The PhoneBoy Blog » voip

John C. Dvorak’s Mothers Day Comcast Nightmare

PhoneBoy — Mon, 09 May 2011 19:15:00 +0000

There are a couple of salient points brought up by columnist John C. Dvorak in his latest piece entitled My Mothers Day Comcast Nightmare, where he recounts his issues with his Internet connection on Sunday:

I had tweeted this problem earlier on Twitter and found out that Comcast seems to have given up on its effective social media program, as Comcast Bonnie was no longer working there. She relied to me that “they got rid of me.” She was great at what she did, but I’ve seen this sort of thing before. A company has person doing great and important work, and it fires her because some bonehead at the company couldn’t monetize it. Apparently, it values bad PR instead like this. Accountants will eventually ruin all American business.

This is the tricky thing about “social media.”We know it’s good, but it’s hard to quantify exactly how good. When times get rough, it gets paired back or, in the cast of Comcast Bonnie, “eliminated.”

Unfortunately, human beings remember these bad experiences and use them as a basis to make decisions about which services to use in the future. Unfortunately, cable is the only real choice for most people so Comcast can pretty much take on the whole “we don’t care, we don’t have to” mentality on these things.

So I scheduled the service guy to come on Tuesday and just figure I’d limp along at analog modem speeds. In the process, I checked by email and saw a note from one of the editors of my blog, Sergio Gasparrini, who apparently listened to the podcast—from Europe—and suggested that Mother’s Day Skype calls may have been the culprit. I thought this was laughable until mid afternoon when my speeds began to increase by the hour.

By 9 p.m. on Sunday, the speed had ratcheted back up from 1 Mbps around 5 p.m. to 3 Mbps and then increased to 4 Mbps to 9 Mbps to 11 Mbps. It was like clockwork. As I write this, the system has been restored to full speed by itself.

This seems plausible, but only barely. Skype and other Voice over IP tools do not require a lot of bandwidth. It does require low latency, though. The only possible explanation here would be if there were a significant number of video calls–which require both high bandwidth and low latency.

In any case, this is definitely something I remember growing up on the Bell System. Mothers Day was always a big calling day. “All circuits are busy” messages were pretty common. What scares me is how quickly we all forget…

Comments

10 May 2011, ComcastBill writes: I think if you’re going to write a blog post about a Comcast issue and apparently Comcast not responding via Twitter you may want to get all the facts right. Sunday was Mother's Day and as a social media team we support this day as a normal Sunday and have staffing. We reach out as fast as we can and usually within minutes. This Tweet was no different on response time. After the @THErealDVORAK tweeted he was having a Comcast issue he was replied to with an offer to help. All of Sunday and still to this day there has been no response to the offer. We are a social media team not just one person and most of this team have been around since day 1, and we will continue to support our customers on the platform there comfortable in. Below are the Tweet responses to @THErealDVORAK so you can see the time stamps. @THErealDVORAK what can i help with? 1:15 PM May 8th via TweetDeck @THErealDVORAK send me account phone number and ill take a look for you 1:20 PM May 8th via TweetDeck
10 May 2011, PhoneBoy writes: Thanks for providing the other side of the story ComcastBill.

This work originally came from The PhoneBoy Blog and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Fingerprint: e37ac627f3d973694c212ff9430d215a

MagicJack Latest Loser in Game of Telecom Arbitrage

PhoneBoy — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 13:04:42 +0000

From: Did MagicJack Lose It’s Magic? – VoIP Watch:

Over the weekend the Telecom Law Monitor, a blog from the telecom practice group of Washington D.C. based Kelly Drye caught my eye when I spied that MagicJack’s sister/parent company, YMAX and AT&T were embroiled in a battle over, you guessed it. MONEY. For a long time many observers were trying to figure out just how MagicJack made money. Well, this FCC decision really helps make things clearer.

Something always felt kinda scammy about the whole MagicJack thing, which offers a $40 product that lets you make unlimited calls for a year (costs $20/year to renew). I never really bothered to look into their product to find out why, but Andy breaks it down.

