Phones

Reports about VOIP traffic being blocked by network operators are becoming more common in wake of Telmex customers complaining their telephony service is being degraded. In the United Arab Emirates, Internet users are complaining they have been unable to access Skype.com to buy SkypeOut minutes. The culprit seems to be Etisalat, the UAE's only ISP. In the U.S., there have been reports that Vonage's service is being blocked by Clearwire, while Madison River was fined $15K by the FCC after Vonage filed a complaint. In Canada, the major broadband operators...

You know the email spam you get that says, please call this bloke in Africa to send him money to (fill in the appeal here) in the wake of (insert natural or national disaster)? Well Andrew decided to call. Using SkypeOut. Interminably. At odd hours. Tying up the con-man's phone line.

This is exciting for the Linux community, but it should be for device makers and users too. This new capability will open up a whole family of new, useful Skype Products like this. This new embedded market was highlighted by Skype CEO Niklas Zennstrom, during his keynote address at the VON Canada Event in Toronto earlier this week.

Watch how Phil Torrone made an actual payphone into a Skype Client. Brilliant!

This reporter’s been covering the Qwest-MCI-Verizon saga for months now. It can get pretty complicated, but USA Today has printed an excellent Q&A on the basics:

For two months, Qwest has been in relentless pursuit of MCI, hoping to break up Verizon's own deal to acquire MCI.

Some of the carriers working with Intel to enable a broad ecosystem around WiMAX include: AT&T* (US), Altitude Telecom* (France), BT* (UK), Brasil Telecom* (Brazil), ETB* (Columbia), Iberbanda* (Spain), Millicom* (Argentina), Qwest* (US), Sify* (India), Speakeasy* (US), Telkom* (South Africa), Telmex* (Mexico), TowerStream* (US), UHT* (Ukraine).

Oh — this is great! Keep reading. The telemarketer that called me today, laid her thoughts on the line. Nextel is in deep trouble with the coming merger. After spending a week with John Gormly, and salivating at his Cingular phone, I finally decided that Nextel is not the wave of my future. The lady I talked to from Nextel today was very candid and said, basically, the same thing. She told me that the future of Nextel is pretty dang blurry, and that she was also looking at other options.

At home I have a Vonage phone line instead of a standard land line. As of lately, I hate it. It is sucking really, really, bad. When I move I'm going to be getting a real phone line and spending $49.95 a month for unlimited long distance instead of the normal $24.95 that I am now. That's how annoyed I am at them right now.

Alexa.com is a great site to use to monitor how much traffic sites get. I noticed recently that Teltel, a company I have written about before in an entry titled: Teltel A Skype Killer? had a huge drop in web traffic from a 3-month average of around 10,000 to a one-day average of 31,381. I didn’t have a chance to ask the company the reason and to be honest it could even be a problem with Alexa causing this drop. Who knows? What I did do was to compare their traffic to Vonage, Skype and Packet8.

Ever since I hooked up my Vonage phone the amount of time I spend on my cell phone has dropped dramatically. Since 1998 my cell carrier has been Sprint PCS. I like the quality of their service and have never had trouble using my phone during the dozens and dozens of trips I have taken in the past seven years. Since I was not using my cell phone as much as I used to I realized I was just throwing money down the drain, continuing to pay $50+/month for 500 minutes. My last three usage statements show I've barely used 200 minutes a month. I figured it was time to call Sprint and change my plan.

Although my reason for doing this involved a broader scope of technologies than just IP telephony, I’d like to share some of the VoIP-related complaints I managed to dig up.

I have liked the Sipura products since they first came out a few years ago. The SPA products are widely used by VoIP service providers (Vonage, etc) for their feature set, flexibility, and low cost. We have been testing out Sipura adapters on the Kuppa…

I have been hearing these stories off and on from people, in them saying Vonage has terrible customer service. The worse part is that it appears they have outsourced their customer service to some foreign country and the sound quality of those calls is real bad. This is not a good start for a company that is supposedly in the VOIP business. [EVHEAD]

I signed up for a VoIP account with Vonage--unlimited calling for $25/month. Vonage promptly sent me a LinkSys router, assigned me a temporary telephone number, set up my 911 emergency service, and started the process of having our existing home telephone number moved from AT&T to Vonage.

There are a couple of things to be aware of when you switch over to VoIP phones. One thing I discovered the other day with mine is that I am unable to call toll free numbers that the Canadian Government use. The only one that does work is the 1-800-O'Canada number. The reason for this is that the majority of the other 1-800 numbers in use are 'regional' 1-800 numbers and the 1-800-O'Canada number is a national 1-800 number. Now my VoIP provider, Vonage ties into the regular telephone system somewhere in toxic central Canada so that when I try and...

"...Panagopolis Pizza uses a regional 1-800 number that doesn't work on the Vonage system but at least they offer a local number so I can still order pizza..."

Anyhow..., near as I can figure the savings alone easily outweigh the minor annoyance. Oh yeah..., Panagopolis Pizza uses a regional 1-800 number that doesn't work on the Vonage system but at least they offer a local number so I can still order pizza. The Government of Canada claim they don't have local numbers, only 1-800 numbers. I think by now we all know how much truth to attach to anything that comes by way of Ottawa.

founder and chief executive officer of Skype, which provides a free downloadable voice over IP software client. “Wi-Fi plays and important part in this.”

Skype is working on VoIP clients that will operate on platforms like Symbian, Windows Mobile and Embedded Linux, he said, adding dual-mode wireless handsets that work on both Wi-Fi networks – originally designed as local-area data networks using the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers’ 802.11 protocol – and cellular networks.

We are not at a tipping point in how we make and pay for phone calls; we are at a FLIPPING point. The AT&T band, if there still were one, would be playing “The World Turned Upside Down” like General Cornwallis’s band at Yorktown as the British surrendered their arms to the rag-tag colonials. I’m not talking about SBC buying AT&T: that’s just rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic. I’m talking about real change.

Before there was the web, Yahoo or Google, the only search available to the masses was 411. Enough, to inspire colloquialism, “have you done a 411 on so and so?” Well, that boring old search is still generating more dollars than all search companies. In 2010, it is going to be a $11.4 billion business, up 42% from 2005. Makes you wonder, what people are doing with all the free information available on the web. U.S. consumers call 411 an average of 35 times per year, which translates to 6.5 billion directory assistance phone number look-ups,...

"Vonage applauded Qwest for its willingness to put the health and safety of Americans before short-term competitive considerations," Vonage attorney William Wilhelm wrote to the FCC.

In the same letter, Wilhelm implied that SBC hasn’t shown the same eagerness to provide 911 infrastructure access to Vonage that Qwest has.

Well, I laughed at Danielle the other day when the computer that is running Windows XP and Outlook 2003 and is configured to sync with both of our Nokia phones separately (or so I thought), sync’d my Outlook contact information to her phone. She has been waiting patiently for this stupid company to send the Nokia data cable we need to get the data off of her ancient Nokia phone so we can put it on her new 6230. Then she gets all of my info on her phone. Well, I guess she gets the last laugh, because I just noticed that her 10 contacts that...

- Mewes is in the middle of a tourney when we leave, but he’s got a Sprint card that allows him to get online via his cell phone, so he brings his laptop with him in the car. We head deep into the Valley out by the Topanga exit and I swing into Lisa and Greg’s place to say hi and grab my girls while Mewes throws down UB in the car. I carry Harley out, say g’night, and drive us all back to the house.

Verizon now has five days to respond and can boost its offer again or walk away with a nice financial penalty.

The Verizon deal valued MCI at $23.10 per share, though two weeks ago it agreed to pay nearly $26 a share for a 13.4 percent stake in MCI from Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim Helu. That gambit fueled speculation that Verizon would offer at least that much for the rest of MCI's stock.

I am just hoping this story will go away. It was fun to cover for a while but the molasses-in-July-like back and forth movement is like watching a tennis match in slow motion. I hope Qwest wins this war as I have the consumer's best interests in mind and being the weaker of the two companies, a Qwest merger would mean the market won't be dominated by a single giant in Verizon.

If the story takes one more intestinal twist and Verizon becomes the winner, it will be the consumers who will feel the droppings of this merger on their heads. My suggestion? Wear a hat.

According to this W$J report, Qwest is now offering $30/sh to Verizon's $23.10, announced commitments for 7.25 billion in financing (almost equal to the entire value of Verizon's bid) and tightened up the terms of its bid.

Or is it? At 2.4 million licensed client devices, RIM has barely scratched the surface of the mobile marketplace. In the U.S., leading wireless operator Cingular has over 50 million subscribers with Verizon Wireless running a close second -- nearly 100 million wireless subscribers. According to the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), there are over 2.4 billion wireless subscribers worldwide, making RIM's BlackBerry licenses appear as small as they really are - one tenth of one percent of overall cellular...

I’ve made some updates to my wp-mail.php hack for Sprint PCS phones. The ChangeLog is below for the last few versions.

* - Yet another fix for Sprint Picture Share emails

* - Allow multiple Sprint pictures at a time to work (jcjones AT ufl DOT edu)

* - Support the new (April 2005) Sprint Picture Share emails (jcjones AT ufl DOT edu)

Verizon has signed a content deal with Starz Entertainment Group as well as content providers represinting roughly 100 television channels.

Under the agreement with Liberty Media Corporation, Verizon can cary Starz' 13 movie channels onthe phone company's IPTV service due out later this year.

