VoIP Gift Idea: "Whole House" phone system

JCPenney.com is getting in on the VoIP-for-Christmas act with the Uniden whole-house wireless phone system, designed with Packet8 VoIP phone service in mind. The base station includes an IP-based set and support for up to 10 5.8 gHz wireless phone (no more ?honey, where?s the phone?? if you have ten of them!).  The entry level system includes the base and a single wireless set. If you mail in the rebates they?re offering, you?ll score it for under a hundred bucks.

New Orleans to offer free Wi-Fi

The Big Easy is building its own wireless Internet network--and it plans to offer free access to all citizens.

Firefox 1.5 released

From Tom Keating:

Just received an email from the Mozilla Firefox PR folks to inform me that the final release of Mozilla Firefox 1.5 is now available for download from GetFirefox.com for most major operating systems or from the mirrors.Users of the release candidates should receive the update soon. I just hope they fixed the damn clipboard problem I've been having.

Firefox 1.5 introduces several new features, including an improved software update system, faster Back / Forward page navigation, a new options to clear private browsing data, drag-and-drop reordering of browser tabs, a redesigned Options/Preferences window and more robust popup blocking. Standards support is also improved, with support for Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG), JavaScript 1.6 and additional CSS properties. Accessibility is much improved (including new DHTML accessibility features), security has been enhanced and Mac OS X support has also been improved... [more]

DSL - Verizon testing 7mbps DSL

Verizon testing 7mbps DSL TMCnet - Nov 24, 2005 how much it would cost. The 7.1mbps DSL service is currently offered to business customers, she added. The cost of the business Public comments sought by DSL Bend.com, OR - Nov 21, 2005 She may be reached at (503) 378-3805 ext. 239....

Reviewer posts two BlackBerry 8700c sound files

Not only does all-around BlackBerry expert Barjohn have the most thorough review of the BlackBerry 8700c that I have read to date - with the coolest pix- but he's included some sound files transacted over the device.

But first, the essentials. Barjohn writes that the BlackBerry 8700c is the best Smartphone I have tested. Consistent with that view, he assigns it a rating of 9.5 on a 10.0 scale.

"Why such a high rating when surely it must have some flaws?," he writes. "Because it is the integrated package, i.e. the complete experience that is so nearly perfect."

Oh yes, the sound files...
Barjohn has provided two sound files for us, both of the BlackBerry 8700c using hands free profiles for his BMW and his Lexus.

Here is the link to Barjohn's sound file of the BlackBerry 8700c using the BMW hands free.

Here is the link to Barjohn's sound file of the BlackBerry 8700c using the Lexus hands free.

Cheap Dialup Access

A few months ago I needed to find an inexpensive dialup service for work. I didn’t need a lot of bells and whistles, just a connection. I finally ended up choosing SysMatrix, a provider based in Silsbee, Texas. Not only did it offer basic dialup for $6.95 a month, it got good reviews from a couple of places I checked. I like its style, too. For example, this disclaimer:

“This service offered as unlimited, as in, may use any time of the day or night. Unlimited does not mean that the customer has the right to stay connected 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. That would be considered dedicated Internet access, rather than unlimited Internet access. We reserve the right to place on hold or cancel anyone who abuses our system by trying to remain online dedicated. We feel that by listing this information up front, we are being honest with our customers unlike other companies who hide this information until after you sign up.”


The foregoing notwithstanding, I have no problem remaining connected for 6-8 hours at a time while at work. It does occasionally drop me off after a half hour or so with no activity - a perfectly reasonable policy.

I'm pleased to say that I'm entirely satisfied with its service. I've had no drop-offs unrelated to inactivity, no problems connecting, and as far as I can tell, the service has been up 100%. In addition to a basic connection, the service comes with "$6.95 a month Promo (No Setup Fee) for as long as you stay with us. Unlimited e-mail addresses, 20 megs of Web space, Over 7600 access numbers, and 88,000 + Newsgroups newsfeed, with 50 days retention on binary groups."

Various expanded services are available at reasonable rates. The $6.95/mo. promotional offer is only available from this page.

Broadband Too Expensive in US?

By S. Derek Turner
Oct. 18, 2005


Next time you sit down to pay your cable-modem or DSL bill, consider this: Most Japanese consumers can get an Internet connection that's 16 times faster than the typical American DSL line for a mere $22 per month.

