double time, here is the wrap-up.

Skype announced Wednesday at the VON Conference & Expo that the beta version of Skype for SIP has been certified as interoperable with the Cisco Systems Inc. Unified Communications 500 Series for small businesses.

AireSpring has announced the release of its new MPLS product, “AireSpring MPLS-VPN.” Available nationwide across three tier one networks, AireSpring MPLS-VPN targets multi-location businesses requiring secure, flexible, and intelligent data connections.

Psytechnics announced that its Experience Manager solution now enables operations and support teams providing Cisco TelePresence to proactively manage service levels and the user quality of experience (QoE), to detect and resolve video or audio quality problems arising at the network or application layers before they degrade the users’ experience.

Junction Networks has announced that it is broadening the range of its OnSIP hosted PBX service beyond voice, adding the unified communications features of instant messaging, presence, and phone status.