And through it all, I am still going to get the Treo 650 from Sprint. The reason being 2 things. One, they have the "New for You" plan that rebates you $150 if you had your phone for 18 months. Two, They still have pretty decent service compare to T-Mobile for my area. I am just going to be smart about it this time and make sure I buy the insurance for the 650 cuz I don't feel like buying a new phone before I am ready for an upgrade. I personally don't like Tro 650 too much because the processor, the hi res screen, and the bluetooth isn't...

In the ongoing debate I think we’ve lost sight of the original issue: separation of connectivity from applications. I’m a great proponent of this. Monopolies and markets above this in the stack concern me a lot less.

So far Skype isn’t particularly wedded to connectivity provision (with one exception). That means we don’t have to seek permission to use something else. Skype is a child of the Stupid Network, and self-centered as it may be we should be happy about this precocious toddler.

Why the videophone service sellers or proposed sellers like cable operators don't bundle in EyeBeam, which I now use a lot for voice calls as well, is simply beyond me. For the cable companies thinking of selling VoIP and the Ojo, if it uses open standards, it would be a true market differentiator that the RBOC's landline service could never offer. If the Ojo isn't using open standards, then it's got less of a chance to survive, because between SIP and SKYPE the standards or proprietary protocols are pretty much already entrenched, and the MSO's...

A number of people make fake phone calls on their cell phones just for the benefit of those around them. Someone who's late for work may enter the office talking to "an important client" to cover her tardiness. Others pretend they get a call when they don't want to talk to someone who's standing right in front of them. Not surprisingly, some of those big deals you hear people negotiate on the phone are just done to impress those within earshot. Men will pretend to be on a call as they walk over to hit on a woman. Women will pretend to be on a call to avoid getting hit on by men.

So now I have to do some research and find out which VoIP service is the best out there. I know everyone out there has heard of Vonage. But I been getting snail mail flyers from another company called SunRocket. SunRocket seems to offer a really good price plan at $199 for a whole year of service. But I got to hold off and do some research on the quality of the service and quality of their customer service before I drop two benjamins on the service.

Much of the discussion about VoIP has been centered around the challenges of port blocking, an increasingly common practice among Internet service providers. For those of us conversent in firewalls and router configuration, it is relatively simple to block VoIP traffic - as long as we know which port that traffic is using. In the U.S., this dialogue has been centered around VoIP provider VONAGE, but VoIP companies like Skype are also susceptible to port blocking. More pernicious is the practice of dropping packets and reducing performance to make VoIP an impractical alternative for enterprise applications.

There is currently no legislation on the books in the United States - or any other country for that matter - that protects VoIP traffic on an Internet connection from a public access provider. This holds true for home office workers using xDSL or cable modems; traveling workers accessing the Internet over a public Wi-Fi hotspot or a hotel broadband connection; and workers using a wide area packet data service like GPRS/EDGE, EV-DO or any other 3G offering.

This one is not just going to go away. Damn… even I am beginning to lose interest. Associated Press reports that Verizon might be contemplating a new bid for MCI, though it might not have to pay as much as $9.75 billion Qwest has offered. Verizon has a five day window to offer a new deal, and if it decides to walk away, it still will get $240 million. Many believe that unless MCI board nodded its approval for Qwest it would found itself on very slippery slope. “We expect MCI to build upon its declaration of superiority with specific acts of support, including expeditiously seeking regulatory approvals of a transaction that it considers superior and in the best interests of its shareowners,” Qwest said in a statement.

So in case you think I’ve gone completely Skype nuts, here’s a few balancing news items.

I had a Skype conference call with a client a few days ago. It was embarassingly bad, mainly because one of the participants was on a flaky hotel Wi-Fi link. In the vertically integrated telco model, this would be the telcos problem. Skype’s layered model tends to push them towards a “not our problem” approach. Mistake! The Skype client needs to be aware of the connectivity quality underneath it. If it can’t deliver, and is disrupting a conf call, then it needs to inform the participant, end the call, or somehow manage...

I’m also having too many Skype calls where I need to re-dial to get a better connection. Plus I’ve had several failed SkypeOut calls (what is a 10040 error, or whatever it was, I don’t know — but that’s not my idea of a great user experience).

Snapcast is a name invented by Jake for a short, quick podcast. I was on Skype this morning and hooked up with Tony Goodson in Australia and Rob Paterson in Canada. Alan Singer (also in Oz) jumped in as our sound engineer. We wanted to discuss Robert Scoble's recent challenge to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer over the company's attitude to some...

BlackBerry Handheld Software v4.0.0.319 is out. It's an upgrade to the existing OS. Some of the highlights of the upgardes includes the addition of a passwork keeper and a HTML Browser!!! Note: The HTML browser that magically appeared on my 7520 after the .319 upgrade was suggested by forum members that what I have is the BES browser and not the HTML browser that Nextel is rolling out on May 16th. How that happen? The Blackberry itself still mystifies me.

Apparantly a LOT of people are saying that they do not get the HTML browser. Many called Nextel and was informed that the HTML browser will be available on May 16th, the offical launch date. While it is only 3 weeks away, I am happy that somehow I was able to get the HTML browser.

Further speculation suggests that the browser I have on my 7520 (see photos in blog below) is the HTML browser available to BES clients and not webclients. see my blog on 'BES and WebClient' for further explanation. Nextel reported that the icon for the May 17th HTML browser (web client) is different than that to what I have...which is the BES one.

I attempted the software uprade and it corrupted by blackberry 7520. Right in the middle of the software upgrade, the upgrade stopped (died) and left my blackberry useless. All attempts to reload the software failed. So I had to go down to a Nextel store and pay $35 to swap out a unit I'd only had for a week.

The City and NYPD are trying to figure out a way for internet phone service providers like Vonage to let their customers tap into the actual 911, versus an ordinary police line, when they call 911. Currently, many internet phone service companies just route their calls to the phone line police officers use to call in sick. There's something terribly twisted about that. The City has asked them not to use that phone as the designated "911," and...

The two sides also have very different perspectives on how digital music stores should work. Verizon, Sprint, and Cingular are expected to charge about $2 for wireless downloads when they introduce their services, or twice the 99 cents per song on iTunes. They figure they can charge a premium for the convenience of getting songs anytime, even though customers most likely won’t be able to listen to those songs anywhere but on their phones, at least initially. One knowledgeable source close to Apple says the operators are simply being unrealistic...

No sooner did I ask… but GOOGLE FIXED the Google::SMS problem with the Treo 650!

I found it odd when I recently went to their site and the ONLY phone they sited that their system DIDN’T work with was the Treo 650. However, I tried it earlier today and it works, AMAZINGLY.

Capellas, 50, became CEO of the struggling WorldCom in 2002, the same year it filed for bankruptcy-court protection in the shadow of expansive accounting fraud. His contract said that when he led the company out of bankruptcy, he was entitled to $12 million in restricted stock and an additional $6 million if the board found his service “exemplary.”

The board also granted the former Compaq Computer president a $5 million bonus for implementing a business transformation plan, listing MCI’s common stock on the Nasdaq and stabilizing the company’s finances, among other accomplishments. His salary was $1.6 million.

MCI has agreed to be acquired by Verizon Communications Inc., which has been engaged in a bidding war with Qwest Communications International Inc. over MCI’s assets.

Just when you thought it was over, well Qwest has come up with another big offer - $30 a share, or a total of $9.75 billion for MCI. That’s a 30% premium to Verizon’s $7.51 billion. I think with this offer. Q has matched the demands of MCI board, leaving them very few options. Q calls this offer its best and final offer. I thought that buying out Carlos Slim’s stake in MCI, Verizon had trumped Qwest at best and bought insurance at worst. MCI shareholders Legg Mason Capital, American Express and Omega Advisors are putting up $800...

So at the end of this bidding war, what is qwest going to be buying? How is bidding war affecting mci’s business currently? Any details on that?

i am not sure how this is affecting their business, but all i can say that qwest is on a very slippery slope right now with this deal. too expensive of a purchase in my opinion.

I think by persisting in the bidding, QWest has pretty clearly signaled that they are worthless on their own. If they don’t win, someone will be buying them up on the cheap in the near future. Maybe Verizon will buy them too, if they win the MCI fight . . .

The launch of Google Maps in the UK this week has coincided with the desire to write some Python code for my Nokia 6630 mobile phone. As Matt Croydon’s PythonForSeries60 shows, there are an increasing number of interesting projects written using the Python SDK for the Nokia phones.

Damn, I wish I had my Nokia phone now…sort of. This is a nice lil cheat that lets you do all kinds of things…from changing your alpha tag (your service provider name, i.e. Alltel, Cingular, AT&T, etc…), your own phone number (sort of), and even a way to get free phone calls (but I wont go into detail on how to do that, figure it out on your own)…here we go…

Let's start from the beginning. I had a phone line through PacBell seven or eight years ago. When I left California, I had the phone turned off, and never thought anything of it until I moved in to this apartment. I tried to get phone service, and they told me that I had a balance remaining from the old line. I couldn't afford to pay it off, so my mom put my phone in her name. Subsequently, when I added DSL and Cingular, they were in her name as well.

So I called Cingular to debate a 63-minute "Oper Asst" call, and although my mother had me authorized on the SBC end of things, Cingular didn't have that authorization, so she wouldn't talk to me. I decided then that since I'm in a better financial position than I was then, I'd go ahead and pay off the old bill and get all this stuff moved back over into my name. After talking to half a dozen people, no one could find the old account at all. So it turns out that I don't owe them anything at all.