I’ve seen a number of these schemes come down over the years. Once the large telecom companies get wise to the arbitrage tricks these smaller companies are trying to play, the game is up. MagicJack had a good run as far as these schemes go.

Meanwhile, I feel sorry for all the people who bought the MagicJack devices hoping they’d save them money. I suspect the device is about to become nothing more than a cheap paperweight.

Google Shutting Down Gizmo5

PhoneBoy — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 00:07:21 +0000

I suppose it was only a matter of time before Google shuttered the Gizmo5 service they acquired the service in November 2009. The date of closure: 3 April 2011. You can add credit to your account for another week, but after that, you can only use the credits you have.

To be honest, I haven’t used it in quite some time as GTalk in Gmail and Skype fill my calling needs quite nicely. I only found out about the closure of Gizmo5 because someone asked me for a recommendation for an alternative that supported open SIP hardware (my recommendation: Voicepulse).

In any case, I still had somewhat of a balance in my Gizmo5 account. You are given the option to get a refund for the unused balance or transfer it to your Google Voice account. I opted for the latter, as I actually use GTalk to make calls occasionally. The balance transfer is “in progress.” We’ll see how smoothly it actually goes.

Skype Outage: Why, And What You Should Do

PhoneBoy — Thu, 23 Dec 2010 00:46:41 +0000

As someone who works with a team remotely–and makes heavy use of Skype--I certainly noticed Skype not working properly. The reason? From Skype’s Status Page:

Earlier today, we noticed that the number of people online on Skype was falling, which wasn’t typical or expected, so we began to investigate.

Skype isn’t a network like a conventional phone or IM network – instead, it relies on millions of individual connections between computers and phones to keep things up and running. Some of these computers are what we call ‘supernodes’ – they act a bit like phone directories for Skype. If you want to talk to someone, and your Skype app can’t find them immediately (for example, because they’re connecting from a different location or from a different device) your computer or phone will first try to find a supernode to figure out how to reach them.

Under normal circumstances, there are a large number of supernodes available. Unfortunately, today, many of them were taken offline by a problem affecting some versions of Skype. As Skype relies on being able to maintain contact with supernodes, it may appear offline for some of you.

What are we doing to help? Our engineers are creating new ‘mega-supernodes’ as fast as they can, which should gradually return things to normal. This may take a few hours, and we sincerely apologise for the disruption to your conversations. Some features, like group video calling, may take longer to return to normal.

Guess what Skype supernodes are: individual computers running Skype who aren’t behind a firewall of some sort. This is what has allowed Skype to scale without too much extra cost on their part. They are using other people’s bandwidth–and computers–to provide service to their users for free. This reason alone is enough for some computer security administrators to want to ban Skype entirely.

One would assume these “mega-supernodes” that Skype are referring to are operated by Skype. This is going to substantially increase their cost basis: for the physical machines those mega-supernodes are hosted on, for the bandwidth they surely will consume, for the electricity to run them, and the administrators whom will maintain them.

As a user, these kinds of outages–yes this happened before–certainly shake my faith in Skype. I’m not a freeloader, either: I pay them for both an inbound telephone number and a calling plan. Google’s GTalk seems a bit more reliable, provides much of the same functionality, and (currently) costs me nothing.

Of course, any service can go down at any time–paid or not, whether operated by a multi-billion dollar company or by a half-a-dozen guys in a basement. My advice: always have multiple methods of communication available. Do not rely entirely on Skype, Gtalk, your mobile phone, or any other service operated by anyone else. No one is immune to acts of nature, government, or buggy software.