Across the globe, it's the same story. In France, DSL service that is 10 times faster than the typical United States connection; 100 TV channels and unlimited telephone service cost only $38 per month. In South Korea, super-fast connections are common for less than $30 per month. Places as diverse as Finland, Canada and Hong Kong all have much faster Internet connections at a lower cost than what is available here. In fact, since 2001, the U.S. has slipped from fourth to 16th in the world in broadband use per capita. While other countries are taking advantage of the technological, business and education opportunities of the broadband era, America remains lost in transition.

How did this happen? Why has the U.S. fallen so far behind the rest of its economic peers? The answer is simple. These nations all have something the U.S. lacks: a national broadband policy, one that actively encourages competition among providers, leading to lower consumer prices and better service.

Instead, the U.S. has a handful of unelected and unaccountable corporate giants that control our vital telecommunications infrastructure. This has led not only to a digital divide between the U.S. and the rest of the advanced world but to one inside the U.S. itself. Currently, broadband services in America remain unavailable for many living in rural and poorer urban areas, and remain slow and expensive for those who do have access....

Comcast revs up my home cable connection

"Comcast recently revved up download speeds on its basic home cable-modem connections to a whopping 6 megabits per second, ... I knew my speed increase had kicked in because I used several Web-based connection-speed testers. ..."

VoIP for the contact center

VoIP makes the implementation of a single, integrated voice and data network a far cheaper proposition than implementing separate networks. This also reduces the complications that would otherwise arise if separate networks to be integrated.

A major advantage that VoIP offers is the integration of separate functions and the range of functionalities that it offers. IVR in a VoIP environment is less expensive to implement, voice to text translation, multimedia queuing and routing, and IM make VoIP an attractive enterprise application, particularly for contact centers.

The true scope of VoIP will be leveraged when it starts getting used as a platform for supporting a virtual contact center. This will enable the distribution of the contact handling to anywhere in the organization; thereby ensuring that the right person with the right skill set handles the calls. Experts feel that even though having a central point of contact has its advantages, a distributed point of contact could lead to efficient and effective call handling. It may however lead to increased training costs.

Even though VoIP has existed for around 10 years, it has managed to make an impact on the contact center industry fairly recently. Adoption of VoIP has resulted due to the drop in systems prices, sophisticated voice recording and analytics enable contact centers to learn from each call, these features are further boosted by a reporting function. ....

VoIP Gift Idea: Skype Firebox Phone Handset

"Straight from Firebox, our good buddies in the UK, comes the USB-based Firebox VoIP Cyberphone. You use it to simulate traditional phone calling on Skype. This little number has a dial-pad, a headset input connector in case you’d prefer to use something other than the handset provided, as well as a volume control and one thing that I wish was on every corded phone: the number pad is on the BASE, not the HANDSET, making it easier to use for IVR interaction.

This works on Windows, Mac, or Linux, though the non-Windows support lacks keypad dialing. A nice Christmas or Hanukkah gift for the Skype addict on your gift list. (About $40 USD)

A Guide To Cheap Online Phone Calls

November 24, 2005

By Cliff Joseph

PC users have long been able to make free calls through instant messaging services such as MSN Messenger and Yahoo Messenger, but many were dissuaded by the idea of having to buy and wear a headset and the inconvenience of having to make sure that friends and family were online when they fancied a natter.

Well, things have changed since we last wrote about making telephone calls using a broadband connection. A number of services now enable you to use a proper telephone handset to make cheap or free calls by placing an adapter between the broadband modem or router and a standard telephone.

Meet the Mockers: the anti-VoIP machine fires up

Meet the Mockers: the anti-VoIP machine fires up: "As a journalist for longer than I can remember, I know this about my fraternity. Whether it is music, art, movies, books or technology, we love to point to trends that few know about. Then, when what we have hyped becomes a phenomenon, some of us seek attention by adopting a contrarian attitude.Hasn't happened with 'Lost,' or the iPod, but ..."