Today, I call Cingular back to dispute the 63-minute call, and just conveniently forgot to mention that I'm not my mother. I got a credit on my account for that call. I also found out that the plan I currently have (300 anytime, 1000 nights and weekends) doesn't have mobile-to-mobile. That made me freak a bit, because Shaunta and I have talked a lot on our cell phones, thinking I had the mobile-to-mobile. So, for $10, I upgraded. Now I have 450 anytime, 5000 nights/weekends, rollover, unlimited mobile-to-mobile, free long distance, and free nationwide...

Budget constraints and other factors often keep the education sector behind the technology adoption curve, but migration to phone systems based on Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is proving the exception. Read this white paper to learn how VoIP is helping the education market become more efficient while reducing costs.

Recently I replaced my Palm Tungsten T3 and my cheap cellphone with a Treo 650 with SprintPCS service. My wife and I both switched from T-Mobile back to Sprint, because we had terrible signal quality from T-Mobile at our house, and our cell phones are our only phones. The signal was great everywhere else, but not being able to make and receive calls at home was a wee bit inconvenient.

I’ve been very happy with the Treo 650 so far. It’s the first combined PDA/phone that doesn’t feel like a compromise. I’ll write a detailed review later, but here are some impressions after using the Treo for a month:

All in all, I’m very happy with the Treo 650, and with Sprint’s service. This turned out to be a long post, so I’ll save my comments about the Treo’s camera and Internet features for Part II.

Sprint Corp. on Tuesday said it has made Fox news programming available to mobile phone subscribers nationwide.

The Overland Park, Kan., wireless carrier said Fox News Channel Live has been added to the programming available through Sprint TV, which is available to people using Sprint PCS Vision Multimedia Phones. Fox has been add at no extra charge to the Sprint TV service, which costs $9.99 a month.

Zander also said that the iTunes phone "will be coming out in the next few months."

The companies announced in July that they would be releasing the phone, but despite repeated promises, a concrete commercial launch date has not been forthcoming.

A Motorola representative confirmed that the phone will be available in the first half of this year.

The delays in the launch of the phone have prompted speculation that some major U.S. carriers are hesitant to stock the phones, which would encourage consumers to buy music on a computer rather than over a phone network.

The Motorola representative denied that was the case, however.

Not long ago, the first pay phone was added to the California State Parks system as a way to keep in touch with family and friends. Today California State Parks and SBC Communications are taking it one step further by offering visitors wireless Internet access. In an effort to provide travelers with a way to “keep-in-touch” on vacation, California State Parks will offer high-speed wireless Internet access, also known as Wi-Fi to the picnic tables, RV spaces and cabins of 85 California state parks. San Elijo State...

Voice Over IP (VoIP) cable telephone provider Vonage has negotiated access to Qwest Communications International’s 911 infrastructure. The agreement will enable Vonage customers to use Qwest’s emergency calling network so that 911 calls go directly to emergency dispatchers.

Up to now Vonage has had to route calls to administrative lines at call centers so that they can transfer them to dispatchers. This approach has raised some criticism. Qwest, the smallest of the Bell companies had previously trialled a net-phone 911 service in Rhode Island. Verizon has promised a similar trial for New York City.

No, in spite of the intro, it's not about For Immediate Release, the bi-weekly podcast that Shel and I do - we're used an an example - but about the catalyzing effect the Skype internet phone service is having on what anyone can do with a bit of imagination, a PC, microphone, a broadband connection, some recording software and a friend or colleague on the other end of an internet phone call:

Business Week reports that Verizon, Sprint and Cingular will all unveil their own music download services for mobile phones later this year. According to the article, wireless providers aren't crazy about using Apple's iTunes service because it relies on downloading tunes to a computer first, then transferring to the mobile handset as opposed to a direct download to the mobile handset. While cynics and iPod-o-philes might decry this as purely greedy, it seems to me that the real convenience of downloading music to a phone is downloading to...

“Complimentary” – another word describing the fact that the three recent mergers now reduce the U.S. telecom industry to five dominant players — Verizon, SBC, BellSouth Corp., Sprint and Qwest — leaving the cable TV industry as the only serious threat offering telephone services.

So I come home from a trip today and realize that I have no dial tone on my home phone. I go online, but of course, it's impossible to find a customer service number on the Verizon web site (somebody must have figured that it was too expensive in the last round of budget cuts). I finally do find a place to report the problem online...telling me that it only takes minutes to get someone on the case.

So I fill in all the information about the phone line that does not work, and just when I thought I was done with the trouble ticket the system asks me whether I checked the dial tone at the Network Interface Device (also known as NID). After clicking through a few help screens to help me understand what an NID is (and where to possibly find it), it tells me that I do not need to be a technician to figure this one out - I only need a screwdriver and an extra phone set to open that device up and test for an outside dial tone (this is called outsourcing...

I've had a Treo 650 for the past three weeks, and I love the idea of an all-in-one device that features a phone, e-mail, a cool Web browser and all the regular Palm apps. I have even written some nice things about the 650 based on first impressions. I now have to confess, however, I've been fooled. Though theoretically attractive, the Treo 650 is not ready for prime time. My unit has been buggy, volatile and unstable. I can't tell you how many times I've been forced to do soft and hard resets - only to have VersaMail mysteriously go on the fritz...

I think this will turn out to be wrong. It's certainly true that the success of iPod/iTunes has sent other manufacturers scrambling to tap into the market for digital-music-on-the-go. And with Samsung selling two phones with internal hard drives, multimedia players such as RealPlayer available on the Treo 650 and other smart phones, and SonyEricsson planning to market a Walkman...

Yahoo 360 users can email photos from their camera phones to their Weblogs (though I had trouble with this because pictures sent from my phone come from a Sprint provided email address).

New Scientist reports (subscription) on the phenomenon of "Skypecasting".

...Skype was designed to allow users to make free telephone calls over the internet. But the sound quality is excellent and the software also allows callers to exchange files and play music while they are talking. Radio buffs are now exploiting the new technology to become both interviewer and DJ on a shoestring budget. In doing so, they may be starting a broadcasting revolution, one that democratises the industry and makes the amateur broadcaster king.

Skypecasting, as it is called, is possible because of another trend dubbed podcasting. Podcasts are MP3 files that are automatically delivered to subscribers' MP3 players when posted online...Now with Skype, podcasters can do more than just post an album by their favourite band or record a monologue on current events. They can interview a band on the other side of the world before playing its latest set, or bring together overseas experts to discuss a topic. With a little know-how, Skype allows these conversations and music clips to be saved as MP3 files, posted online and then automatically downloaded by listeners.

What's more, it's cheap. With Skype, people can be added to a conference call at no extra cost.

I hate shameless plugs, and this is sounding awfully like one, but for the past few months I’ve been using Skype. This is a nifty bit of software that allows you to talk for free to people on the internet. This is handy enough, but they also offer a service, at a cost, called SkypeOut. This gives you the ability to call normal telephones from your computer, and thus solving my landline problem. The bonus is the calls are much cheaper than you could get via a traditional phone.

Recently they’ve introduced a service called SkypeIn. This is where it gets clever. You pay your 10 euros and select a telephone number in a country of your choice. This becomes your number for three months and whenever anyone with a normal telephone dials it, they get put through to your computer (provided you are online and running Skype). The best part is that the people dialing you only pay a call to the country in which the number belongs. In my case, I have bought a UK number and so my family only pays a local UK call, even though...

I tested this out tonight with my Mum and gave her my SkypeIn number (it had a London prefix, out of interest), and asked her to call it. A few moments later and Skype starts ringing with an unknown caller (sadly caller ID doesn’t appear to work yet) and sure enough it is my Mum. We had a good chat and I explained exactly what I was doing. The connection was clear and stable, and we were both impressed.

For those times when I’m not online, and that does happen occasionally, they throw in a free Voicemail service. Messages appear in Skype the next time it is started, and you can leave your own personalized message to scare people away.

Scoble’s boss and Channel 9 leader is jumping ship from Microsoft to … Skype! Goodbye Microsoft, Hello Skype:

I recently accepted a new job and have resigned my post as Director, Platform Evangelism at Microsoft after almost 8 years with the company. I am joining Skype and the family and I will be moving to the UK. I have taken a position on the product and services team at Skype. I have decided that Microsoft and I need to go our separate ways and it is time to move to new pastures.

Skype scores a good one here. I was curious to see if Scoble had said anything and, nope, no update from him yet as of this writing. I’m sure he’ll have something to say about this. (Update: he does, Jeff Sandquist is taking over for Pryor)

The cities of Batavia, Geneva, and St. Charles in the state of Illinois, USA are at loggerheads with Comcast (the cable company) and SBC (the phone company) over plans to build a FTTH network serving these communities. The munis claim that the carriers are charging exorbitant rates for services, but so far 2 referendums have failed. The fight goes on. Read all about it here.

With so much talk about whether Vonage will do an IPO or simply raise another round of money, ZDNet's Russell Shaw throws out another scenario: Vonage being acquired by Sprint. Russell offers seven different reasons for why such a deal makes sense, ranging from Sprint's lack of a residential VOIP service to its strong consumer presence in the wireless business. I definitely agree with his thesis that Vonage will taken out - probably this year as consumers get more comfortable with...

Leading Internet service and equipment providers like Qwest, Siemens, AT&T and British Telecom are reportedly planning to join Intel for commercial WiMAX trials later this year.