Comments

22 December 2010, Ted Serreyn writes: even better, it may be cause performance issues on your firewalls. Large client with lots of skype actually killed their firewall overflowing the NAT table.
23 December 2010, Sher Singh writes: Skype service is getting down day by day.Very low quality service.
23 December 2010, Outage update: 20% recovery so far; 4.8 million seen online. « Skype Journal writes: [...] Skype Outage: Why, And What You Should Do (phoneboy.com) [...]
23 December 2010, DontHateTheGeek writes: [...] Skype Outage: Why, And What You Should Do (phoneboy.com) [...]
23 December 2010, Dave Arkle writes: Ted...very interested to talk to you about this, or at least get some additional info. If you see this, could you send me an emial with links to what you're referring to, or at least more details? I experienced enterprise-wide problems yesterday, and while I was suspecting that the Skype outage was the problem, I haven't yet figured out what exactly was going on. Thanks! Dave
23 December 2010, Quachimba writes: Don't start with that. So what if a plane decided to break down each and every day? Out of the millions of flights we have everyday? You know why planes generally stay up? They have 3 back ups for almost everything. Not considering stupid ground crew Screw ups. Basically if so many are relying on you and as many of you say that technology will have it's problems. Then have 1 maybe 2 maybe 3 maybe a 100 backups. There is no excuse. In the ten years I've been with my phone and cellphone company. They have not ponce not for even a minute had an outage. And for skype to give us it's bullshit stories about supernodes? Did they not think or realise that supernodes could fail? So they should have a back up system? There is no excuse not even the one of technology. And yes you can be perfect and achieve it. People who think you can only strive for perfect but not reach it will remain the idiots and imperfect people they are.
23 December 2010, PhoneBoy writes: I've had outages with both my landlines and my mobile phones for various reasons. It happens. That doesn't excuse Skype, of course. My point is that nothing is 100% trustworthy and, if you need to be in constant contact, have a backup provider.

More Obsolete VoIP Gear for Sale

PhoneBoy — Sun, 21 Nov 2010 07:45:41 +0000

I dug a little deeper into my stash and found some additional items to add to my for-sale list:

Linksys WBP54G – Wireless Bridge for Linksys/Sipura Devices
Linksys WIP300 (802.11g WiFi phone)
Dock n Talk with Bluetooth Module and Cables
A few ATAs from Zoom (standalone and with router)

I’ve also tested most of the gear to confirm it powers up, has a functional web interface, and has been reset to factory defaults. Only found one device that I couldn’t get into because it was provider-locked. It found a nice home in the round file.

The complete list is in my previous posting advertising the gear for sale. No reasonable offer refused.

Jan Fandrianto Strikes Again with the OBi110

PhoneBoy — Sat, 20 Nov 2010 16:28:15 +0000

From OBi110: Consumer VoIP is Getting Social | Cult of Mac:

Obihai Technology, a tiny Cupertino start-up, this month brought to market its first product, the OBi110 — an unassuming $70 box with blinky lights that may well prove to be the most disruptive telephony device to come along in a decade.

The OBi110 is the physical hub in a multi-layered communications model the company believes can revolutionize the way consumers use their mobile, Internet and fixed-line telephony services, bringing emerging social networking behaviors together with maturing Voice over IP (VoIP) technology to create total communication freedom at the personal level.

I own or have owned at least one of all three generations of products generated by Jan Fandrianto and his team: the Cisco ATA-186, various Sipura/Linksys units (including the SPA-3000, which I supported during the Voxilla days), and now the OBi110, the next generation in analog telephone devices.

While I haven’t played with the OBi110 as much as I’d like, it did not take me long to see this is a refinement of the ideas behind the SPA-3000, but it offers so much more.

One of the features of the SPA-3000 was the ability to dial in via a VoIP provider and “bridge” to a analog telephone line. You could also go the other way. While the OBi110 can do these things, you can also bridge to a different VoIP provider as well (i.e. the device supports two different Internet telephony service providers (ITSPs)).

The device provides a configurable auto-attendant, which can be configured to answer only for “trusted” endpoints (based on CallerID) and/or require a PIN to be entered. From there, calls can made via either the PSTN line or any of the VoIP services you’ve configured.

Perhaps the best feature of the OBi110 has little to do with the hardware itself but with the service that it includes. When you plug into the network, it registers with OBiTALK servers–with no configuration on the end user’s part. It works “out of the box.” The device has a unique telephone number assigned to it–it’s printed on the bottom of the device. Any customer with an OBi110 can call any other OBi110 using their OBiTALK number.