For those in the middle of nowhere: satellite bandwidth

For those in the middle of nowhere: satellite bandwidth: "I was surfing through the Vonage forums and came across a company called dataBahn. They operate a satellite that provides low-latency Internet connectivity for fixed-location clients who don’t have local infrastructure to get them online (such as construction sites and third-world locales). Coincidentally, their 256 kbps service costs $256 per month. Notably, they specifically support VoIP functionality and don’t have a metered charge. This could be highly useful in environments where remote site setup and teardown happens faster than the phone company can provision a DSL line (like construction and demolition sites) or in areas where cell coverage is insufficiant to support VoIP apps (which is almost everywhere still)."

Skype to Make U.S. Retail Debut

Skype to Make U.S. Retail Debut
RadioShack and Skype, the Global Internet Communications Company, today announced an agreement to distribute Skype-certified hardware and software in approximately 3,500 RadioShack stores. This makes RadioShack the first U.S. retailer to offer this new Internet phone service. According to Skype officials, Skype has successfully brought free Interne…

Chip Makers Eye Move to Multicore

Chip Makers Eye Move to Multicore: "The manufacturers are aggressively moving forward with plans to add more cores to their processors as a way of improving performance without having to bump up the frequency."

Symantec Shelves Sygate Personal Firewall

Symantec Shelves Sygate Personal Firewall: "Sygate Personal Firewall products will be a casualty of the company's merger with Symantec, leaving customers without support, but the enterprise product line remains viable."

RIM, Verizon Team on Blackberry

RIM, Verizon Team on Blackberry: "The companies last week introduced the BlackBerry 7130e, which is the first BlackBerry handset to run on Verizon's high-speed Evolution Data Optimized network."

Spyware everywhere

Spyware everywhere: "Here's a place I would have never thought about finding spyware.  A 700-square-mile area in rural Central Oregon is equipped with wireless technology that allows residents, business, government, farmers and whoever happens to grab the signal to connect to the Internet. Cool!  Except this sentence got my attention.  '[...] a network of wireless cameras is in place for surveillance that ..."

eBay Exec to Head Skype in N. America

eBay Exec to Head Skype in N. America: "Skype, the popular international Web-based calling service that eBay recently acquired, names eBay executive Henry Gomez to run its newly formed North American business."

Export OPML from Bloglines -- Screencast

Scripting News: "Raymond Kristiansen has a screencast that shows Scoble how to open his Bloglines subscription list in the OPML Editor. There's another way (sorry I didn't remember this at first). It pays to review the docs every once in a while. ';->'"

Comcast to raise broadband speed

With Baby Bell local phone providers making inroads with cheaper but slower DSL service, Comcast and other cable companies hope to fight on speed rather than price. Comcast's faster service, added at no extra cost to customers, will begin rolling out this quarter, the company announced on Sunday.

As previously reported, the nation's largest cable and broadband provider's current download speed of up to 3mbps (megabits per second) will jump to 4mbps. Upload rates of 256kbps (kilobits per second) will reach 384kbps, the company said. Customers of Comcast's more expensive 4mbps service will see a 50 percent increase to 6mbps downstream and 768kbps upstream.

Speed has been of the essence to the nation's major cable providers. Time Warner Cable said in December that it would raise its basic download speed to 5mbps from 3mbps. Months earlier, Cox Communications said it would raise its speed limit from 3mbps to 4mbps. Faster speeds may help justify cable subscriptions that average $45 a month when the Bells sell DSL--which typically clocks in at 1.5mbps--for as low as $26.95 a month.

Read more online at news.com

Central Desktop - Profile

Central Desktop - Profile: "Central Desktop = Salesforce + Wikis + Crowded Market

HQ: Pasadena, CA

Founded: 2004

Management: Isaac Garcia is Co-founder and CEO. He was a founder and VP of Sales & Marketing at Upgradebase. His co-founder and CTO, Arnulf Hsu, worked with him at Upgradebase, which they founded in 1997. That company was a data provider to the computer and consumer electronics industries. In 1999, they also founded Vendorbase, a B2B Marketplace for computer resellers. Both companies were sold to CNET in 2002

Investors: Bootstrapped but actively raising funds.

Business Model: Central Desktop sells a hosted collaboration package that takes advantage of RSS and Wikis. It offers the type of file sharing service that has been popular with consultants and other project-based businesses. The company licenses the software from $25 to $250 per month. For that you get: sales tracking, product development management, installations tracking, knowledgebases, department Intranets, calendaring, file sharing, and more. Central Desktop had its first release in September 2005, and the UI is certainly clean.