But Intel is working on a future chip that will go into laptops allowing them to hop onto a WiMax network anywhere there’s a signal. WiMax may also incorporate Internet phone-calling technology, turning it into a land-line and cellular-like phone service.

The only show stopper seems to be traditional voice communication. WiMax providers alone cannot provide such service, but as third-party Internet phone providers mature, this show stopper goes away. And it is quickly going away--consider another announcement today that Skype, the leading Internet phone service, launched a service where you can purchase a real phone number with voice mail and accept calls over the Internet. Just put SkypeIn (what the new service is called) on a handset, and you've got a real battle. And why not go further and put it on the hyped Motorola/Ipod handset, which is already facing resistanceby the mobile phone operators?

babyTELâ„¢ Aims to Eliminate Long Distance, Announces Comprehensive New Internet Phone Service Pricing

babyTEL, the leading independent Canadian-owned provider of high-speed Internet phone service, is pleased to announce the Canada-U.S. Village, a new pricing plan offering unlimited calling anywhere in Canada and the United States for $29.95 per month.

“babyTEL has been the backbone of our VoIP service since its launch in 2004 and this is another bold step in the evolution of Internet phone service,” said Jacques Perron, General Manager of CCAP, a Quebec City based ISP and Cable TV cooperative. “You don’t even have to be in the Village to get unlimited calls because your phone travels with you to Paris, London, Hong Kong or wherever.”

Then came a company called Cingular. Cingular bought AT&T Wireless. This should be no problem, right? The name on the bill changes, I send my checks to a different company, but other than that, no biggie right?

According to their research there are 50-million cell phone owners under the age of 25 and will collectively shell out $20-billion on their cell phones. They are spending their money on the latest ringtones, music, games and the latest and greatest new handsets.

According to another study released last March by mobileYouth an outstanding $1 out of every 10% spent by children and young people are now spent on their cell phones.

Simon asks about VoIP solution � so here is my tip: Systinet has been using Vonage for cca two years and we are satisfied. Using Vonage saves us thousands of dollars a month as we have one office in Czech and the other in USA. I personally have one Vonage phone at my house in Prague (having the US number of course). I remember only few (three?) major interruptions of the service during the period we are using it.

However, it looks like the Vonage days are over. Currently, we are removing Vonage phones as we don't need them any more. Why? Because Czech and US office already runs Asterisk (opensource Linux PBX). This solution is unbeatable � just perfect! I expect I'll remove my home Vonage phone this month...

Well - just for personal use, the Vonage phone is really good choice. But if you convince your employer to use Asteriks, then you'll get even better solution. ;-)

Today eStara (whom I associate with their "web call me button" product), announced a SME solution that enables SMEs to use web advertising and still convert using phone as opposed to the website. If you are running a specific campaign, you can create/provision a unique phone number and eStara will track the leads to this number. This has been done for decades in the call center arena, but what's new is eStara has extended this feature into the Voice over IP realm, which enables not just call centers, but also small-to-medium sized businesses to track their campaigns as well. They offer comprehensive real-time reporting and provisioning using a web browser.

Whoot! Toysoft just released Live! for Treo 650, which allows for high-quality video recordings, frame export, formats, sound/no sound, and more. At 14.95 it’s a bargain, if you ever wished your Treo video recorder were a little bit less … awkward.

Among others, FileProg's 'actions' include: copy, cut, delete, paste, IR Beam, BT Beam, launch, rename, create directory, format volume and rename volume. Here I found the IR and BT beaming functions particularly useful as you may one day find yourself in need to transfer a file or document to another Treo or PC while on the go (the built-in beam function only allows you to beam applications). For example, as a test I transferred a 3.3MB MP3 file from my Treo 650 to my old Treo 600 via IR and upon completion the file I confirmed...

"Rumors about tension between the carriers and Motorola and Apple have been running rampant ever since Moto scrapped the handset�s unveiling last month, and it looks like the carriers, which are introducing their own wireless music download services later this year (BusinessWeek reports that Cingular, Verizon, and Sprint all have them in the works), are playing hardball now".

Financial Times reports that discussions between Qwest Communications International Inc. and MCI Inc. over a possible merger agreement have "advanced significantly" over the past week.

Coming soon to a cell phone near you: Sesame Street. Cell providers are teaming up with popular children’s media companies to develop programming for kids on cell phones. This “high tech pacifier” would work like a mini-television: parents can subscribe to a service for a monthly fee, and receive phone fare with kids’ favorite characters.

Through its participating Security Dealers, Alarm.com will offer Vonage customers a reliable, phone-line-independent security system that transmits alarm signals from a customer's home or business wirelessly to a central monitoring station, which can then contact local authorities in the event of an emergency.

Local search is offered in a cooperation with British commercial telephone directory company Yell, which provides the business phone numbers and addresses.

The ability to subscribe solely to Verizon's DSL, or high-speed Internet service, could be attractive to young customers who rely primarily on their wireless plan for phone calls. It could also appeal to customers who want to try out new Internet-calling technology.

The attached graphic of Bellsouth’s stock performance is a good indication of its future direction. I need no more analysis of this company than the facts listed here to accurately predict the near certain demise of Bellsouth as a provider of much of anything in the networked future. Their incredibly inept handling of that advanced technology called the cell phone is a good template for the way they will be going in the areas of broadband, VOIP, video services — you name it service if it is something likely to produce revenue for the...

They will have many facile answers that will be the kind of corpspeak mumbo jumbo designed to derail any form of common sense analysis of their actions. I’ve considered the possibility that Bell-headed-South was secretly preparing for a takeover from Comcast and the executives are making life easy on their future employer’s. They don’t want to provide competitive pressure that could make the Comcast guys lose any sleep at night or worry that consumers will think twice when next year they enter the VOIP market full swing and wipe...

Engadget has a review of the UTStarcom F1000, Vonage’s first WiFi phone. I want it.

VOIP (Voice Over IP) is taking root everywhere. As a VOIP developer and provider for a few years, I would like to provide my knowledge to Blogger people or for that matter to anyone. Let's sound off and see if we could hear it!

Posted by: ravenII / 11:53 AM

VCalifornia's was the first of several state utility commissions to appeal the FCC order, leading to the combining of the cases in the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. Its decision to withdraw is likely to cause delays and a move to another circuit.

The state Public Utilities Commission voted 3 to 1 behind closed doors late last week to pull out of its appeal of a Federal Communications Commission rule designating so-called voice over Internet protocol as an interstate service beyond state control.

It was a good run, but Vonage may soon have to pass the torch when it comes to being top dog in the VoIP business. In a recent study, many analysts are foreseeing the rise of other companies, and Vonage is not going to be able to keep up. While they have been the poster child for the VoIP community, many larger more able cable companies are rising to the task. With AOL and COX ready to roll out their own VoIP services, their ability to package deals with TV, Internet, and VoIP will bring a great amount of savings to the average...

04:15 PM in Vonage | Permalink

I saw this post on slashdot this morning about Verizon and the Philadelphia municipal WiFi project and it made me angry all over again.

For a little background, the City of Philadelphia started planning to wifi up the whole city. Free, basic wifi access anywhere in the city. Sounds great. Sounds like a really awesome idea. Well, Verizon got a whiff of it and tried to block the project threatening to sue the FCC in order to make them block Philly from this project. It seems like they've worked out a deal since then but when I heard that back in November or December it reminded me of everything that is wrong with Big Business dominating our government and the Republican's habit of favoring Big Business at the expense of basic defense of the average citizen.

Handmark, the leading developer and publisher of software for smart mobile devices, announced today that its Pocket Express wireless information suite has landed the #4 spot on Larry Becker’s list of “The Top 10 Treo 650 Accessories.” The review, which appeared April 13 on MobileTracker ( http://www.mobiletracker.net/ ), a prominent blog site for cell phone product news and information, cites the “one interface, many programs” utility of Pocket Express along with its strong cost-saving advantages.

Ben Edelman knows a lot about the lawyers and money part. He’s a Ph.D. candidate at the Harvard School of Economics and a student at Harvard Law, and a frequent commentator on Internet-related legal issues.

He wrote me this morning to comment on my post, in which I noted that when I downloaded and installed the Kazaa-Skype bundle yesterday, I obtained more than 2,500 adware files.

Ben sent a link to an artice he wrote, in which he notes that in their license document, one of the leading spyware hitchikers on Kazaa-Skype downloads fails to list anti-spyware utilities as an authorized means of removing their files from your PC.

He quotes: "You agree that you will not use, or encourage others to use, any unauthorized means for the removal of the GAIN AdServer, or any GAIN-Supported Software from a computer."

, TELUS, Verizon, SBC, etc.) emergency telephony comes with it. Should you wish to purchase from them an emergency-only telephony service, you are politely forced to take the local telephone service that comes with it as well.

Comcast would also like to get into the wireless phone business in the near future, according to Burke, offering it as service bundles and said the idea of a hybrid cell phone that switches over to unlimited fixed-price Internet phone service inside subscribers' homes will be ''a big part of our future."

I can’t believe I have a two year contract with a company who provides cellular service and the CEO, the leader, visionary etc of said company doesn’t think that cell phones should be able to work inside my house. Excuse me did I miss the bus to 2005 because I could swear that’s how cell phones were in 1995.

April 20th is when DSL is scheduled to be activated from Verizon. I guess I will have to wait and see how it performs. Other than that, I will be enjoying my last few days of my cable connection.

CONGRATULATIONS, YOU ARE NOW A VERIZON WIRELESS V710 OWNER!

