Phones

A Norwegian company has developed bridging technology that links cell phones with Skype Technologies’ VoIP service in a configuration that enables users to make worldwide calls at local rates.

On June 8, Cingular--a joint venture of SBC Communications and BellSouth--sent a letter to Marion C. Blakey, the head of the Federal Aviation Administration, that raised a red flag about the prospect of cell phone blabbing on airplanes. "We believe there is a time and a place for wireless phone conversations, and seldom does that include the confines of an airplane flight," wrote Paul R. Roth, Cingular's executive vice president for external affairs.

Is this the iTunes phone? To be honest, we won’t know until we know (and we’re leaning towards this being more of a concept design more than anything else), but check out this mocked-up image of a handset sporting an Apple logo and the makings of scroll wheel that popped up in a presentation that Motorola execs recently made to analysts from Morgan Stanley in Beijing.

I recently switched to Cingular for my cellular service, and of course got a new phone. Like some other people have noted, I’ve been having problems with my new phone’s T9.

UGH! Who wants to go through all that! So, if you have a T5 or a Treo 650, please do yourself a favor, and check for and download all the updates that apply to your handheld! It may take a little extra effort upfront to download and install those patches from PalmOne, but you’ll save time for yourself and everyone in troubleshooting all kinds of strange and rare problems that might otherwise crop up.

It is interesting to see a growing resitance to the feature-creep that is central to mobile phone marketing. I’m sure there must be some folks who use all the features on their new mobile phones (as part of their careers in espionage or satellite navigation perhaps), but they are lost on me. At the risk of of sounding extremely non-geeky, I only use my mobile phone for voice and on rare occasions SMS communcations with a handful of people (and these days I’m literally talking about a number you can count on one, maybe two hands).

Anyway, the task was, indeed, much larger than I expected, which is why I’m now typing it up. Hopefully, Google will find this post and future people trying to do the same thing will be helped out. The technical specs matter a bit, but there is general information (and terminology!) here, too, on getting your connection to work. I’m using a PowerBook, a Nokia 6820, and Cingular is my provider. Sadly, even with my free dial-up into the University’s modem pool, there’s still no such thing as free internet, but this comes close.

can you remember what we did before cell phones, pda’s, and other bullshit electronic gadgets we really don’t need?

Nokia released the 6170 cellphone today. It’s a direct attack on Motorola’s awesome Razr phone. I personally think it’s not up to the high standards set by Razr. The features are there but the style certainly isn’t. The 6170 basically boasts the exact same features as the Razr with the exception for a thicker body and lack of quad-band. (Which I think are reasons enough to get a Razr instead!)

We have Cingular cell phones and the coverage was great on Kona. There were only a few dead spots. We brought both of our phones because sometimes Wendy and I went different ways.

Nokia USA is conducting a 2 to 4 month study to investigate how people use their Nokia phones. The study is accepting new panel members for a limited time only.

After Swisscom had to delay the roll-out of IPTV ('Bluewin TV') due to technicalities, shivers went through the vendor and telco communities. After all, Microsoft right now is the only company to provide all software parts of an end-to-end IPTV solution. And Microsoft has trials or outright orders for its Microsoft TV software suite from a.o. Verizon, SBC, BellSouth, Telecom Italia and Swisscom. Most likely SBC will not be able to launch this year.

Alexandria City Council has approved a new tax on cell phones as part of its fiscal 2006 budget. Residents will pay $3 a month on cell phone bills of more than $30. People on lower-cost plans will be charged ten percent of their monthly bill.

Cox just upgraded their cable modem users in Virginia to 15mbps/2mbps. Now THAT’S some bandwidth. Thought I’m (mostly) loyal to BellSouth, our 3mbps tier doesn’t look so hot now. We’ll have 6mbps by the end of the year and 24mbps by the end of next year.

I learned from a Rogers rep this afternoon that the Treo 650 will be released next Monday. Many people have been waiting for its release in Canada since it was released in the US in November. I think I can safely say that this is currently the best smartphone on the market.

There's a new version of Skype out there. Personally, I'm a huge fan of Skype - the quality for me has been as good as a cell phone call, and I use it on a regular basis to communicate with team members on the other side of the country.

Motorola has announced three new Bluetooth headsets - the RAZR H3, H700, and the H300. The RAZR H3 is designed to complement the RAZR V3 mobile phone.