Aside from your OBi devices, you can also connect to OBtTALK via a VoIP client on your PC. Obihai provides the OBiAPP on Windows that acts as a sort of middleman between a traditional VoIP client (say Counterpath’s X-Lite) and the OBiTALK service. I believe the user experience would be better overall if they just released their own Windows (and Mac) VoIP client. This seems to be a rather convoluted setup. Obihai is producing their own VoIP client for iOS and Android devices soon.

OBiTALK also provides for a concept called a “Circle of Trust.” Essentially it makes it easier for a group of people to use each other’s devices to take advantage of landlines or whatever ITSPs each device has configured. For example, if I was part of a circle of trust with people in The Netherlands, I could make a VoIP call that goes out my friend’s PSTN line, or s/he could make a VoIP call that goes out my PSTN or VoIP line.

You can configure your circle of trust (and other trusted endpoints) from the OBiTALK site and it will configure your device for you. It also sets up speed dials for the different endpoints you have and are in your circle of trust. I actually wish you could configure more features from the OBiTALK site (say, the ITSPs you want to use) and have the device somewhat provisioned entirely from OBiTALK, further masking the complexity.

If you don’t trust Obihai, you can hand configure all of this yourself, of course, and the device can be configured however you’d like. If you’ve spent any time with the old Sipura devices, the web interface should look a bit familiar, but it has been improved also, making it real easy to see what settings are at their defaults as well as provide a way to reset the parameter to the default setting. Unfortunately, the settings in some cases are complicated. That is the nature of these devices, however. They provide a lot of power, but you have to know what you are doing to make it do exactly what you want.

All in all, if you’re a do-it-yourself kind of person and you want to more easily create your own mix of VoIP and PSTN services that works for you, the OBi110 is the device you want to look at. The team behind it as a history of making great products and evolving them as the market changes. You can buy the OBi110 Voice Service Bridge and Terminal Adapter from Amazon.com (affiliate link), but during the week of Thanksgiving, you’ll be able to buy two OBi110s through amazon.com shipped to the same address for $99.95!

Comments

20 November 2010, Obihai - Press writes: [...] November 2010: The Phoneboy Blog: Jan Fandrianto Strikes Again with the OBi110 20 October 2010: Cult of Mac: OBi110: Consumer VoIP is Getting [...]
22 November 2010, David Beckemeyer writes: Interesting. I'm surprised you didn't mention PhoneGnome anywhere in this post. It appears that almost every Obi feature is a clone in one way or another of a PhoneGnome feature.
14 December 2010, Aswath Weblog: VoIP still remains a service and products are disappointing writes: [...] VoIP related product called Obi110 was launched. I have not personally evaluated this product but Phoneboy and Tom Keating have reviewed it. Based on their review I am disappointed that the industry has [...]

Obsolete VoIP ATAs For Sale

PhoneBoy — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 07:09:47 +0000

Over the years, I’ve accumulated far too many VoIP ATAs and other related gear. Now I’m getting rid of them. By now, most of this stuff isn’t supported. It may be almost entirely worthless. But I’d rather not throw it away. I’m sure it’s of value to someone. Thus I’m going to sell it here.

Here are my rules (updated 20 November 2010):

If you’re not sure what the device is, ask Google first.
Devices and power bricks are believed to be in working order. They were recently powered on, their web interface was accessed, and the device was factory reset.
Unless noted, equipment will ship with only a power brick. The old Sipura devices may not contain a universal power brick (i.e. one that works outside North America).
Equipment is AS-IS with whatever firmware is on the device now.
I will not provide technical support for these devices. Google can help.
Please email your offer (desired equipment and total price with shipping cost) to dwelch AT phoneboy DOT com. Nothing reasonable refused.
Payments accepted via PayPal ONLY.
Once payment has been received, orders will only ship to US Addresses via USPS with delivery confirmation.

Ready for the list? Here we go! I have one of each unless otherwise noted (Equipment list updated 21 November 2010). Crossed off items have been sold and are no longer available.