Recently Steven Frank, cofounder of Panic Software, has posted a fair comparison of the Cingular Treo 650 vs the T-Mobile Sidekick 2.

Read the full comparison at Steve’s blog at: ~stevenf : Sidekick 2 vs. Treo 650

Looks like there’s an Skype Kiosk in Japan that is providing Skype calls. Is this the first sign of VoIP taking full fledge commercial flight?

San Francisco Chronicle: "In the coming weeks, the city of San Francisco will request proposals for a plan for a community broadband network -- a network that can provide the people of San Francisco a blisteringly fast connection to the Internet at a fraction of the cost of Comcast and SBC."

We have Big Media to thank for saving Americans from themselves. Just as the notion of affordable broadband for all was beginning to take hold in towns and cities across the country, the patriots at Verizon, Qwest, Comcast, Bell South and SBC Communications have created legislation that will stop the "red menace" of community internet before it invades our homes.

The one concern I have with it, however, is data lock-in. Your backed up data is stored in a Nokia proprietary format which can only be opened by Nokia Data Suite, which in turn only works with Nokia phones. In short, if you use this tool and then lose your phone, unless your new phone is also a Nokia you’re screwed.

Nonetheless, the growing popularity of Net phone services has proven that what could have been a passing technology fad is becoming a permanent fixture for how many people make phone calls. More "traditional" phone companies are rolling out Internet phone services -- which are often cheaper and more flexible for customers -- after realizing that upstarts like Vonage Holdings Corp. continue to attract a lot of buzz and substantial business.

Many incumbent providers and legislators have taken a different stance over fears that standards like 911 calling and other features -- as well as revenue sources from phone taxes and other fees -- may be impacted by the rise of Internet phone calling technology. Traditional phone companies, while offering some VoIP services, also are leery of losing control and marketshare to upstart Internet firms.

• SMYC. Join SMYC and get three free ringtones and other perks from Cingular.

3 free ringtones and perks from Cingular

With the high cost of the SMS brokering services (especially now that providers are forcing all commercial senders to have shortcodes!), products that use SMS heavily are going to have to pass the cost to the user. This severely limits adoption.

A big part of the problem here is that mobile providers are just making too much money off of text messaging. An article in Knight-Ridder Tribune Business News (2005-03-15) had some unsurprising statements:

The company that makes the Skype software for letting Internet users call one another for free anywhere in the world is launching two premium services as the number of downloads topped 100 million on Friday.

The title for this post is taken from a quote in an ad for telecomfortexas.com, which encourages us Texans to question telecom competition. Oh yeah, competition is bad, monopolies good, right? Um, not so much. The ad shows a subscript at the bottom of the screen saying, paid for by SBC. What a surprise! SBC loves Rep. King's bill, we know this.

After a quick Google search, I found several websites that advertised unlocking services for Motorola V551’s and other phone models. Many of these websites charge $10 to $20 for a code that they will give you via email that will unlock the phone. BE WARNED! I have found out that this only works for certain Nokia phones. Usually all other phones require firmware updates, and that cannot be done by typing in a code. Most phones have to be connected to a computer via USB cable and have the firmware replaced by an unlocked version.

Although I'm generally an early adopter, I haven't rushed to join the folks cutting the cord to their landline phones to sign up for Internet phone service.

Swisscom ISDN subscribers (these phones come with a screen), enable users to send SMS from a land line phone to a subscriber to any of the three mobile operators, but only Swisscom mobile users are able to reply to the SMS.

Unbundled or “naked” DSL is a data-only service without the voice line that is normally part of the DSL package. Naked DSL is used by customers who are using alternative voice services or wireless phones rather than landline phones provided by the Baby Bells.

About a third of Nepal’s telephone lines are cellular, and while landline phones and Internet links were restored a week after the king’s surprise announcement, there’s no sign that cell phones — the communications method of choice for government opponents — will be working anytime soon.

The AOL VoIP service review titled "Despite kinks, AOL's new Internet phone service worth try" lists several other features, so it's worth checking out.

» Home of Gadgets > Mobiles > Cingular Releases Exclusive Star Wars Mobile Content

Cingular Releases Exclusive Star Wars Mobile Content

Cingular customers now have access to a diverse and most anticipated collection of wireless content from Revenge of the Sith and other chapters of the Star Wars saga.

Cingular is thrilled to drive this universal demand for Star Wars content to the wireless arena, giving more than 49 million Cingular customers access to a “Jabba"-sized collection of original mobile content.

“The Star Wars brand is recognized and loved by people of all ages,” said John Burbank, Vice President of Marketing, Cingular Wireless. “Fans of the Star Wars saga will appreciate the virtually anytime, anywhere access they’ll have to their favorite Star Wars moments and characters directly from their Cingular handset. I think it’s safe to say we’ve got the hottest wireless ticket in town.”

“We’re excited that Cingular is giving our fans the ability to download so many of their favorite Star Wars sounds, music and graphics directly to their Cingular handset,” said Jim Ward, Vice President of Marketing and Distribution for Lucasfilm. “With the release of Revenge of the Sith, we are celebrating a saga that spans almost 30 years. It’s great to work with Cingular to invite millions of people to celebrate this moment with us.”

THQ Wireless Inc., a global leader in mobile entertainment and subsidiary of THQ Inc., is teaming up with Cingular to offer downloadable Star Wars content such as music tones, voice tones of movie quotes, sound effect tones, mobile games, animated screensavers, colorful wallpaper graphics and MMS greeting cards as well as cast interviews, character biographies, behind-the-scene features, and trivia based on the previous five films. Cingular’s collection of official Star Wars content, to be rolled out over the next five months, will include:

Cingular customers can download their favorite Star Wars ringtones, graphics and greeting cards starting at $1.99. Star Wars games will start at $5.99. Customers have a direct link to Star Wars content by accessing the web through their Cingular phone or PC (by clicking here). The site will be updated with new, dynamic content every few weeks, making it a true blockbuster experience for Star Wars fans. Downloadable content for Revenge of the Sith will be available beginning April 4, 2005.

Beginning April 5 through June 4, Cingular Wireless will offer the Sony Ericsson S710 and the Sony Ericsson Z500a with free preloaded Star Wars content. The S710, which retails for $449.99, will be offered at a special promotional price of $399.99 with a two-year contract. The preloaded Z500a will retail for $49.99 with a two-year contract and a $30 mail-in rebate. Both exclusive, limited edition packages will include:

Additionally, when Cingular customers purchase either one of the special preloaded Sony Ericsson devices, they will receive two free movie tickets to see Revenge of the Sith.

Several weeks ago, Cingular finally offered support for the Treo 650, so I signed up and got one. It has a better screen, Bluetooth support, and actually feels a little lighter than the Treo 600.

That being said, it's not feeling like much of an improvement. In fact, I'm not sure if it's my hardware, software, Cingular service, or what, but I'm experiencing serious pain. Thankfully, John Yunker has a detailed run-down of the problems I have been having, and I'm not the only one. Cingular, are you listening??

Update, April 13: Some other ideas on how to fix this. I decided to wipe my Treo completely clean, install the Palm Desktop for Treo 650 on a Windows machine (I'm using a Mac), and sync from there to see if my problems go away. More later. . . . (keeping this how to do a hard reset link...

Of course, a number of PDAs now support Bluetooth as well, but unless they also have cell phone capability (e.g., the iPAQ 6315 or similar Pocket PC phone edition) you aren’t going to be browsing the Internet through them. Speaking of which, Verizon is now launching their EVDO (Evolution Data Only) service. EVDO is a next-generation network which is truly wireless broadband. Note that Sprint and Cingular are preparing to launch their own wireless broadband networks in the near future as well. That increase bandwidth should facilitate SmartVideo, which makes television programming available for mobile devices.

Also a sign of the maturation of the SmartPhone as a platform is that Opera has just announced a version of their browser for the Windows Mobile SmartPhone. Browser wars now come to your cell phone. Cingular has also just recently announced their expanding support for Microsoft OS based phones through 2005. The main obstacle I see is user input, the menu system and muli-key press for a single character just won’t cut it for significant data input. One option to solve that issue is voice recognition, and Nokia just recently introduced a...

Add one more consequence to the proliferation of cell phones. Manicurists rejoiced when it was announced that, starting in June 2006, everyone in the 514, 450 and 819 area codes will have to dial 10 numbers (instead of the usual 7) to make a local phone call.

One difference I have noticed since I was a student here oh-so-many years ago (actually, only 2) is the obscene proliferation of iPods and cell phones. Now, I'm no technophobe, but the presence of these things on campus can be very irritating. The students working the B.C. front desk now tune out all around them with iPods, and everyone seems to be in their own MP3 world walking to class. Do you really need your iPod to walk a few yards? We're not that big of a campus. And yesterday I almost got run over by a driver talking on a cell phone (this time a staff member), and instead of the usual apologetic wave that's customary in our one-traffic light town, the person continued talking, never having stopped to acknowledge the fact they almost run me down.

Ronald Gruia has an intriguing posting about how reliable VOIP needs to be in light of outages at Vonage and 8x8 recently. Does VOIP needs to have five 9s reliability to become a mainstream technology? Or can it thrive with slightly lower quality if it provides users with reduced costs and more features. For the timing being, I suspect bleeding/leading edge consumers - residential more than corporate - will accept less-than-perfect...

New post in Telephony Online has a leading broadband analyst predicting that at before the year is out, two VoIP-over-cable providers could have more subscribers than Vonage.

