Phones

The Apple iPhone rumor is played out. Unless you’ve got something real to show us, shut up about it. We’ve hit the point where even year-old rumors are getting recycled, and “analysts” are piling on with their own predictions in an attempt to look with it.

Attended the Sprint wireless developer web session today as a java developer who has a phone on the sprint network and I want to play.

Skype fué el primero en afrontar el tema de la telefonía VoIP y por eso lleva ventaja, pero poco a poco le van creciendo los enanos. Cambiar de cliente IP no nos supone ningún tramite administrativo, a lo sumo registrarnos, por lo que facilmente nos podemos cambiar al que nos ofrezca mejores precios.

The same situation existed in the USA until the Brand X decision was handed down, and that led to the rapid unraveling of domestic UNE regulations. The result? AT&T and Verizon have now committed billions of dollars to build state of the art infrastructure.

A dutch mobileblog called Newmobile published a couple of really interesting pictures of secret Nokia phones today. The models are the Nokia N73, N93 and the 6133. Both the N73 and the N93 comes equipped with a 3.2 Mpixel camera with Carl Zeiss lens, 3x optical zoom and autofocus. Nice!

this episode is hosted by P(?)NYB(?)Y, droops, and mesa. The main focus of the episode is the rumored buyout of Qwest by Verizon, and where the hosts think the telecom field is going to go from there. There is also a good amount of talk about the Canadian Recording Industry Association and the usual rambling on and on about nothing in particular.

Πάντως ο Om Malik, εξαιρετικός αναλυτής σε θέματα νέων τεχνολογιών και broadbanc, αμφισβητεί την ικανότητα της ΝΟΚΙΑ να χτυπήσει την Apple. Και το κάνει μάλιστα με πολύ δηκτικό τρόπο:

A group of VOIP programmers has created a great alternative to Skype. Gizmo, “a free phone for your computer,” allows you to connect to other users of the Gizmo network (Gizmo to Gizmo) using your computer for absolutely no cost. Incoming and outcoming phone numbers allow you to receive and make calls to cell and landline phones for very little cost (as low as $0.01 per minute).

The BlackBerry 8700c is the multi-tasking phone you’ve been waiting for since the debut of the Treo 650 two years ago. The phone is beautiful; the Cingular/at&t network is EDGE-ready and powerfully fast; the 8700c is light in your hand and heavy in helping you leverage the never-ending tasks of your evergreen workday.

Will someone explain to me why the Yellow Pages (and the Classified section of the Bristol telephone directory) have a section for ‘Psychics and Clairvoyants’, but not one for ‘Churches’?

I tisdags släppte Yahoo sin senaste version av Yahoo messenger, som ger full integration av telefoni och dator till dator-samtal till och från telefoner i hela världen. Prispressen är därmed igång då Yahoo lägger sig 1$ lägre per månad, än Skype som dominerar marknaden med 70 miljoner aktiva användare. Det intressanta är även att Yahoo integrerar tillgång till andra content-tjänster, social networking och real time collaboration i klienten. Microsoft är på gång att släppa telefonitjänster i den kommande MSN-efterföljaren Live Messenger som ni kan läsa i en av mina tidigare artiklar.

Well, who will use a platform specific services such as Yahoo! whilst you can have an alternative that is available on most major platforms? Personally, since Skype and Gizmo run on Mac and Linux in addition to Windows - Yahoo!, until it provides full Linux and Mac OS X support, will not even be an option. Sorry, Yahoo!

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing when I saw this. Not only is it a huge Treo 650 cake. Whic, probably would have won him the competition anyway. But, it has an LCD screen in it and buttons AND accepts Smart Cookie cards. Amazing amazing… He deserves his prize, and he can probably design more “Smart-Cakes” if there’s enough demand.

While I settled on 30 Boxes a few weeks ago, I’m liking KIKO’s features. I haven’t signed up yet, but KIKO has some incredibly appealing features, good for the global traveller. For example, I’m on the go enough that I splurged recently and replaced my standard cell phone with a PalmOne Treo 650 smartphone. According to KIKO’s specs, I can store a number of events, then have it email or message my Treo as reminders.

It’s an astute observation, for certain, but to dismiss FMC simply because of this wouldn’t be wise. When talking about FMC or mobile VoIP, the impact of the technologies as a disruptive force may well overshadow their actual use. Mobile operators, as slow-moving as most of them are, don’t operate in a vacuum. They’ll respond to competitive threats, and won’t let new entrants simply waltz in and steal their markets (well, their close-minded approach might make that happen, but that’s another post). One example would be Germany, a pretty ruthless telecom market, where operators have found a great deal of interest in their home-zone calling plans, where users get discounted calls made from the cell that covers their home. These plans came as retaliation to cheap fixed calls and have served as a buffer against VoIP.

The Nokia E61 was on show, and the remapped S60 interface was slick, simple, and very “Palm-treo-like”. The device may not have the sheer feel of the Treo 650, but it does fit in nicely. The thumb-board felt easier to use than the Treo’s as it is wider, but we didn’t get enough time to check out all the features.

