Phones

We've switched to BellSouth DSL, which requires a phone line. And, since we now have a fixed phone line to the house, Vonage didn't make sense economically. For our long distance, we'll use calling cards or something.

Following months of testing, Cingular re-launched Audiovox’s little-engine-that-could with a special $199 introductory price (with a two year contract) in early May 2005. Once again reviews were spectacular, and the re-launch happily coincided with the highly anticipated death of my old LG handset. So I dropped my former Sprint service and made the jump to Cingular with a brand new SMT 5600 within the week.

Now, lets look into the future. We see it already in Scandinavia today. In Finland and Sweden, already 40% of all homes have abandoned the fixed phone line completely, and use only mobile phones. It doesn’t matter how inexpensive or free there would be a Skype or Vonage -type VoIP service on the fixed internet connection, when the home does not have a wired connection of any kind anymore ! The same trend is happening in all advanced mobile markets, following the Finnish and Swedish example with a short delay. Take for example my sister. She has no fixed line phone in her home. It doesn’t matter how free we make Skype or Vonage, she will not go back to the phone company (or her cable TV company or any other provider), and start to pay a monthly subscription for another fixed connection, to then get free calls that are tied to her home. She has cut the cord, and will never go back.

Still needing some audio entertainment, I loaded up my Treo 650’s 1GB SD card with a handful of podcasts and some Brad Sucks and headed back out.

So, as you know, I recently upgraded to DSL from Cable. The Actiontec DSL modem provided by Qwest is really cool and provides quite a few features, but the firmware upgrade provided at the company website makes the thing stop responding.

Mischa, one of my co-workers, recently signed up for Verizon Wireless Internet BroadbandAccess. She’s been trying it out today in downtown San Francisco, and she’s very impressed with the speed and ease of use.

Sorry for the long break. It seems that SBC and I had a bit of a disagreement. You see, I thought that I should be able to connect to the internet with my DSL connection. They thought otherwise.

On a previous post, I talked about the Treo 670 (a Treo 650 running Windows Mobile 5.0) and ta-da. Engadget has posted a great article with lots of pictures showing the features of the device. People are guessing that the ‘w’, on the end of ‘700w’ is supposed to mean Windows Mobile 5.0. This could mean that it may feature a ‘p’ version for Palm OS ‘Cobalt’. But this is merely speculation. The specs are:

With the inevitable downfall of thin phones, music phones may be the new fad. I’d look towards Samsung and Nokia to push out next year’s big hits. I like Sony Ericsson phones as well, but they’ve been unable to get their products on U.S. carrier line-ups. As for Motorola, unless they stop recycling old phones, consumers will drop them like a brick, regardless of how beautiful the packaging is.

A term originally coined in The Innovator's Dilemma, disruptive technology (or what Clayton Christensen later renamed "disruptive innovation") is becoming increasingly pervasive. What Skype is doing to the traditional phone companies is like what blogs are doing to advertising and PR firms, or what SOA is doing to large systems integrators: forcing them to change or die.

1. 100% Guarunteed Bandwidth alotment
2. Right to connect anything to the network
3. Right to connect any number of systems to a network

You see, early this afternoon, just as I was in the middle of helping three ninth-graders solve e-mail and logon problems with their iBook computers, my Treo 650 rang on my belt. In the space of 30 seconds, I answered the phone and my doctor informed me that, while most of my sugar levels were "okay," my triglyceride level read a whopping 781 on my latest blood test. The good doctor went on to explain that he will prescribe more drugs and that he wanted me to see his "cholesterol counselor" as soon as possible. We then promptly hung up. Can you say, "Holy Stroke-Out, Batman!"

Inspired by my new monkey powers, I also sprang for Skype voicemail. Now, if they’d just offer Canadian numbers with SkypeIn, I’d be a happy happy guy. Skype’s not the best VoIP service I’ve ever used, but the mobility and productivity it gives me is awesome. (Y’all can call if you want - I’m ThrustLabs. No guarantee I’ll answer, but hey! Voicemail!)

