Phones

The mobile conversations are worse. Onna bus. I said onna bus. I SAID I ONNA BUS. Where you at? WHERE YOU AT! She home? I AXED YOU IS SHE HOME. Bonus points if you get to hear the other side of the converation, punctuated by Nextel “chirps”.

If Sprint Nextel and Verizon are getting into bed with Yahoo! and other search companies, then what does that mean for the independent phone directory people? More importantly, how are small and medium-sized businesses going to be able to take advantage of this technology on a local scale?

Some senators think the public doesn’t care about this issue. They think we don’t know companies like AT&T and Verizon are spending millions lobbying Congress to eliminate Net Neutrality and give them more over control of the Internet. But petition deliveries in 50 locations across the nation next week will prove them wrong.

T-Mobile’s strengths were a good handset lineup and the cheapest prices amongst all the major US carriers (their prepaid “T-Mobile To Go” service is really good in terms of pricing and phones, too). But if prices and phones were all that mattered, everyone in the US with a mobile phone would be using T-Mobile right now. So why does Verizon have so many subscribers?

Tech exec, former Comverse CEO, Jakob “Kobi” Alexander, was on the lamb from the Feds for alleged shady options dating. According to the press he’s been nabbed after being traced making a Skype call from Colombo, Sri Lanka. Anonymous peer-to-peer, not; shouldn’t a tech exec know that?

As I have briefly mentioned here I recently changed my trusty Treo 650 phone for a Blackberry 8700g. I’ve yet to post a full review and comparison of the phones here but in the meantime, why not check out my short Blackberry video I recently put together.

So if I'm not answering your email, blog comments/contact submissions, or voice mail... well now you know why. And yes, I know my voice mail message is old, for some reason Vonage's VM system won't let me overwrite my old greeting (and I lost patience being on hold yesterday trying to resolve it)!

Swapped the modem from the Carter’s with ours and we all have internet again! So we’re going to have to buy a new modem for our house. Because we are going to get VOIP as well we’re going to get a modem, router, wireless access point and voip adapter all in one. Make cabling easier and much better value. Hopefully will have up and running within the week!

Thank heavens for Bluetooth. It is an amazing little wireless protocol that has the capability of streaming high quality audio - Advanced Audio Distribution Profile (A2DP) - that is if your gadgets have that capability. For the Treo 650, the A2DP is missing/not supported. They only support the headset profile out of the box.

It finally happened … I did what I said I wouldn’t do — I got a Palm-based Treo 650. I have had it about a week and I actually do like the device for a lot of reasons. I am already hating it for one BIG reason — size. The thing is actually almost as much of a pain to carry around as my Newton 2100 (that still works and has 802.11 wireless access). With that said, I can now wirelessly sync with my Oracle Calendar, IM people anytime, get on the web and make sure stuff is running, and get email. The last item there, email, is still giving me problems. I can easily get my .Mac and Gmail but have had a real problem with PSU email. When I get that worked out I will be set.

The Nokia E61 has a “block” form factor similar to the RIM Blackberry. It sports a QWERTY keyboard design and has Bluetooth and Wi-Fi capability. It has a speakerphone for those long conference calls and supports many push email vendors such Blackberry Enterprise Server (with Good Link), Lotus Notes, and Microsoft Exchange.

Most of the readers are free, but I've also come across some that are subscription based, especially those for mobile devices. There are a few for the Blackberry, and some that aren't tied to specific devices. Mark Evans recommends Virtual Reach for mobiule devices, and you get a 7 day free trial ;-)

With its design, the Motorla Q has earned it the “BlackBerry Killer” nickname. It has the three “S” of the perfect gadget: Slim, Sexy, and Smart. Text can be entered at full speed, thanks to the QWERTY keyboard, and displayed on a nice QVGA display. The inside is nice too: the phone is a 3G CDMA handset that can connect to Verizon’s high-speed EV-DO network. Internet browsing, email and messaging can all be used at reasonable speeds when compared with non-3G phones.

It's been a bad few months for VIOP provider Vonage. First the stock offering gets hammered - causing customer turmoil. And now phone competitor Verizon claims it owns key patents and Vonage is infringing.

The U.S. Sentate panel has sided with the telcos in allowing them to create a two-tier Internet. Get ready to pay more for your Internet services and if you’re looking to start a new Internet company, you’ll have to factor in the toll to the carriers to get your content to the public at reasonable speeds. I wonder who the first telco will be to stop (or at best degrade their service) Skype, Vonage, and other VoIP services.