This is a lot like the Xensaxion docking speakers for the ROKR, except that it’s for phones that don’t suck. The MDS-60 will playback and amplify the music coming out of either the W810, W600 or W800 Sony Ericsson phones.

Sony Ericsson just announced to integrate Google free blogging service - Blogger (or blogspot) into its handsets. Meanwhile, Google web search will be added in as well.

It’s bad enough that they overcharge domestic customers but we have alternatives. The soldiers don’t because, according to The Prepaid Press, AT&T has an EXCLUSIVE contract to put payphones in PBXes in Iraq and Afghanistan. But, you ask, can’t the soldiers get cheap calling cards to call the US? No! Because AT&T is using (abusing!) its position as monopoly supplier of payphones to block the 800 numbers necessary to use nonAT&T calling cards.

Will it be what I need to deliver an ‘almost as good as a laptop’ mobile experience? I have the Treo 700m and several laptops that contain my day-to-day business info. I juggle my life between these devices, and I need a go-between.

I was tired of not having bluetooth and other fun things like that on my Samsung a670 phone from Verizon, so I went out today at lunch and bought a new one. I got the Motorola E815 (also from Verizon). It’s not the newest phone out there, but of the phones that Verizon offers it’s the cheapest one with bluetooth, a speakerphone, and (even though it doesn’t say so on the Verizon website) EV-DO. It’s also got a much bigger and nicer screen so I won’t have to scroll as much with text messages and pictures will look prettier.

Según El Mundo la feria de este año va a estar muy enfocada a entre otras cosas la VoIP, la verdad es que ya nos hacía falta un nuevo empuje en las telecos.

There has been a lot of blogging about the AT&T-BellSouth merger. Instead of linking to all of them, I’ll just note a couple of the more substantive posts. The Technology Liberation Front has this excellent post about Reed Hundt’s change in view on mergers like this one. The Progress & Freedom Foundation Blog has this post about the lack of monopolies in cable.

Anywho, when I launched the Crackberry's Desktop Manager after installing the System Software Upgrade Package, you are supposed to get a prompt telling you that your system is out of date and would you like the new stuff. Nothing. It was as if the Desktop Manager couldn't see the new package, or more likely, that it didn't realize that the new package supported this particular Blackberry.

The same problem still exists. Perhaps the so-called ‘plate’ on the pole needs to be changed. At this point in time I have a giant headache. High speed was supposed to be great and save me lots of time. Not only do I have high speed but I have Vonage as my telephone which is internet based so when I lose my internet connection, I lose my phone as well. This is really great when talking to clients…

Shaw wants its high-speed net customers to pay a $10 “quality of service enhancement” fee if they use a VoIP phone service. Shaw argues that its fee is necessary to maintain the quality of independent VoIP services.

Update: I have now had the chance to read the Vonage filing which is betterdescribed as a request for an investigation as opposed to a complaint. In fact, Vonage concludes its submission by arguing that “Shaw’ s QofSService has the potential to greatly damage nascent competition forlocal VoIP services across its serving territory. Vonage Canada is ofthe view, however, that not enough is known at this point about theShaw service in order to formulate an appropriate regulatory response.”

UMTS isn’t quite EV-DO, at least here in the USA. Significantly faster than EDGE, Cingular’s implementation still only gets around 300k downstream. A far cry from 1.7mb I got from Verizon’s EV-DO. Either way, both Cingular and Verizon are beat by Sprint’s live television PowerVision offering.

One of the great features of the Grandstream GXP-2000 VoIP phone is that you can create and upload custom ring tones to your phone. The sad part is that the utility to do so on their web site only exists for Solaris and Linux.

Internet providers like AT&T and BellSouth have recently said they want to see high-volume Web services (Google, Skype, Yahoo!, etc) pay a premium for their current position on the Web. Any company that doesn’t pay the premium will have their traffic slow exponentially. Such a system, critics argue, will drastically reduce the open nature of the Web by squashing smaller Web services. The biggie sites would likely have to pass costs off onto users.

Want to see what I’ve moblogged from my Treo to Flickr so far? I’ve thought about doing a moblog of a day in the life of by posting a photo no matter where I am every hour. What do you think?

Look at this report from a Vonage user: could not dial an emergeny # on vonage tonight The summary is a small child had swallowed something, and they needed to reach a poison control center immediately, and couldn't get through on their Vonage line. After a couple tries to dial on Vonage they switched to their cell phone and went right through. In the followups as others gave their own horror stories.

The issue of the telecommunications companies seeking to exert control over the use of the net, and staking out the commercial territory to which they believe they are entitled, continues to move forward. The impact of decisions yet to be made, sought in proposed new legislation in the US in which the telcos are seeking to set up a two-tier internet (heftier fees for more bandwidth) is stirring up some spirited commentary.

Sony Ericsson released a barrage of new devices today. But the phones that stole the show were the new K800 and K790a, aka the blogging phones.