I think Time Warner and Cablevision can take the lead in VoIP from Vonage this year, Teresa Mastrangelo, principal analyst with Broadbandtrends.com, tells Telephony Online’s Carol Wilson. The cable companies are being very smart in making their VoIP look like traditional phone service so that customers don’t have to make any extra effort to change services.

Well, could be. Vonage has more than 600,000 subscribers, and Time Warner Cable started the year out with 220,000. Cablevision has more than 222225,000.

TWC, at least, could pass Vonage if it turns out that Vonage has gotten its share of early adopters - and that the next phase of propective VoIP subscribers would opt for a more familiar brand.

But see, that’s why Vonage ads are everywhere. They know that to get past the early adopters and become a mass-market play, they have to be more familiar to Joe and Mary SOHO.

ZDNet’s Russell Shaw poses the question about who will have the most Internet telephony subscribers by the end of this year. Vonage currently has a large lead with over 600K customers but cablecos such as CableVision and Time-Warner are starting to cl…

We suspect it’s mainly because they haven’t selling very well in the first place (do you know a single person who has one?), but 8x8 has cut the price on their Packet8 Broadband Consumer VideoPhone from $250 down to $99. That is with a two year service agreement, but they’ve also cut the price of their monthly VoIP and video calling plan from $29.95 to $19.95. Apparently that strategy of paying for placement in Alias and Will & Grace wasn’t the huge subscriber bonanza they thought it was going to be—or...

I was able to get back on the net by using Bluetooth dial-up networking from my PowerBook through my Cingular Treo 650. Once I got connected I went to Comcast's support page and found that under the "Network Health" header, there was a terse statement stating that "All Internet Connectivity Was Down". Umm, no, just DNS was down. Reconfiguring my machines to use alternate DNS servers resolved the problem, though I suppose for the average user, DNS being down means that in effect, the Internet is down.

Great!!!! Yesterday I’ve tried the explosive combination of ET and SKYPE with Sylvain (aka |LiGF| Atlas). It works perfectly, without any lag or voice deformation. We must still try it with more than 2, and if it works, ET players can begin to fear the |LiGF| Clan!!!

NB For the newbies: ET stands for Enemy Territory, the free multiplayer extension to Return From Castle Wolfenstein, and Skype is a performant free Internet Telephony Software.

Sony Ericsson wants to simplify the update process by letting customers update their own phones at multimedia kiosks installed in busy stores. The cylindrical kiosks, about 0.5 meters wide and 1.5 meters tall, contain a small PC and feature a touch-sensitive flat-panel display and a docking cradle for a mobile phone. Customers will be able to slot their phone into the cradle after first removing the SIM card, then follow the on-screen prompts to update the firmware. The process will take about seven minutes, Sony Ericsson staff said. The kiosk's...

You may view the progress of the event on the Web site and participate in an online game that offers a grand prize of an around-the-world trip for two and such prizes as Sony Ericsson phones, Akono headsets and vouchers for "luxury design hotels."

Note: as an alternative, go to an uppersemester who has internet connection and Skype. It's 2 cents a minute to call the US and Canada with Skype, I think. That's extremely cheap. I recommend that every student buy a headset with a microphone before coming to the Caribbean. You can then use Skype on campus to place a call back home though it is far better if you have an internet connection on your own.

Speaking of TiVo, Tara and I love watching 24. It's probably our favorite show we watch. During a scene where Jack Bauer is on his cell phone, trying to help an innocent couple from terrorists, he gives out his cell phone number to them.

When he read out the phone number, I hit pause and looked at Tara and said 'they didn't use the normal 555 phone number' (you know how TV and movies always uses the fake 555 prefix when saying phone numbers...).

I immediately picked up my cell phone and dialed the number (go ahead and try dialing 310 597-3781):

The Nextel mailbox for 24 is full. Thank you for calling. Please try again later.

I guess if I had been watching the show live on a Monday and called I would of gotten a better message from Nextel, but alas, the mailbox was full. Very cool way to promote Nextel!

So today I got my bill for my Atlanta trip. I surely was not ready for that. It was ridiculously high. So I did what any broke college student would do, I called to complain. Now, I was not just calling to complain because I can, I actually had good reason.

Good job Cingular, you just kept one customer (for now), which is good, because I really did not want to have to cancel my contract and lose my rollover minutes. Those things (rollover minutes) are great.

The second story I noticed was that Cingular had convinced bands to release their songs as ringtones before singles. Coldplay will be the first band, and their new song “Speed of Sound” will be available as a new ringtone six days before it gets played on the radio and a couple of months before their new album comes out in June.

50% of New Business Phone Lines This Year Will Be VoIP

VoIP broadband phone service is catching on with business and residential customers. Voice Over IP (VoIP) allows you to make and receive phone calls using your broadband internet service instead of traditional copper wires. The VoIP service is cheap and the quality is as good as traditional phone services. Additionally, there are many advantages to VoIP broadband phone service to include the ability to video conference, plug in your broadband phone anywhere in the world,...

IT Facts.biz posts 10% of US business lines are VOIP. A Yankee Group survey of 231 business VOIP usage found that 39% of US businesses were using IP telephony in some form. Of those, 9% were testing, 25% were partially deployed and 5% were fully deployed. Of the 113 mln US business handsets in use today, only 10% use VOIP. Yankee Group estimates 50% of new lines shipped this year will use IP.

Comcast broadband has really been shitty for the last 2 weeks, lot's of outages. With the growing popularity of VoIP (indeed, Comcast itself is a VoIP provider) this is a serious issue, not only can't you use the web/email, but you can't use your phone when your broadband connection goes down.

In the fight between Verizon Communications and Qwest Communications to take over MCI, Verizon has taken what is probably a commanding advantage over Qwest by making a deal over the weekend to buy out MCI’s largest shareholder’s 13 percent share of the company.

Verizon, the largest U.S. telecommunications company, agreed to pay Carlos Slim $1.1 billion for his 43.4 million shares of MCI.

Despite Verizon’s move, Qwest has still not given up in its bid to buy MCI. Qwest executives met with bankers on Sunday to consider their next move. Qwest had worked out a deal to raise additional equity to support their bid from a group of MCI shareholders who oppose Verizon’s bid.

But with the Verizon acquisition of Mr. Slim’s shares, which makes Verizon MCI’s largest shareholder, it is doubtful whether Qwest can count on enough of MCI’s shareholders to overcome Verizon’s bid.

Mr. Slim was one of those who opposed Verizon’s bid. MCI’s board of directors has repeatedly turned down Qwest’s bids, saying that Verizon is a financially superior company and that the Verizon bid is favored by MCI’s customers.

What if Opra invited Harry Potter and Pokemon on to her show to explain how to use a Macintosh, an iPod, Voice Over IP, Bluetooth, Skype, and Vonage? SURELY it would be a hit episode?

Today France is one of the two or three world leaders in telecommunications, not only in terms of the technological progress made by industry, but also in the practical application of these inventions to daily life. After a number of local experiments, in 1984 the P&T launched nationwide its home videotex service known as Minitel: the subscriber receives a TV screen and keyboard which serves as an electronic telephone directory and also links in to the big central computer networks, thus becoming an instant newspaper, encyclopaedia, mail order service, booking office and so on.

Stuart Henshall from Skype Journal

Bill, also from Skype Journal

I was in Tablet PC and the Motion M1400 demo mode showing the trio the strengths of the Tablet PC. They all seemed not to be as concerned by the price tag ($2500) as some on the internet are about the pricing (even I was a doubter about the expense at one time). We also looked at the PSP, recorded a really short podcast and a dark (needs refining to be publishable) video. Bill and Stuart opened Charles eyes to a world of possibilities involving Skype and his business.

The one thing none of us actually did at the Skype meetup is actually fired up and used … Skype!

As of today, Skype have launched a beta for their new SkypeIn service. Currently it’s possible to get numbers in four regions (France, Hong Kong/China, United Kingdom and United States), regardless of where you yourself live, that allow people to dial in to your Skype using “normal” telephone systems. For a year, the subscription costs 30€, 10€ for 3 months. A subscription for the Skype VoiceMail system, that’s also been in beta test...

To use the new features, you’ll need a newly released beta version of the Skype Client.

Skype Video Conferencing - Are they using a proprietary codec?

Does anyone know what codecs Skype are using? Are they proprietary?

According to Mobile Tracker, there is nothing new about a cell phone with a built-in ability to record phone calls, following yesterday’s hoopla over a new Japanese cell phone (cf Cell phone recording feature raises hackles). “Lots of phones already have this functionality (including other Sony Ericsson phones such as the T610 and T68i)”.

In 2002 a conversation regarding VoIP would go like this: VoIP? What’s that? Enter 2005 and now the world can't seem to get enough. Large cable companies such as Time Warner and Cox Communications are reporting an incredible increase in VoIP services to their customers. It was only a matter of time before companies that sell the broadband signal VoIP runs on would implement a packaged plan. For a flat monthly fee with one company, you can get high speed internet, TV, and voice communication for cheaper than SBC, Verizon,...

Anywise, I had to (unfortunately) go with Cingular again, since they are the only corporation who covers my final location with any great quality or quantity, so I could not go with one of the more nifty phones on the market (only carried by T-Mobile, of course). At any rate, I decided on a Motorola v551. I have always been rather leery of flip-phones... In my mind, it is just another moving piece to break, and I am generally rough on just about all of...