Grandstream ATAs:

HT 496
HT 488
HT 486

Sipura

SPA-3000 ~~(Qty 4)~~ (Qty 2)
SPA-2100
~~SPA-2002~~
SPA-2000
SPA-1001
SPA-1000

Linksys

~~SPA-9000~~
~~SPA-3102~~
~~PAP2-NA~~
WBP54G – Wireless Bridge for Linksys/Sipura Devices
WIP300 (802.11g WiFi phone)

Intertex (router with enhanced SIP/PBX support)

IX-66 with 802.11b CF card (adds WiFi support)
IX-67 which includes 802.11g support

Cisco ATA-186 with version 3.1.0 firmware

SIP CPE FX-200 (5v variety, does not come with a power brick)

Zoom:

ZoomTel V3 Model 5577 (Cable/DSL Router with VoIP ATA, new in box)
Zoom ATA Modem 5801 (New in box)
ZoomTel X5v (DSL Modem with VoIP ATA)

~~Dock n’ Talk with the following:~~

~~Bluetooth Module~~
~~Cable NM1-L~~
~~Cable NP1-L~~

Comments

18 November 2010, CitizenX writes: I am glad that you are not throwing away. Recently I have become fascinated with old computers. I recently acquired cira 1999 thinkpad that still boots into WIN98 and 2 power macs that are not much older. For me it is fun to tinker with them because they predate my geekdom.
20 November 2010, More Obsolete VoIP Gear for Sale « The PhoneBoy Blog writes: [...] The complete list is in my previous posting advertising the gear for sale. No reasonable offer refused. [...]
21 November 2010, Various Sipura/Linksys/Zoom/Grandstream/Intertex Gear For Sale writes: [...] for sale. There's also a few other miscellaneous items. Complete equipment list is on my blog: http://phoneboy.com/3966/obsolete-voip-atas-for-sale __________________ Technical questions should be posted to the forums, not sent via PM to [...]

The RTX Dualphone 3088

PhoneBoy — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 06:52:34 +0000

One of the things In Store Solutions sent it to me for review right around Christmas 2009 was the RTX Dualphone 3088. I’ve actually been (trying to) use it for the past couple of months and I’m now finally ready to write my thoughts down about it.

When I say “try to” use it, it’s not that the phone is hard to use. In fact, relatively speaking, it’s easy to use once it is set up.

The base unit plugs into your regular telephone jack and your router. This gives you the ability to use your regular phone line as well as Skype from the same handset. You can configure which one PSTN phone calls will use by default (and override on a per-call basis, if you’d like). You can browse your Skype buddy list, do buddy list management, and make direct calls to Skype users also. You can even change your Skype status, check inbound/outbound call history, your Skype voicemail, and see your SkypeOut balance!

At home, I have this set up both with my landline and my personal Skype account. Calls to my landline and calls to my Skype account are set up with different rings (yes, you can do that). I have used it both for Skype and for PSTN calls and the sound quality is excellent. The connection between the base and the handset is DECT, making it both secure and WiFi friendly.

Here’s the problem with this handset–I just don’t use them all that much. Nothing against the handset at all, but I either use my mobile phone to make calls or I use Skype with a headset. Yes, the phone has a headset jack and supports speakerphone, so I could use it, but it’s not something I have to work to make use of.

One thing the handset is missing that would make adopting it problematic is the fact it lacks a mute button. It is one feature I make heavy use of on Skype and my mobile phones and not having it makes using this phone difficult.

If you’re looking for a way to make calls on Skype without using a computer and tie into your normal landline, this is a great device. It does exactly what it says on the tin. The pricing, though, presents a challenge: $170 for the base unit and handset, another $100 each extra handset. At half the price, it would almost be a no-brainer.

Comments

2 March 2010, RTX Dualphone 3088: The Bloggers’ Have Their Say | Voice on the Web writes: [...] for the static-y background sound quality issue raised by Jason, PhoneBoy says: At home, I have this set up both with my landline and my personal Skype account. Calls to my [...]

Inbox Liquidation, Part 54

PhoneBoy — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 09:21:39 +0000

My inbox is bursting at the seams, it seems.

Skype and Verizon Wireless?: One of the surprises to come out of the recent Mobile World Congress show is that Verizon Wireless and Skype have signed an agreement that allows a specially designed Skype client to be available on several devices (Blackberries and Android phones). Om Malik uncovers some sources who say that this deal is exclusive for 2-3 years. What kills this for me is that all calls (either Skype-to-Skype or Skype to international number) are routed through the Verizon Wireless voice network, meaning no WiFi. Not to mention the fact that the Verizon Wireless 3G network doesn’t support voice and data. Meh.