Today,I have succeed in connecting the internet from my mobile LG b2000. I was just waiting for data cable, which was unavailable in Pune. LG mobile service centre in Pune gave me Data cable today. I am quite happy with the speed. While connecting, the dialer shows speed 115 Kbps. Actual speed is 30 to 40 Kbps. But speed is constant and do not vary like ordinary landline phones. From today, I can use internet without fear of large phone bills. Airtel charges 5 Rs. per day for GPRS facility. With my prepaid connection, I can start and stop my GPRS facility anytime. So I can use internet for some days and then can stop. I just have to pay for the days which had GPRS facility on. This is nice. I am going to use GPRS service all days.

They say all it takes is a spark to cause a fire and yesterday’s move by Yahoo to buy six year old Internet phone company Dialpad could be the first of the moves made in the VoIP sector that triggers consolidation.

If you are a user of Cingular (or AT&T Wireless). MSN Mobile Messaging, which I wrote about in the past, is a really cool feature where you can have a two way conversation between yourself and a mobile phone user.

Bryce Howitson suggested an unlocked Nokia 7280. The 7280 fills all my requirements, though I’m not quite comfortable buying an unlock phone off eBay…yet. This left the Motorola RazR and the Treo 650 in the running. Emails with T-Mobile customer service confirmed neither are available through them.

I switched to LG phones from being a long-time Nokia user because I wanted a flip phone and all of LG's phones seem to offer so many more options, and picked up the VX8000 because it's currently the best LG has to offer. Fortunately, I was not disappointed. While this phone does have some flaws, it has proven to be the best cell phone I've ever owned.

If you’ve been interested in trying out the Vonage VoIP service well Linksys and Vonage has a deal for you. Purchase one of the new Linksys Wireless-G VoIP routers and receive several rebates that essentially makes your router free. This only works if you had a previous Linksys Wireless Router before hand AND if you plan on using Vonage’s VoIP service.

In a rare corporate display of coming out against something they stand to benefit from, Cingular has sent a missive to the FAA indicating their position against lifting the in-flight cellphone ban. Their official take on the matter is that there is “a time and a place for wireless phone conversations, and seldom does that include the confines of an airplane flight.” They even go so far as to say that, should the ban be lifted, they would be encouraging its customers to refrain from in-flight talking and use data services only (”tap, not talk”). However, oddly, in a joint letter to the FCC with Verizon, they indicated they might support lifting the ban if safeguards were in place to protect consumers on the ground from interference. So… which is it, dudes?

Nokia’s getting into the VoIP game, but if you’re expecting to be able to use your handset to make Skype calls, you’re going to be disappointed. The Finnish phone giant is partnering with Cisco, OnRelay, IBM and others to develop technology for “enterprise voice mobility.” The basic idea is that you’ll be able to use your company cellphone from anywhere, and be able to switch transparently from the cellular network to the company’s VoIP or standard PBX. We understand Nokia’s decision to do this; there are big bucks to be made in the corporate cellphone biz. But, still, we’d really like a Nokia Skype phone (though we suppose the IPdrum Mobile Skype Cable just might do the trick).

I just made the switch from Time Warner cable internet to SBC DSL. I got a great deal at 14.95 a month. This gives me an extra $20/mo.

i'm already recommending my friends the nokia phones, because of the great and easy usability, intelligent features, the good and long lasting quality (hey, this was my fault, i don't expect, that a mobile phone has to survive such a crash without any damage), their customer support and now also because of their great obligingness!

So the boys at PhoneScoop were at a Motorola conference last week when during a presentation they dropped “the whoops! slide”, which clearly shows Moto’s new oh-so-hot 3G RAZR-alike V1150 in all its glory… with a Cingular logo right there on the lid. When asked, Moto’s American PR apparently said they’d heard nothing of such a device and insisted it must merely be a mockup they were using just to demo the device (what, they expect us to believe they just let that kind of a tease into a presentation being shown to loads of press?), and that they’d only slated a WCDMA 2100 version of the device (i.e. Asia and Europe). We suppose that could truly be the case since the device was supposed to be tri-band GSM, but would it be hard for them to develop...

The MVNO model has been pretty successful in using up excess cell capacity, but you’ll notice that there are not too many MVNO that are using networks other Sprint. Why is that? Because most of the mobile carriers don’t have excess capacity, or at least shouldn’t give up that extra capacity until their core customers are satisfied. Take Cingular for instance who can barely suppor their own users. The MVNO model is all marketing and distribution (7-eleven, Virgin Stores) and that’s where the COGS go way down-much like Open Source.