If you're looking for a durable and compact cameraphone that's loaded with the latest multimedia technology, the new Motorola RAZR V3 phone, now offered by Cingular, may be just up your alley. The phone, made out of aluminum and magnesium and boasting a chemically-etched keypad and hardened glass, can be used internationally with its quad-band capability. It also features a speakerphone and is Bluetooth-capable. The RAZR V3 weighs 3.3 ounces and features a battery with 7 hours of talk time and 12 days of standby time. Multimedia capabilities includes the ability to support multimedia messaging service, built-in digital VGA camera with 4x zoom, and video download and playback support.

A recent study done by SunRocket, a Virginia based VoIP provider showed that nearly 85% of the people had heard about VoIP. More importantly, over 20% of the 2,228 respondents were already using a VoIP service of some kind. While this figure is an example of the quick spread of Internet phone services, many did not completely understand how the technology actually worked. For instance, only half knew that you did not have to route calls directly through a computer or could use a regular telephone to make calls. On the other...

This a pretty good article on the situation with VoIP's inherent security risks. If you have a "internet phone", or are thinking of getting one, this article is for you.

That's in itself isn't remarkable. What is, perhaps, is that he called that number - which is a normal landline number in London - from his internet phone service. Not Skype this time. Uri was calling from The VoipBuster. For free.

Another entry into the annals of does-it-or-doesn’t it. In this case, cell phones. Do they cause brain tumors or don’t they? Evidence seems likely, and then it doesn’t.

The problem with these studies, however, is that they cannot positively rule out a link between the two. They just couldn’t establish one in this study, and that’s a big difference from saying that “cell phones do not lead to brain tumors” or that “cell phones are completely safe.” The scientists who did this study do admit that; that even though they couldn’t establish a link between tumors and cell phones, they could not rule out the possibility that mobile handsets may cause long-term health problems,...

When he needs to figure out what his company should be doing next, Daniel Kranzler often seeks expert advice--from his 18- year-old daughter. Kranzler's company, Mforma, makes games and ringtones for cell phones and, by staying plugged in to teens like Kat, has seen sales double every few months. He's not alone. An explosion is under way in the cell-phone business, as innovative new companies are popping up, feeding not just teen tastes but also, in the process, defining a new future for wireless communications. Kranzler inked a deal in December...

Teenagers right now are "the sweet spot," says Burris of Sprint. An estimated 76% of kids ages 15 to 19 and 90% of people in their early 20s regularly use their cell phones for text messaging, ringtones and games, and that enthusiasm has turned wireless data services into a significant business. Gartner Research estimates that Americans spent $1.2 billion last year on ringtones, wallpaper and other "personalization" services and an additional $1.4 billion on cell-phone games and other entertainment. Fabrice Grinda, CEO of one of the leading ringtone...

He said CBS also is beginning to explore ways of utilizing a wide array of new technologies for distributing CBS' programming, including cell phones.

"There's even been talk about doing a one-minute 'CSI'" on cell phones, Moonves told the ad executives. "Someone gets killed the first few seconds. The crime gets solved in the last few seconds."

This thing kicks majoy booty over just about everything else out there, in terms of sex appeal. It’s the reigning champeen of “I gotta be seen with that thing”. Motorola really knocked it out of the park when they designed it, but how is the performance? Is the battery life even tolerable? The reception capabilities on the (new and improved) Cingular network? Answers to these and more after the break…

Cingular has announced their new "Cingular Sounds" line of ringtones. These special tones are actual music singles that have not been released anywhere else, and will be put our in the ringer format before it is available as a CD single. Coldplay's "Speed of Sound" is the first single to be launched. Fro a Cingular press release:

Home > FCC Daily > Federal Register Notice of Rulemaking on Calling Cards >

The Commission has published Federal Register notice of Notice of Proposed Rulemaking ("NPRM") FCC 05-41. The Order section of that release denied AT&T's May 15, 2003 petition requesting a declaratory ruling that intrastate access charges do not apply to calls made using its "enhanced" prepaid calling cards when the calling card platform is located outside the state in which either the calling or the called party is located.

On November 22, 2004, AT&T requested a similar ruling that two new variants to its "enhanced" calling card offering are information services and jurisdictionally interstate. The Commission noted that those changes to AT&T's calling card services may be significant for purposes of regulatory classification and jurisdiction. Rather than try to address each possible type of calling card offering through a declaratory ruling, the Commission initiated a NPRM to consider the classification and jurisdiction of new forms of prepaid calling cards comprehensively...

Home > FCC Daily > BellSouth Pricing Flexibility Petition - FCC Requests Comment >

In Public Notice DA 05-740, the Commission requested comment on BellSouth's petition for pricing flexibility for switched access services. BellSouth stated that it meets the criteria necessary to obtain Phase I pricing flexibility relief in 34 Metropolitan Statistical Areas ("MSAs") and two (2) non-MSA areas. Comments or oppositions are due by April 1, 2005. BellSouth may file a reply by April 11, 2005.

As I reported here about a month ago, the packet loss and latency issues that we were having with our VoIP provider have been resolved. Call quality has been excellent (better than what we're used to with the PSTN) and we were all feeling extremely confident about rolling this technology out to customers. We've done a few installations and things seemed to be going smoothly until this week, when we had some reports of intermittent call quality issues with one of our customers. Upon further investigation, it seems their 4MB ADSL connection provided by a national ISP called Group Telecom (GT), has some packet loss issues. I must say that I'm very concerned, not about our technology or this customer in particular (as I'm sure we'll be able to fix this). What I'm concerned about is the quality of the Internet Connections for small business that ISPs have been installing..

I wonder if DSL as a technology is going to be able to provide us with the line quality that is necessary when dealing with IP Telephony. My plans for this coming week are to attack this problem in an aggressive way, utilizing the infrastructure of TechSupport.ca and our clients to see if the packet loss is specific to this customer (or this provider), or if this is a symptom of using DSL technology. My feeling is that we'll find a wide range of different quality, but that it should definitely be possible to get 0% packet loss over DSL if it's been provisioned right. I think the ISP's have had a pretty easy time of it up to this point, because no-one has been testing the speed and quality of the links that they are providing. With a real-time protocol like VoIP that is so sensitive to latency and packet loss, I believe customers are going to start demanding quality links and switching if the quality is not there. I know we'll be working with GT over the next week in an effort to resolve this issue, and if it cannot be resolved we'll be looking for another carrier to provide internet service to this particular customer.

I'll have more information on what we should be able to expect from DSL later this week. Most of our customers are on DSL of some kind, whether it be ISDL, ADSL, SDSL, etc.. If it turns out that DSL technology doesn't provide the quality links required for VoIP, that will seriously harm our ability to roll this out to small business customers here in Canada where DSL has been so popular. In the US, T1 and fractional T1's are the most prevalent internet access technology and this might bode well for their adoption of VoIP.

What we've learned here is that it's critical to do a detailed network assessment prior to rolling out VoIP, not only on the Local Area Network (LAN) side (switches, routers, cabling, etc..) but also a quality check on the ISP which is providing the Wide Area Network (WAN) connectivity in most cases for small business. The speed of the connection doesn't seem to be an issue (so long as it's broadband). What people should be investigating is the packet loss, latency and variation of the link.

Posted on November 27, 2004 at 08:24 PM in VoIP | Permalink

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Don’t get me wrong, you do have options but it may not be as simple as blaming DSL. POTS failover? A connection to failover to? Both of these should be possible, the second even might make sense for internet reliability but both will add to the cost of you VOIP solution.

Tech Daily (subscription required) reports today that the Texas AG's consumer fraud suit against Vonage may be spreading. The AG's spokeman stated: [s]everal states have expressed an interest in the suit,..." I blogged about the stretch that Vonage's E-911 disclosures constituted consumer fraud here. Randy May responded to that...

If the Texas AG's suit catches on, I do fear we are looking at a de facto E-911 mandate on VoIP, not just better disclosure. I went back to my Vonage "welcome materials" for my own account. Predictably in our litigation-senstitive world, Vonage is very clear about the service's E-911 limitations and sign-up requirements. Thus, there seems to me a very tenuous "consumer fraud" basis for the complaint.

But this will probably not stop AG's on a morally-charged public safety crusade. The politics are easy. Big, laudatory headlines of public-protecting AG filing the suit, followed by one of two outcomes. First, and most likely, Vonage folds up quickly making some token payment and agrees to do what it is already doing: make its VoIP E-911 systems more robust. The alternate outcome would have Vonage winning the suit because their disclosures do not come close to constituting fraud. But that is a small headline and years away.

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I raise the issue of VoIP and port blocking, because there are many enterprise IT managers currently investigating VoIP alternatives for mobile environments. With the advent of Skype, VONAGE and other IP telephony services, it is clear that a number of options will be available for companies of all sizes.

Clearwire, a wireless broadband company backed by Craig McCaw and just entering US markets, has caused a minor stir by saying up front that it will block third-party VoIP applications like Vonage. Clearwire's terms of service disclose this fact that they can restrict high-bandwidth applications.

It is therefore unclear whether Clearwire needs to restrict all bandwidth-heavy uses, or only third-party bandwidth-heavy uses in favor of its own, integrated offerings. If it's the latter case, this would facially violate one of former Chairman Powell's Four Net Freedoms, or the stronger (proposed) regulations for "net neutrality." ["Four 'Net Freedoms" sounds vaguely Maoist, doesn't it? Now that he's moved on I can allege it: Michael Powell, crypto-Maoist!] Under a 'Net Freedom analysis, if Clearpoint offered its own integrated VoIP offering and to ensure quality of service or allow better price differentiation for the whole offering, that would be a slightly different case than if all applications were subject to the same bandwidth restrictions. Still another case would be if Clearwire wanted payment from the applications provider -- in this case Vonage -- to carry its application.