Skype and the iPhone: Related to the above, Skype is planning on issuing a version of their iPhone app that will actually allow calling over the AT&T 3G network. Previously, Apple’s SDK forbid this practice, but this has recently been changed. The stated reason for the delay is that Skype wants to ensure the iPhone experience is tuned for an optimal experience. Skype isn’t tuning the software, if you ask me. I think they’re waiting for the next version of the iPhone OS to release, but that’s just my theory.

Restaurant Paging over SMS: The Recess Paging System is something that’s recently been brought to my attention. Instead of those annoyingly large restaurant pagers that they give you, just send an SMS to the patron when your table is ready. Clever idea, though any heavy user of SMS will tell you that it’s not always reliable. And, of course, there’s always the “it’s a great tool to spam market to your customers.”

Voxbone Provides SMS Support for iNum (+883) Numbers: One thing that makes virtual numbers more real is the ability to text message the number. I was real happy when Google added this feature to Google Voice (formerly GrandCentral) numbers. Voxbone is now providing this service to their “global” iNum numbers (which have an ITU-assigned country code of +883). I wish more carriers supported these global numbers–for calling and SMS–but the list keeps growing.

Fonolo Comes to iPhone: I got heads up several days ago that Fonolo was launching an iPhone app in the App Store. The application lets you search through the phone tree of many different companies toll free numbers. You can find exactly the right point in the phone tree and have Fonolo call you when it has navigated to that point. In short, you spend less time navigating the phone maze and more time dealing with the company you’re trying to deal with. It’s a free app and a free service.

Calliflower Adds Skype Support: I wish I had an opportunity to use Calliflower more than I do. While you could always use Skype to enter a Calliflower conference, albeit via a PSTN number, now you can dial the Skype user CalliflowerSkype and get into any Calliflower-hosted conference. It certainly makes it cheaper and easier to join a Calliflower-hosted conference. In theory, this should give you better voice quality as well, but when I tried dialing the CalliflowerSkype user from my Mac’s Skype client, I saw it was using G.729–the same codec as if I were using Skype to dial into the PSTN number.

Comments

21 February 2010, SquawkBox Conference Call: Skype Over Verizon – What Are The Consequences | Voice on the Web writes: [...] Inbox Liquidation, Part 54 (phoneboy.com) [...]

The Freetalk Wireless Headset

PhoneBoy — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 03:07:16 +0000

The folks at In Store Solutions sent me this headset to review a while ago–the Freetalk Wireless Headset. I had tried a couple of times to write a review of this headset, but ran into technical issues. Now that I’m off the road for a bit, I’ll give it a try.

Like its wired cousin, the Freetalk Everyman Headset, which I reviewed a while back, the focus is on audio quality. It rocks, even without wires! Skype-to-Skype audio quality is just like being there! It’s light and comfortable to boot.

Unlike it’s cheaper cousin, the Freetalk Wireless headset actually has buttons on it: a power/mute button, volume control, and a link button to link the headset with the dongle. Yes, all these buttons work properly on the Mac as well as the PC.

The dongle for this headset is a little bulky, but it provides a USB jack to allow you to charge the Everyman Wireless headset directly. It also allows you to use the headset in a “wired” way when the headset needs charging, which is a problem I’ve run into with this headset. I often find the headset without battery. Maybe because I use it too much

The power button doubles as a mute button, if you press it briefly. The green power light blinks blue when the headset is muted. It would have been nice if the headset provided some audio confirmation that the headset was muted so it could be reliably used, but I generally just mute inside the Skype app instead so I know I am muted.

While this headset is clearly geared at Skype (or other desktop VoIP usage), you can also use the headset to listen to music. Just like with Skype, the music sounds great!

