By year end open source fans will have a unified platform for networking and VoIP thanks to a partnership between Digium and Vyatta to integrate Asterisk with Vyatta’s Open Source Router.

EQO has added long distance mobile VoIP and messaging at local rates to its mobile social networking service.

European WiFi hotspot provider Trustive reports that hotspot users are paying for way more than they get. No surprise there. Trustive also predicts that VoIP will be the killer app for hotspots.

Apple has found a way to marginalize the iPhone even before it hits the market by giving AT&T an exclusive five-year distribution deal. Leslie Cauley of USA Today sees this as an aggressive move that will put competitors on the defensive. The VoIP community might think differently. We just may be used to having it our way — not The Phone Company’s way.

Many are talking about future VoIP-cell convergence. But some say the future is now. One of them is EQO CEO Bill Tam. With EQO’s extension of social networking to the cell phone, the future is now, says Tam.

“Basically, we’ve brought a unified communication application to mass market handsets,” he says. “What we provide is an intelligent platform that turns cell phones into multi-modal devices. When we launched Skype Mobile we started with 30 handsets. Now we’re covering about 300.”

“Skype has had a lot of trouble tying their solution into Symbian,” Tam continues. “For those who don’t want to wait, we’ve made it so people without expensive handsets can use Skype on their mobile phone.”

The British Columbia company just released a new version of its free software, EQO Mobile, that takes functionality developed for Skype - like click-to-call and callback - and extends it to widgets for other social networks. Callbacks are done over Skype if you’re a Skype user. If not, the call is placed over the cell network. EQO MObile also lets you change modes from voice to IM on the fly – for example, answering a phone call with an IM.

The new release also makes the EQO application easier to use for Palm Treo fans by consolidating other IM networks and communities on the device.

Despite this dramatic expansion of the company’s potential user base, Tam says that EQO isn’t standing still. He hints that the company has some more announcements in the pipeline that will be of interest to the VoIP community.

Even the most avid social networking junkies have to leave the computer sometimes. But if EQO of Vancouver, B.C. is successful, they may never need to again. The folks who believe that the PDA of tomorrow is your cell phone, have connected the dots today so you can stay in touch with online buddies anywhere there’s a cell phone signal.

This week at CTIA, EQO is showing off its new free EQO Me “widget” for staying connected. The company also announced this week that it’s participating in the Nokia Developer Forum with the goal of ensuring EQO capabilities on future Nokia phones.

But the beauty of EQO’s widget is that you don’t need anything from the phone manufacturer to use it. If you have mobile Internet service, you just download the widget to your PC. It can be embedded into community profile pages, blogs – any page that accepts HTML code.

Once the widget is loaded, you can do everything you would be able to do sitting in front of your PC. You can send messages to your MySpace buddies or send pictures from your mobile phone – all through your buddy list. “Over the course of the next 9 to 12 months, a lot of Web content companies are looking to find their way to mobile phones,” predicts EQO spokesman Doug Wylie.

EQO’s business model is predicated on the cellular network – not WiFi – as the basis for unified communication.

“Taking IP technology to a mobile phone just using WiFi is the wrong approach,” says Wylie. “They rely on hotspots and the pervasiveness of hotspots and that’s not there yet. WiFi isn’t there when you’re walking around on the sidewalk. Meanwhile, the cell phone network has reached saturation.”

But while there’s lots of buzz around social networking right now, it’s not entirely clear how much interest MySpace users have in a seamless connection with their online buddies - or how long before MySpace is supplanted by the Next Big Thing. The idea was a non-starter for one 15 year-old - although, admittedly, this isn’t a scientific sampling.

“I’m sure people will use it, but not me,” he says. “If I want to talk to people I’ll call them. Besides,” he adds, “MySpace is boring.”

However, EQO also hints at some new offerings to be announced within the next month that may be of more interest to his parents’ generation.