So, let Clearwire, be Clearwire! As a Vonage customer, addicted to its toll-bridging capabilities, I would never subscribe -- but that's why markets serve consumers better than uniform, government mandated offerings.

There have been rumors circulating that Vonage is entertaining an IPO. More interesting are the circumstances surrounding this potential offering. The company’s CEO, Jeff Citron, got a swift kick in the nads from the SEC a few years ago for some illegal activity and was ordered to pay a handsome fine; some have speculated that the SEC might have a problem with Citron being on the board of a publicly traded company,...

As Diaz points out, AOL will bring VoIP to the mainstream mass market, something that really was started when AT&T launched their Olympic campaign last summer, and to some extent with what Vonage did online to bring SIP based VoIP telephony to the early adopter and trend setter market.

There are some drawbacks with AOL's CallWays product. First is you have to get a number in your geographic area, unlike what Vonage and all the rest offer. This is tied to their E-911 offering, something AOL is making a big deal about.

Second, their pricing is on par with the offerings from Vonage, AT&T and others so from a pricing perspective, they're no less less in cost.

Verizon has recently announced the deployment of FTTH in the city of Lynn and the towns of Nahant and Swampscott in Massachussetts.

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With all the net catching on to AOL's VoIP announcements this week, I overlooked the Verizon announcement about VoiceWing and a new lower cost pricing plan.

While nothing in the announcement is breakthrough, one has to realize that should Verizon be successful in the acquisition of MCI, then the VoIP market becomes much more of a strategy for them.

One has to continue to wonder what all this means for Delta Three. With SBC and Verizon as customers, and with both buyers getting lots of IP and VoIP in house intellectual capital and intellectual property, it is possible to presume that the agreements with those companies for VoIP related services may dry up.

One also has to wonder why Verizon let Genuity get purchased by Level3, when they had first option to buy it.

And Verizon shareholders are going to show what can happen to share prices when an unwanted deal ($7.6 billion acquisition of MCI) goes forward.

We’ve added two excellent cases from Brando to the Treo 650 case roundup review that includes Vaja, Piel Frama and Sena cases. “Brando’s Silicon …

For those who have been waiting for bug fixes, a new firmware update has been released for the Sprint version of the Treo 650.

The Treo 650 Updater features performance and reliability enhancements for your smartphone:

* Internal setting modification to allow correct access to Sprint Affiliate roaming partner networks (previously released as Sprint PCS Treo 650 Roaming Patch)

* Bluetooth Carkit drivers are now included in ROM (previously released as Carkit Update for Treo 650)

Basically, all Sprint Treo 650 users are encouraged to get and install this update. I’ll be doing so tonight, and will report back on my experiences.

I just got a replacement for my Treo 650 phone/PDA. The first one had a habit of slowing to a crawl in performance -- click a key, wait 15 seconds for a response -- and forcing me to reboot it.

I love my Treo 650. LOVE MY TREO 650! I have it tricked out to the max and also load it up with music, podcasts, and heaven knows what else. But Dan, do you find Pocket Tunes better than Realplayer? I bought Pocket Tunes to play WMA files, but for sound, I can't tell the difference. Is it my lame headphones?

A collection of photos on Sidetalkin make fun of the new way of talking sideways on Nokia phones and… on anything else.

The firm attributed the jump in job cuts to a surge in telecommunications mergers, such as the purchase of AT&T Wireless by Cingular Wireless and Sprint’s merger with Nextel.

i’m not normally a fan of LG phones, either, but…

Vonage, a provider of VoIP Internet phone services, announced on March 7th that they have crossed the 500,000 subscriber mark. At the current sign-up rate (over 15,000 per week), they will have subscribed over 1 million homes by the end of this...

Other Internet phone services report similar large numbers. Free World Dial-Up (FWD), a free Voice over IP phone service, reports over 420,000 subscribers as of March 14th, while the free

AOL has announced today the launch of their

John Perry Barlow is pretty free and open, but he's no simpleton. So when he signed on to Skype, a free Internet phone service, and a woman identifying herself as Kitty messaged him, saying, "I need a friend," he was skeptical. He figured she was "looking for 'friends' to come watch her 'relax' in her Webcam-equipped 'bedroom."'

About 90 rural cell phone service providers missed last week’s deadline to introduce a system for emergency workers to find cell phones dialing 911, according to the Federal Communications Commission, according to News.com.

As discount "family plans" become the top growth area for U.S. cell phone service providers, investors should keep a sharp eye on customer cancellation rates in coming years, according to industry watchers.

Adding to the complexities, say analysts and cell phone company executives, is that cell phone service providers have each built slightly different versions of photo services, instead of waiting for an industrywide standard.

Spain and China cell phone service providers employed similar plans where by customers could call a number and a quick beep after dialing indicated that a donation of a specified amount had been made to a charity fund. The charge shows up on the phone bill the next month.

While Cingular may offer the MOTO RAZR V3 for $500 (with two-year contract), they do skimp a bit, as they do not include the nice aluminum case, a Motorola PhoneTools CD nor a USB sync cable, and it only comes with one Bejeweled Demo as the lone game, where retail versions of the RAZR V3 include the missing items, and come with 3 Java games. What they do offer, though, is the cheapest price on the slickest-looking phone available in the US this holiday season. They do lock the quad-band (GSM/GRPS 850/900/1800/1900 MHz) to Cingular service only, but there are stores that provide unlocking service or if you are so inclined, you can probably hack it yourself. Unlocked RAZR V3’s are going for around $650 on eBay.

The packaging is very weak, especially for a phone of this caliber, Motorola’s current flagship model. The phone is boxed like any other Cingular phone, there’s no wow factor at all to give the user of what they are getting. There’s not even a side shot of the phone on the box showing the RAZR slimness. I usually keep product boxes and I’ll probably keep this one, but the box is just flatout plain and boring.

Without question, the biggest draw of the RAZR V3 is the looks. In the incessant Cingular ads, the RAZR slices and dices away, implying razor sharpness when open. What you don’t see in the ads is that the phone is a bit wide. Yes, wide. Not obnoxiously wide, thankfully, but wider than phones that I’ve been used to, namely the Motorola T720 and a Nokia 8290, my last two cellphones. However, I found that it’s still easy to hold even while talking for 30...

I find the Cingular branding to be obnoxious. There’s the cingular logo (at least it’s in white and not over the top) on the back of the phone, and when the phone is in use, the bright orange Cingular logo shows up on the top cover LCD until you close the phone. It’s one thing to have the LCD display the cellular network you are on, but the orange logo turns you into an easily seen walking billboard for them. I’d definitely be interested in learning how to hack the phone...

The WAP and Internet experience on this phone is passable, I’m not one for much WAP use at all, I just can’t stand typing without a keyboard of some sort. Since my Cingular plan is not at all geared towards data usage, I did not try to pair it up and use it as a Bluetooth data modem, which I’m not sure is even possible with this phone.

Yes, even this chic phone isn’t flawless. The front cover does not sit flush with the bottom of the phone. I’m not sure if it’s just my phone, but when closed, the cover sticks up about 1 or 2mm and isn’t smooth when running your fingers up and down. When I push the cover down as much as I can, the cover will sit flush, so it may just be my particular phone (I have yet to see the phone in person at a Cingular store). There also seems like there are some imprints on the LCD screen of the keypad graphics....

Continuing our feature A Closer Look at the Top 10 Phones searched for at EyeOnMac.com, we are looking at the palmOne Treo 650 PDA Phone (Cingular). Finally, a Treo 650 for GSM users, offering all the functionality of a high-end Palm OS-powered PDA, a cell phone and a VGA camera.

Okay, so tell me about your cell phone and carrier. I lost mine, and it turns out, according to T-Mobile, that my contract's up anyway, so it'll be cheaper for me to just get a new one with someone else. So. I'm thinking it's going to be either Cingular, 'cause the rest of my family has Cingular and I'd get the free mobile-to-mobile minutes (plus, they just ate AT&T, so they'll have decent coverage), or Verizon, 'cause Verizon has the best network in the country (so-so phones and expensive plans, though). Suggestions? ...

I'm leaning towards Cingular, since I know someone with the exact phone I'd want, and she has no complaints.

The first two operators to allow cross-carrier photo-mail swapping are No. 1 cell phone company Cingular Wireless and No. 2 operator Verizon Wireless, which combined account for 93 million of the 180 million U.S. cell phone subscribers. It's likely the operators' agreement, quietly put into place in the last few weeks, will spur Sprint and other top U.S. operators to reach similar pacts.

The Department of Defense announced today that any American can now help troops in contingency operations call home. The Defense Department has authorized the Armed Services Exchanges to sell prepaid calling cards to any individual or... [Stryker Brigade News]

In considering that, we’re faced with a slew of potentially ugly situations. First and foremost, (and this revolves around the free vs. pay for play model) the existing service providers like Time Warner and Bellsouth probably aren’t going to be happy. I think it has something to do with unfair competition. Of course, I don’t see them spreading WiFi so I’m not sure there’s any competition out there right now. Then you have to consider that there’s no one in Columbia that can fulfill this project, at least that I know of. That fact, given that the city has been in the recent past focused on local purchasing, leaves us in a bit of tight spot…I mean, god forbid we go outside of Columbia to a service provider that could fulfill our requests. Perhaps I’m being overly simplistic.