Competitors: Jotspot, Intranets.com, SocialText, Zimbra, .

Dirt: We've done project-based work before and can see the value of Central Desktop. We also know that it's one thing to make a valuable product and another to become the Salesforce.com of your sector. Central Desktop needs to figure out how to hype the hell out of their product to get a leg-up over the hoards of other collaboration companies that have been charging of late. "

Vonage outsourced tech support is NOT based in India

The first time I called Vonage tech support, I wondered if I was talking to someone in India...

Vonage outsourced tech support is NOT based in India: "Whether it is in newspaper articles, online forums, blog feedback or just conversation, there seems to be this widespread belief that Vonage outsources the brunt of its Tier 1 (initial call) customer support to India.

The assumption is usually made in a critical tone of voice, usually in frustration that the support agent was not able to quickly resolve the problem, or seemed ..."

VDSL rolling out high speed broadband

Malaysia Star, Malaysia - 3 hours ago network infrastructure using VDSL-FSO (very high bit rate the rates would be based on speed, which can the service for VoIP (voice over Internet protocol), as ...

Mass-mailer worm lurks in Skype signup email invite

Mass-mailer worm lurks in Skype signup email invite: "I just got the idea of searching for IP telephony-related virus definitions on some anti-virus company websites.On McAfee, I found a listing for something called W32/Mytob.gr@MM.While this isn't a Skype virus, it is a mass-mailer worm that uses such subject lines as:Skype for Windows 1.4 - Have you got the new Skype?; What is Skype?, andShare Skype. Then, if they ..."

Nokia and T-Mobile Successfully Test HSDPA

Nokia and T-Mobile Successfully Test HSDPA "Nokia and T-Mobile have completed High Speed Downlink Data Packet Access (HSDPA) calls using Nokia’s 3G network technology. The calls were made in T-Mobile’s live network in the UK, the Netherlands and Germany, and are the result of the strong collaboration between the two companies to deliver HSDPA to the commercial networks. The solutions will no… "

BellSouth Introduces Faster High-Speed Internet Service

BellSouth Introduces Faster High-Speed Internet Service
HispanicBusiness.com, CA - Nov 16, 2005 16 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — BellSouth announced today a new high-speed Internet service that offers twice the download speed of its current fastest service.

SmallCap Sentinel: Retailers Reach Rural America via High Speed
PrimeZone (press release), CA - Nov 18, 2005 "Internet users who had previously been disenfranchised from high speed Internet access are embracing wireless broadband as a viable and rapid Internet vehicle

It's not just about TV anymore
Austin American-Statesman (subscription), TX - 9 hours ago Mandel Fernandes spent 45 minutes installing cable television and high-speed Internet service in Amanda Mendonza's Boston apartment, running wires and

High speed internet issue taken to Court
Radio New Zealand, New Zealand - Nov 13, 2005 Telecom has gone to court to question a Commerce Commission plan to raise the speed of high-speed Internet to its rivals. The phone

String Up Your Xbox 360 - Overheating power supply freezing up game play

String Up Your Xbox 360 - Overheating power supply freezing up game play: "The Inquirer points out that a gamer fed up with his new Xbox 360 crashing every 20 minutes has fixed the problem by raising the power supply off the ground with some string. Goldeneyemaster over at the GameSpot forums indicates that the main reason for his Xbox 360 freezing up is the power supply overheating. The solution is to lift the power supply off the floor and allow the air to circulate better around it. "

Why Is VoIP Good For Small Business?

Why Is VoIP Good For Small Business?: "The most immediate benefit of VoIP for most businesses is savings on long distance charges. Companies equipped for VoIP can place long-distance calls over the Internet rather than the PSTN and avoid paying long distance charges. Since most companies already pay for broadband Internet connections, the only additional requirement is the equipment that connects telephones to the IP network.In addition to the cost savings, bringing voice and data together on one network opens the door to new services. Advanced conferencing, unified e-mail and voicemail messaging and dialing calls by selecting from a computer contact list are just a few of the new service possibilities.The benefits of VoIP can go beyond free long distance calling and new services. Because VoIP integrates voice calling with the IP network, small businesses of the future will only need one network to operate, rather than separate telephone and computer networks. A single integrated network is cheaper to install and maintain, and there would only be one network service bill to pay. We recommend Packet8 service for small businesses of today.....and tomorrow. But fully converged networks are a long way off for most small companies. Today, traditional PSTN telephony is still crucial for the vast majority of small businesses. Since most of the telephone calls for the majority of small bu"