Unlike the Freetalk Everyman Headset, which is priced absurdly inexpensively, the Everyman Wireless is more pricey but still respectable at $79.99 from the Skype store (prices vary outside the US). It comes with the dongle, a mini-USB cable, the headset, and the carrying case, as shown in the picture above. People looking for great audio quality without wires should seriously consider picking one of these headsets up.

Comments

19 February 2010, raju writes: what the price of it at India

Inbox Liquidation, Part 53

PhoneBoy — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 23:55:53 +0000

Time to clean out the inbox once again…

Truphone Bonanza: I have a fair number of items related to Truphone in my inbox. A while ago, they launched an Android calling app for WiFi, making it possible to use their service to make cheap phone calls from Android phones. More recently, they launched their Truphone Anywhere service, which gives you a SIM card that gives you “local” rates in US and the UK and cheaper roaming abroad. It could, theoretically, be your ONLY GSM calling service–calls inside the US are $0.10 a minute inbound and outbound–but data is not exactly cheap at $0.75/MB. It’s a nice prepaid service I will be keeping an eye on. I’m always looking for a way to be reachable when I travel abroad, but don’t want to pay an arm and a leg to do it Oh yeah, and now you can make and receive calls from +883 (iNum) calls thanks to a partnership with Voxbone!

Skype for Symbian Beta: I’ve actually been using this a fair amount of my Nokia E71, especially when I was in Israel several days ago. It was the only way I was able to make calls back home without it costing an arm and a leg. The application is very laggy in terms of startup and shutdown, but the calls were crystal clear! Hopefully, they improve the speed of this app, as it’s my only real complaint. Well that and it does not pass touchtones at all.

CTIA Is Against Network Neutrality for Wireless: From the “no duh” department, my friends at the CTIA–the industry association for the wireless industry in the US–are against net neutrality principles (PDF link) as proposed by the FCC via their Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on the subject. Seems like a rehash of their usual points (i.e. wireless is different, a competitive market, and the operators are doing nothing wrong). *sigh*

Trapster goes 4.0 on iPhone: The new version of this free speed-trap reporting program for the iPhone and a number of other phones gives you more “trap” types (including roadkill, yum!), shows you were Trapster users have driven recently (to give you confidence in the reported traps), a Caravan mode where you can message and share photos with other Trapster users, and the ability to share Trapster with your iPhone contacts. Wonder what these guys will do next?

Comments

22 January 2010, Tweets that mention Inbox Liquidation, Part 53 -- Topsy.com writes: [...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by phoneboyblog, scipblogbot. scipblogbot said: Inbox Liquidation, Part 53 http://bit.ly/7yvb3K [...]

Inbox Liquidation, Part 52

PhoneBoy — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 08:49:39 +0000

It must be time to clean out the old inbox once again, which this time also includes random observations and other things that aren’t necessarily in my inbox.

Google Chrome: I’ve started using Google Chrome on my Macs and Linux boxes. I have to say, it’s quite peppy! I’m still waiting for extension support on the Mac, though I can always run Chromium, which does offer it. Google already pwns all my data, so I’m not too concerned about using their browser

CallGuard for Nokia Devices: The folks over at SymbianGuru have a neat little app that provides a whitelist and blacklist for calls at specific times. Calls from certain people can be “rejected” complete with an SMS to the number or ring through as you configure the app. I haven’t had a chance to try this out, since I primarily use an iPhone these days, but it’s worth checking out. 10 days to see if you like it, if so, pay $12.95.

HiDef Conferencing Beats Holiday Stress: While I do appreciate the reduction in mental processing that occurs when you have a conversation over a wider band medium, such as provided by HiDef Conferencing service, I find conference calls themselves stressful. Granted, they tend to take less time than the typical business trip, but there’s only so much one can do over the phone. As stressful as those business trips are, they are necessary.

TruPhone Cuts The Price Of Calling This Holiday Season: If you’re a TruPhone user, or are looking for an excuse to try out this calling service on your Nokia, Blackberry, iPhone, or Android), here’s a nice offer. From Christmas Day until the 5th January 2010, calls made on Truphone to 30 popular destinations worldwide will be charged at 50% off the TruStandard rate – allowing friends and family to talk longer for less this holiday season. In addition, calls to all listed destinations will be free of charge on New Year’s Eve (or rather 12:01 pm GMT New Years Eve to 11:59 am GMT New Years Day).