Well, in my stupid opinion, if anyone wants to “buy it”, we’ll have to look at this deal as “Let’s buy it before Microsoft does” or “Skype is better than Google Talk, so let’s buy it”. These are stupid, yes, but it has some logic. At this time, we have four variables in the IT Universe that might change the “balance”: Apple, Microsoft, Google and Yahoo. And now eBay wants to play big.

The new Apple/Motorola “Rokr” phone came up in conversation at lunch today. The consensus statement was that the device said a lot more about the business models of Apple, Motorola and the various mobile carriers than it does about what consumers actually want. Mobile phone companies, in particular, have been particularly zealous in their search for revenue streams via ringtone sales and other presumably “value added” services. Verizon goes so far as to require use of their picture mail service at 20 cents a shot (last I checked) to get photos off your phone. That kind of wholesale customer abuse is a big part of what caused me to switch to TMobile, which has been kind enough to not disable the Bluetooth transmitter on my phone.

The current SBC DSL has some "issues". Their DNS servers have somewhat been flaky. There has be times when name resolution will just fail for no apparent reason, and thus kicking people off the system, drop my sessions, etc.

I hate Southwestern Bell, ahem, SBC… and all their price gouging and poor service… But I care for TimeWarner’s services and gouging even less… So it’ll be nice to see some competition between these guys… Although, they can deal with the State, not the local areas… And thus just grow in to a bigger suite. Next thing you know, SBC will own the power lines and water systems.

But obviously that’s a fluke. We did get quite a number of really interesting (and genuinely tech) questions as well. From a query as to whether Apple’s Air Ports can be daisy chained to extend their range ("yes they can be daisy-chained"), to whether the Treo 650 is still worth getting given the rumors of an upcoming Treo 670 ("yes, since it’s still a rumor"), to whether or not the Sony Ericsson K750i’s camera is really the same as that of the W800 ("yes, because the W800 is essentially a spruced up K750i").

In Denver, Qwest Communications set up a bank of at least 50 phones at a processing center so refugees could call their loved ones. Colorado state Rep. Debbie Stafford said she was trying to arrange long-term shelter for the storm's victims, and also reunite people with their cats and dogs.

Equally cool is the new Motorola ROKR E1 cell phone. This phone is the first to integrate with iTunes and will be exclusive to Cingular, though i’d imagine other carriers will have iTunes capable phones in the not to distant future. I like my phone and i already have an iPod, so this doesn’t do much for me personally.. though i am glad to see Apple acknowledging (and answering) the upcoming ‘musical’ cell competition.

Apparently the phone will be able to sync with your itunes equipped regular computer and “in a departure” from policy, users will also be able to purchase songs though the network operator. Cingular in the USA, O2 in the UK.

A while back, I thought I was going to get a Treo 650. Well, one did, indeed, get ordered for me and I even received it at work, but between the time the order was placed and the time I received it, the “powers that be” decided that we weren’t going to have them after all. I can’t (won’t) go into the reasons here, but I was really hoping to get one. I spend enough of my personal time (in my opinion) doing “work work” and probably half of the airtime that I use on my cell phone in a month is work-related, so this would’ve pleased me tremendously. Not going to be happening, though — all I can do is stop doing “work work” on my personal time. I can’t seem to stop myself from doing that, though.

But wait, T-Mobile doesn’t have a Treo 650, and I’m surely not going to downgrade to a 600. Nor am I going to go back to Sprint, who’s service coverage is terrible. So, I’ll wait. According to our kick-butt T-Mobiel rep, they may be getting the Treo 700 which is theoretically coming out in December.

Come on now.. we all know the 100 song limit on the new Motorola ROKR is utterly ridiculous. Heck if you really want an iPod merged with your mobile phone, then you should investigate what the folks over at Apparent Horizons did - duct tape an iPod nano and a RAZR phone together. You get more disk space AND you get a cheaper solution too. Go figure

eHomeUpgrade has discovered that there’s a developer out there creating a Skype plugin for the Microsoft Windows Media Center Edition 2005 OS. That’s great news for people who use the UI and would love to find an integrated solution that included Skype. It it works out well, I can totally imagine connecting a webcam to my home HTPC system for voice conversations to others.

Just this week, Texas governor Rick Perry signed legislation to make it easier for telephone companies to provide IPTV to Texas consumers. The legislation was needed because telecommunications firms SBC and Verizon were having trouble entering the video market due to cable franchising regulations.

