Phones

I’m not an engineer, and I’m sure there are a great many reasons for not building a TV receiver into cell phones. Multiple standards does not a standard make. Lets just hope the cellcos choose their “standard” with the people (as opposed to their pockets) in mind.

Now it is time to get back to work at my new company AT&T Inc. The merger between SBC and AT&T happened while I was out of the office, so time to find out how things are going and get back into the routine of working.

We just got DSL at home and we absolutely love it. It rocks. But we also have two computers…and Verizon steered me a little off track when I ordered the modem instead of the router.

My service provider, otherwise know as Cingular, blows. They fuck everything up. Two days ago my mom had text message reactivated on my phone. (I say reactivated because of an incident when I for got the phone, which I will not detail.)

This subject came up today at lunch, so I did a little research. It seems that the calling cards purchased through the Army Air Force Exchange Service (AAFES) are the way to go.

And that’s where Google comes in. More by following the link, but it has more plot twists than a bad mystery novel.

got a treo 650 on Cingular that’s rebooting everytime you try to do something w/ Versamail? Go here:

when at&t sold at&t wireless to cingular they were allowed to keep the at&t wireless name and now that the new at&t owns 60% of cingular i’d imagine they would use it to offer a bundle of services and slap the at&t brand on every single one of them but still have part of it as their cingular company. not a bad idea because people get confused when they think about having a bundle of SBC, DISHNetwork and Cingular products.

My home Internet access is via Optus Cable. For a long time, Optus Cable has been a speed champion in Australian ISPs with downlink speeds that sometimes approach 6.5Mb/s. The only problem with the service is the anaemic 128kb/s uplink speed. This poor uplink speed is significant if you’re running certain types of forbidden “server,” multiple VoIP lines, or if you spend hours uploading your family photographs to Flickr.

Wall Street Journal Real Time. Is $2.49 the new 99 cents? The recording industry seems to think so -- or at least desperately wants that to be true. That's what downloading a song to your cellphone will cost if you use Sprint's Music Store. $2.49 is the standard, commonly accepted price for ringtones from a variety of wireless carriers. And it's hardly a secret that key players in the recording industry now regret having let Apple Computer set the per-song price for digital downloads at 99 cents, and are seeking higher prices.

Apparently the Cingular name brand / logo is no more. SBC, in it’s final stage of the communications carrier merger, has decided instead to change the communication giants official name to at&t. Check out the new logo above. It’s at&t. Lowercase. Supposedly more welcoming. Personally, I think the reborn globe is great. I think it’s a lot better than the Sprint / Nextel logo. I’m not really feeling the lowercase at&t though. It doesn’t look complete. But what do I know? I’m typing this up while think tanks get paid to debate over capped or lowercase lettering.

Okay, you deserve to be forgiven if you’re confused by the saga of AT&T Wireless — because it’s been anything but clear. Here’s the quick summary though: A little more than a decade ago, AT&T bought McCaw Cellular, which they renamed AT&T Wireless. In 2000, they reorganized the company, making AT&T Wireless a separate division. In 2001, they spun that company off — so that it was an entirely separate company from AT&T (which resulted in plenty of confusion). There was a licensing deal for the name and, a couple years later, when AT&T freaked out at its own lack of a wireless offering (ooops!) a partnership was built between the two companies to bundle AT&T Wireless plans with AT&T service — even though they were really separate companies. Then, along came Cingular to buy AT&T Wireless in 2004. AT&T gets back the AT&T name (earlier this year), and all the old AT&T Wireless customers are now Cingular customers. AT&T again freaks out at its lack of a wireless offering, and signs a deal with Sprint to offer AT&T Wireless branded service on Sprint in an MVNO format that will have absolutely nothing to do with the old AT&T Wireless (in fact, it will use a totally different network technology). Of course, before this has a chance to go anywhere, along comes Cingular’s 60% owner, SBC, to buy AT&T and (of course) take on the AT&T name — which, as of April of this year, includes the right to use that name for a wireless offering. So, now, it’s not at all surprising to hear that the new AT&T (which just last week was known as SBC) would like for Cingular to start offering service under the AT&T brand name again, thereby bringing back AT&T Wireless service to folks who have just gotten over the fact that they’re no longer AT&T Wireless customers. Simple, huh? How could anyone possibly be confused?

When we signed up for SBC Dish back in October they sent us along some rewards certificates, in this case Dish was was worth about $100. We had figured that it was going to be damn near impossible to redeem them because of the likelihood that the offerings were going to be limited to telephones, answering machines, caller IDs, and various combinations of the the aforementioned. To our surprise they offered three models of Creative MP3 players, including the 6GB Zen, something that Management wanted for the car and office, particularly after she realized that her 1GB iAudio only carries about 14 albums–to which I say, “Hello? All you ever carried about in your car was 10 CDs at a time!”