Some things change over the years, and some are exactly the same

Some things change over the years, and some are exactly the same: "November 19, 2005By Charles MathewsonThe biggest sources of complaints for Americans are the government, the cable company and the phone company. Their bigness makes it nearly impossible to satisfy customers. Without their bigness, they have no business.Ma Bell, Baby Bell, Nynex, Verizon. The name changes. It's still the Phone Company. Generations of corporate conditioning have made us all humbled by the telecommunication giant.For those of you too young to know, or too old to remember, The Bell System had a vise grip on its customers. The Phone Company (the name popularized in the great anti-hero flick 'The President's Analyst') owned the lines, the switchboards and the telephones it installed in homes. "

Apple's iPod Nano a holiday hit

Apple's iPod Nano a holiday hit: "Best Buy's Web site was sold out Friday of both the white and black versions of the 4 GB Nano, priced at $249.99."

Citrix's application firewall plan

Citrix's application firewall plan [via]

Network World, 11/21/05

Study: Search Now Second Among Web Tasks

By The Associated Press -- 9:21 AM EST Mon. Nov. 21, 2005 [via]

 

The number of people who use Internet search engines to find information has jumped over the last year, claiming a solid No. 2 spot behind e-mail among online tasks, a new study finds.

Of the 94 million American adults who went online on a given autumn day this year, 63 percent used a search engine, compared with 56 percent in June 2004, the Pew Internet and American Life Project said Sunday.

Until recently, search and news have been running neck-and-neck for the No. 2 spot among Internet tasks, said Lee Rainie, the project's director. But search had a dramatic jump over the past year to widen the gap over news, used by 46 percent of the Internet's daily population.

Use of search engines was higher among users who are richer and better educated, as well as those with high-speed broadband connections that are continuously on.

"If you're cooking dinner and wondering what ingredients to put in your meal, if you had a dial-up connection you would probably go to your cookbook," Rainie said. "If ... you have a broadband connection, you'd likely go to your bookmarks" for your favorite search engine.

E-mail remains the most popular application, used by 77 percent of the daily sampled population.

Separate tracking by comScore Media Metrix finds that users averaged 24 minutes a day on e-mail, compared with less than 4 minutes for search. Pew researchers note that the gap signals that e-mail remains a powerful application.

Nonetheless, although the number of daily e-mail users has grown because of increases in the overall online population, the percentage of the daily population accessing e-mail has dropped. It was 85 percent in the 2004 survey.

Rainie suggests users might have grown fearful of viruses and other threats spread via e-mail, or they might have turned to instant messaging instead. He also speculates that they might simply suffer from information overload and conscientiously limit their e-mail use.

The random telephone-based survey of 1,577 Internet users was conducted Sept. 13 to Oct. 14. It has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

CNN: Home of future happening now

By Julie Clothier for CNN

LONDON, England (CNN) -- Simon Darby has the kind of house that makes the fathers of his kids' classmates green with envy.

As Microsoft's Windows client marketing manger, the self-confessed "technology geek" has all sorts of gadgets installed that make it seem like something out of a futuristic movie.

In fact, all of the devices in Darby's home -- from the biometric mouse that has his computer reading fingerprints instead of asking for passwords to the media center in his lounge -- are available for ordinary consumers to buy in shops.

Having impressed guests to his Oxford home, Darby decided to let his clients see the technology in action by recreating his front room in London.

The result is [... read more]

Opinion: So Why Do We Need Skype, Anyway?

There has been quite a debate going on as to whether Skype is safe for corporate use. The more important question: Do we need Skype or just want it? And is just wanting it worth the risk--even a small one?  [more...]

Can You Hear Me? Vendors Beef Up Voice Over Wi-Fi Quality

While there has been much industry hype about phones that can roam among wireless LANs and cellular networks, veterans in the space are working to boost the quality of plain old voice over Wi-Fi. [More...]

Skype: Enterprise Not Job Number One

As IT managers begin to block the VOIP tool because of security and control issues, Skype admits the technology is not designed to be an enterprise-grade tool and has no problems with enterprises banning its use [more...]