SIRIUS Satellite Radio (NASDAQ: SIRI) today announced an agreement with Sprint (NYSE: FON) to offer select SIRIUS Satellite Radio programming. Some of the music channels being evaluated by Sprint and SIRIUS for the new service include new hits, classic rock, hip-hop, country, blues and soul to jazz and Broadway’s best music. The new Sprint service will be available nationwide, and both companies plan to announce more specifics of the service, as well as the price later this year.

Video calls are coming to Skype, thanks to vSkype, a plug-in developed by Santa Cruz Networks. The company has just released a public beta, which for now works only on windows machines. (Of course, most Mac users have lovely iChat/iSight combination to get their video calling groove on!)

This is a post that has been a long time in coming…a little about skype. It is a platform that I use on a daily basis and have even disconnected my home phone in favor of skypein (in combo with my celly). While I could talk and talk about the new wonderful things skype is doing (video, the family in the rainforest in guyana who use it as a their primary phone, skype in your celly, skype your mindmap, skype stories and radio…the list could go on and on.) what I have chosen to talk about is using skype and blogging in education. Last month we had a very interesting conference in HUMlab about IT in education. At a workshop on mobile learning (a bit of a pet subject for me) we were asked to create a learning task using mobile technology. Our group discussed using skype as a tool for mobile, authentic language learning.

On the tech front, my friend Eric, who’s currently doing anti-corruption work in Kosovo, introduced me to a nifty new (to me) internet phone and chat program: Skype. It was developed by the same folks who did Kazaa, and like Kazaa it uses distributed computing and networking. You can talk back and forth over the computer for free, and there’s also the option to call landlines at some ridiculously cheap cost. I’ve talked back and forth with Eric serveral times, and the sound quality is spot-on, which is mighty impressive considering the sketchy net/bandwidth situation in Kosovo.

I called BellSouth to see about hooking up DSL but it’s a total rip-off. Not to mention that their customer service system sucks big donkey wang. The actual people I talked to were nice enough but I called an 800 number for internet service and got a woman who could only give me pricing on DSL–she couldn’t help with phone service. Evidentally, you have to set up a phone line first and then call for internet service 3 days later. I asked her to transfer me to BellSouth’s phone service. She sent me to just some dude. The guy answered his phone and when I asked about phone service, he said, “who are you trying to call?”

Unication was showing off a Linux OS PDA at Computex Taipei that had some very interesting features. Built-in VoIP phone capabilities (via 802.11b), an FM radio transmitter (for broadcasting your favorite MP3s to the nearest radio), rotating screen with Tablet style input and of course all the typical PIM applications you’d expect in a PDA.

That's what I did. A year after moving to Los Angeles from New York, I was reading my Verizon Wireless bill and noticed I was still paying New York taxes. New York, as it happens, has the highest state and local taxes in the country: 16.2% (if you add federal charges, it's 22.2%). I estimated I was giving my former city and state about $75 per year they didn't deserve.

Today we learned why Nokia phones had become scarce at U.S. service providers - they introduced a bunch of new phones today, especially for the U.S. CDMA service providers (Verizon, Sprint, Cricket, etc). Nokia’s line up was also missing the so called “clam shell” designs that have become extremely popular, especially amongst college and high school students and others.

“GPS-enabled cell phones are now mostly a curiosity, Ludford said. However, such technological obscurities have a way of worming themselves into everyday life, which is why researchers are already working on applications.

Place Mail stores the latitude and longitude coordinates of the users’ favorite spots - Washburn Library, Bayer’s Hardware, Discount Video or the Wedge - into the cell phone’s memory. The user also programs in location-specific reminder notes.”

Qwest, after losing the battle for MCI is not averse to being taken out itself. “We’re looking at every opportunity as we look at the consolidation that is going on in our industry… And that’s all I’d better say about that,” Qwest chairman and CEO Richard Notebaert said at the Executives’ Club of Chicago. He also said he was frustrated by MCI’s unwillingness to take the Qwest offer seriously. But back to the buyout question. With $10.5 billion in debt, the company is still a high risk proposition for anyone to acquire. The best recourse for them would be to merge with Sprint’s local business, and try and add more heft to its operations by nibbling at smaller players. By doing so, it can make itself attractive enough for a decent offer from either BellSouth or SBC. The good news is that some of Q’s states have the new growth demographics working in their favor.

Unlike the world of Wi-Fi, where one manufacturer’s products can be virtually guaranteed to work with another, the Bluetooth consortium in the past seems to have taken the idea of compatibility purely as an option. We have spent hours, for instance, trying to pair earlier-generation Nokia phones with various Bluetooth devices.