Vonage: Nice idea, execution? Somedays it’s choppier than the French revolution but those calls are at least made. The problem is this. Companies with certain types of 1-800 numbers or that rely on reading the ANI (Automatic Number Identification) from your phone to grant you account access or activate a credit card are not being sent anything they want to work with. They think I am in another area code so no card until I call the cc people, Joy oh joys. I really want to like Vonage but I keep getting crappy reports on international calls making one of the best reasons to have it , 3c to the UK, moot.

Well, this has been a productive lunch break. While dining on Campbells “Soup at Hand,” I have finally managed to call the real estate agent who is listing our house, and cleared up what the deal is. Apparently Vonage has been eating our voicemails again, because she actually has had several interested parties, but not knowing we’d moved out, she couldn’t set up a showing. She is now abreast of the fact that the house is empty (mostly, and messy I warned her). But I am really encouraged by the fact that people have recently wanted to see it, even with the market being a bit slow right now.

BUT, technology is cool. So, that's why I'm so excited about this new free program I was alerted to called Gizmo. (http://www.gizmoproject.com).

It’s basically a list of the open source software its working on my favourite is Python for s60 and their upcoming web browser for nokia phones S60 OSS Browser which is based on apple’s safari and kde’s khtml code

On the positive front, I jumped onto the Voice over IP phone service by signing up with Vonage. My first call was to my mom and stepfather in Florida and it worked really well. I'm happy and would recommend it to anyone. It only costs $25 per month for unlimited calling and free long distance in the US and Canada.

Telecom Transformation: “How can RTC [Microsoft's VoIP technology] begin as an individual phenomenon, growing into a small business offering with a level of function that they’d never imagine possible, growing into the enterprise?”

This company uses Vonage broadband phone service. I have to say I’m impressed. Before I signed up, I wasn’t sure what sort of hardware to use — I was concerned I’d end up with something that was totally proprietary and would never work with anything else. Turns out, the phone adapter I chose, the Linksys RTP300, is just a regular old Linksys router that happens to have two phone jacks preconfigured (by Vonage) for access to their network. It’s nothing super fancy, but it works quite well.

This always happens to me. I have only signed up for Vonage for about two months and I just heard about Broad Voice. I've also been learning about Asterisk (inspired by this.) I was considering setting up an Asterisk server and getting an account with FreeWorldDialup, or some other vendor that offered bare bones connectivity to the traditional phone network. My wife is still using this computer we bought in 2000. I have been trying to get her off of it for about a year now, so I can re-comission it for thins like this.

Frankly, not many people know. What I know is that it proves to be the WiFi, WiMax, DSL, and cell phone killer. Using standard 900mhz technology (like your home cordless phone), a low power antenna, and cheap parts, xMax can transmit data up to 20 miles at 3.7Mbps!

Its a cool 90 degrees F here and I just killed a baby cockroach in our bathroom. At least we get an internet connection in our room, but its more of an ISDN speed. I think they split 1 ASDL connection with 10 rooms. Too bad I can’t get my internet phone working now; people can hear me, but I can’t hear them.

Lately I’ve been quite popular with the ladies. Not a day goes by I don’t get contacted by women desperately seeking help.

Sure it sounds great, but unfortunately all they want is the Motorola Pink RAZR, and will stop at nothing to get it.

I had the pleasure of being a guest on our arch nemesis’ show - The Redboy Podcast. Fun and merriment were had by all. Cell phones, Aussie Tom, and general geekery were the mainstays of the evening.

I believe it’s quite possible to love someone but not like them very much. I wonder if the cause of so many people’s dissatisfaction or distance from their families comes from the high divorce rate in modern society, like the traditionalists claim. Or, despite the conveniences of cell phones and e-mail, if it’s more possible for a modern person to keep a certain degree of emotional separation from family members now, simply because we were not raised on a farm, all performing chores together, where our group survival depended on each member doing their share. this emotional distance may also be a symptom of our high tech world–so many other options for communication or amusement. Parents split up, working late, spending more time at the office than at home, and at home they’re often busy with their Blackberry or shopping online or watching digital cable. Kids on their cell phones, or im’ing friends, or at the mall or soccer practice or hanging out somewhere in a pack.

Yep, it works like a charm. I got a cellular wireless card the other day and got to use it today. Driving from State College to Philadelphia today my wife pulled out my PowerBook, slid the card in, connected to Verizon and spent the last two hours of trip on the Internet. This is a very good thing. Opens up a whole host of opportunities. The speed of the card isn’t what we are used to in the broadband world we live in, but being able to get online while driving is amazing … pages loaded just fine, we didn’t drop a connection once. It was great being able to keep up on the Nittany Lions while she read the news and browsed blogs. As a matter of fact I am using now that I am sitting in a sports bar watching the second half to write this post. I hate to beat a dead horse with this, but I am amazed.

Today is a big day because we’re getting a new phone line installed and we will not have to share anymore! At noon, I ran down to the local coffee shop to meet with a representative from Qwest about getting DSL service. They currently have a central office in place in Tubac and the next step is to set up a remote terminal here in Arivaca. The line is already run, it’s just a matter of getting around to doing the work. The representative thought it might happen soon, but agreed that it could be as long as two years down the road.