The speculation of eBay is going to acquire Skype has been spreading for the last few days. I think this might be a real fact in coming days.

Skype service, which allows people to make calls from their PCs to regular phones, enables subscribers in China to dial to major Western markets in the United States and Europe for as little as 2 eurocents per minute (2.5 U.S. cents), compared with rates closer to $1 per minute from China Telecom.

The PEBL is basically the same as the upcoming SLVR, the newly released ROKR, and the always popular RAZR; all built with the same guts as the granddaddy of them all, the V600.

Monday, I call them, and they say that I need to call Qwest. I call Qwest. First they tell me to turn my modem off and on. I already did that, numerous times. They then told me that I need to have DSL line filters on all the phones connected inside my house. I told them I already knew that and that they could shove a DSL filter up their ass if they didn’t actually try fixing my problem. Oh wait, I mean their problem. They then say check the phone line. Qwest calls back the next day and says that there’s a problem with the cable somewhere between my house and their office, and that it would be fixed by today. So today I plugged the DSL modem in, and it actually connected to my ISP, but my connection was hella unstable. I called Qwest and was told that only phone line technicians were sent to fix it, and a DSL guy won’t be there for a day or two more. Thanks a bunch, Qwest. If you weren’t the only phone company in my area I would go to your headquarters, headbutting the door open, beat all of you up, and then switch to another company. Maybe I’ll do it anyway. I have a suspicion that it still won’t be working afterwards. I hate Qwest.

For the time being, Garmin Mobile is only available on three specially selected Sprint Nextel handsets (Sanyo MM-8300, Sanyo MM-7400, and Sanyo MM-5600), but if it is successful, other carriers will likely pick it up as well.

In a move that could mark a big strategy shift for the online auction company, eBay Inc. is in talks to acquire Internet telephony company Skype Technologies SA for between US$2 billion and $3 billion, The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday, quoting unnamed sources familiar with the talks.

Well, I think I returned the last phone calls and I finally got to spend some hands on time with the Nano. I won’t bore you with the functionality, as after all, this is an iPod. If you’ve seen a white iPod with a color screen, than you know what the functionality is. There’s a few cool tweaks to some of the apps and the addition of a screen lock and a new stopwatch but the real story is form. That doesn’t mean that function isn’t there. This is 100% iPod and it synced without a hitch (although I’d love to see AutoFill work on all iPods smaller than my music collection) and worked as an iPod should. That’s important since form shouldn’t come at the expense of function. But if you like form you won’t be disappointed, in particular if you’re a fan of products like the RAZR. If anything the product almost seems too small. I’ve been asked how well it works and haven’t found size to be an issue at all with the click wheel and the UI. It also looks more fragile than it actually feels. I’m still amazed at the miniaturization. Even given the move to flash, there’s a lot crammed in here and that has implications as well. When we talk about form factor at Jupiter, we define it into four distinct spaces.

Google Talk features a free computer-to-computer call. It’s like Yahoo Messenger with voice albeit it looks simplistic. It gives you a basic interface for instant messaging or call with very good sound quality comparable to Skype’s. However Google Talk uses the Jabber protocol, an open standard protocol which is really promising compared to other existing protocols that is kept privately.

This is a picture that was associated with the article but I find it hard to believe this is what the final version will look like considering how sweet the RAZR phone is:

I am in such an awesome mood that I feel I could just do tumble sets across the globe. Remember that super cool Razr phone I bought? Yeah, well one of the fused plastic hinges broke. Yeah, that sucks. You know what sucks even more though? The fact that I get to go into my service provider tomorrow and go up against the intelligence of one of their employees. Oh yes, I get the exciting adventure of waiting anywhere from 2 minutes to 2 hours and then having those superior beings tell me I must have dropped it off of a 3 story building or have them tell me my super human strength in my whimp muscles just snapped it like a twig. Shitty product? No way. Just look aside the fact that the only time I leave the house is to either run errands, go to the gym, or hang out at a friend’s house (in which I rarely remember to bring my phone). Nope, they’ll convince me otherwise that I have a vigorous schedule that allows me to break cell phones like it’s going out of style. Ooooh I can’t wait!