Keeping its now three-year long tradition, VoIP
provider 8x8 (News - Alert) will offer pediatric patients in children's hospitals throughout the U.S. the chance to have live videophone visits with Santa Claus at the North Pole.
8x8's "Videophone Visits with Santa" program allows children who have to stay at the hospital during the holidays to see and chat with Santa over the Packet8 VideoPhone service at his "North Pole" workshop set up at 8x8's Santa Clara, Calif. headquarters. The child's visits are followed by the special delivery of requested toys and gifts.
Children's Hospitals participating in the program this year include Cincinnati Children's Hospital in Cincinnati, OH; Miami Children's Hospital in Miami, FL; Johns Hopkins Children's Medical Center in Baltimore, MD; Barbara Bush Children's Hospital in Portland, ME; Schneider's Children's Hospital in Long Island, NY; Shriner's Hospital for Children in Tampa, FL and Vanderbilt Children's Hospital in Nashville, TN.
"We are, once again, pleased to provide children who cannot sit on Santa's lap this holiday season with the chance to visit with him remotely over our Packet8 VideoPhone services," said 8x8's chairman and CEO Bryan Martin. "The fact that these children can actually see and interact with Santa, rather than just speak with him, makes a huge difference in the quality of their phone session with him. Children can also point at and see specific toys and attractions located throughout Santa's workshop. This is the multimedia experience that IP communications services are all about and why our subscribers value their Packet8 VideoPhones so much."
8x8 also made news last month when it announced that it inked a deal with online marketing provider Broadband National to market VoIP-based services. Via the new partnership, Broadband National will be able to offer its residential and business customers with 8x8's suite of Internet telephone and videophone services.
The deal will also allow 8x8 to refer its customers needing broadband to complete their VoIP installation to Broadband National's online comparative shopping Web site, or directly to one of Broadband National's call centers.
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Johanne Torres is contributing editor for TMCnet and Internet Telephony magazine. To see more articles by Johanne Torres, please visit Johanne's columnist page.
Voice over IP (VoIP) | X |
| A real-time communications system that converts voice into digital packets containing media and signaling data that travel over networks using Internet Protocol....more |
Internet Protocol (IP) | X |
| IP stands for Internet Protocol, a data-networking protocol developed throughout the 1980s. It is the established standard protocol for transmitting and receiving data
in packets over the Internet. I...more |
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