Not too long back, Athens, GA was the posterchild for the concept of flooding the downtown hub of a college town with free wifi and little meshnets. Bellsouth seems to feel otherwise. I have to wonder if the concept of multiple WiMAX deployments in a specific service area is going to become a reality or if there's a first-mover advantage here that defeats the purpose (or marginalizes the longer-term viability of the deployment) as others enter at lower barriers to entry when the WiMAX gear becomes more easily justifiable.

BellSouth tips its toes in pre-WiMAX fixed wireless, will launch trials in Athens, Georgia, later this summer using gear from Navini Networks. More details at Daily Wireless. Mike thinks this is old wine in an old bottle with a new label: WiMAX.

Mike's beef is that the company backing BellSouth, Navini, are supplying their propriety technology based on the 802.16 WiMAX protocol, whereas the competing 802.20 is more likely to become the ratified standard (whenever that happens), so the trial is based on technology that has already been trialed, it's just been rebranded to jump on the WiMax bandwagon.

Instead you have someone like Vonage operating their own closed voip network as the posterchild for voip (sorry Jeff) much like AOL for many really IS or WAS the Internet...for several, Vonage IS VoIP - let's face it. Even worse, we're letting that happen all over again. Think about it. VoIP/Vonage is just like Internet/AOL a few years back. Sure the LECs will have their own flavors but one independent company is taking the lead as the top proprietary service. Doesn't have to be this way guys, we've got to find a way to take the maverick mentality and polarize for the greater good. Otherwise, we're going nowhere fast in small, isolated silos and repeating history with VoIP and limiting our businesses every single day.

Today I finally got my package from DHL (courier company), the VoIP provider is Vonage, they are located in USA but they have just increased their services to Canada now. First of all, the voice quality is so good, if my ears are any better I could say the quality is MUCH higher than regular phone line. I love it. I’m paying 19.99 per month with 500 minutes of talk time (that only includes outbound calls), any inbound from Toronto is FREE! So, if any of you are out of town and still like to keep in touch with your love ones (family and...

I happened upon a link to this article on municipally-owned broadband, with Provo, Utah as an example of a successful fiber rollout. Wow, 3 Mbps symmetrical up-and-download speeds! I’d love to have that. Right now, I’ve got 3 Mbps down/256kbps up (Charter Cable), and wish I had a more-symmetrical connection. With VoIP and other home server applications becoming more popular, cable and DSL providers are getting pressure from consumers (well, some of us) to provide more upload speeds. Comcast just announced upgrades to 384 kbps upstream...

The move comes as Vonage is gearing up via VARs to sell to the same small business market. But Vonage has a different spin with the SOHO and SMB offering. It's the folks doing the selling. The Vonage sales force are proven telecom and IT sales and installation companies (or are supposed to be). Pitney Bowes sells stamp machines and office related equipment. So just as P8 preceded Vonage into the consumer VoIP space, as they also did in the business space, they are hoping via this move to avoid having what happened in the residential market, where...

Conventional wisdom, even among telecom cognoscenti is that Skype has become so big, that it can be declared a platform. Who can argue? After a shinny pretty face, a Mac-like ease of use and millions of users, when married to superb voice quality, it is hard not to like Skype. Even I have fallen prey to the charms of the product, and have found that I am shifting my VoIP minutes away from Vonage to Skype.

I've had my Motorola Razr V3 for a couple of weeks now and have a better feel for its strong and weak points.

The WSJ says, "The question Wall Street is asking is whether Comcast will act as part of a cable-industry consortium, or strike an alliance of its own. The most attractive partner may be T-Mobile USA Inc., which isn't a direct threat to Comcast in the way that SBC Communications Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. have become.

Desautels said customer service concerns led carriers such as Cingular Wireless, Nextel, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon Wireless to abide by the guidelines to avoid situations where "people are running up $500 for services they didn't realize they subscribed to."

I love the lightness (4.3 oz) and size (large candybar) of the Blackberry. It works as a phone, no questions asked. I'm doing pretty well using the Suretype QWERTY and think it's a boon to solving a key problem with big pdas trying to be cell phones.

Does it work? I assure you it does. I forgot to pay my VOIP bill over the weekend and my service was suspended. Then, last night after work, I got word of this incredible program, downloaded it, set it up, deposited 10 Euros via Paypal, and have been making calls to land lines and cell phones all day today. Best of all, I have yet to spend an entire dollar.