TextPlus 2.1 Launches With Personal Communities: I’ve always thought SMS was a ripoff. The operators charge way too much for too little. Several applications on the iPhone look to reduce or eliminate your dependence on SMS by pushing your short messages through their service. The only one I find compelling is TextPlus by the folks at Gogii. The main reason? It interoperates with regular SMS. People not using TextPlus on their iPhone (and soon the BlackBerry) can send messages through the short code 60611. TextPlus also allows you to do “group” messaging, sending the same message to up to 50 people. And yes, that feature works with folks not on TextPlus (yet).

VoIP Supply Reclaims Your Old VoIP Gear: This is a bit like taking your old video games down to the GameStop or similar store, trading them in for new games, or getting some cash. Except this is with VoIP gear. Maybe I should send them my list of VoIP gear and see what they’ll give me. I suspect it will be like GameStop does for old games, you won’t get as much as you’d like, but you’ll get something. At least the equipment won’t end up in a landfill somewhere.

Tweetings: I ran across this client on my Twitter stream for the iPhone and I have to say, it’s quite good. It looks a lot like Tweetie, actually, but it’s slightly cheaper ($1.99 versus the $2.99 for Tweetie 2), and for that price, it even supports push notifications of @ replies and direct messages! It’s also the first Twitter app I’ve run across that actually uses oAuth, which theoretically means you don’t have to give the application your password! However, you still need to enter your password into the app anyway if you want to use any of the media sharing services (or push notifications, for that matter).

Comments

22 December 2009, tom writes: if you do not want google to pwn your data you can use srware iron instead of chrome. windows and linux version are out now and mac should be coming soon. with chrome i was clearing my browsing data every couple days because it was slowing down so much. iron is working much better. http://www.srware.net/en/index.php
23 December 2009, PhoneBoy writes: Still no Iron version for Mac yet. As I said, I'm not terribly concerned, Google already pwns my data :)

CTIA and Public Knowledge Debate on Net Neutrality

PhoneBoy — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 09:00:54 +0000

What was interesting about this debate between the CTIA and Public Knowledge, which took on the subject of net neutrality and how the proposed FCC rules should be modified for mobile network operators, if at all, wasn’t the arguments themselves. It’s the insight I had–insight that CTIA’s Vice President of Regulatory Affairs Chris Guttman-McCabe hinted at in his arguments, but did not take to their logical conclusion.

The debate was about 90 minutes and could be summed up in a couple of sentences. Gigi Sohn, Public Knowledge’s President & Co-founder, basically took the position that while the wireless does have unique challenges, and should be given a little more latitude in terms of applying reasonable network management principles, they should adhere to the same basic guidelines as is being proposed for wireline-based Internet services. Chris Guttman-McCabe suggested that wireless is far more competitive, it’s not clear that net neutrality principles need to be applied to wireless, and that applying the same principles the same way may, in fact, cause unintended harm to both consumers and the industry.

Net neutrality advocates would prefer that service providers, be they wireless, wireline, fiber, or whatever, would prefer that the service provider “just serve bits.” Don’t differentiate, don’t prioritize. Just serve them as they come. Seems reasonable and even supportable.

Remember that a mobile phone has two functions: as a telephone that you can make and receive voice calls on, and as a data device. While people like myself tend to think of a mobile phone primarily as a data device now, the vast majority of the world still views it as a voice device. However, both travel over the same radio spectrum and the same backhaul connection. That “last mile” connection to your mobile handset, however, is constrained by radio spectrum–spectrum which is in both short supply and high demand.

Let’s say a wireless operator experiences network congestion in a particular area, say around Moscone Center in San Francisco during a high-tech trade show even. If you’re been to a high-tech trade show at Moscone Center in San Francisco and tried to use your iPhone (or any other phone) on AT&T while there, you’d see the result–nobody could use the service at all. Taking the pro-net neutrality argument to it’s logical conclusion, where one bit of data is no more important than another, how do you device what bits make it through in a congested environment? Is a traditional call using GSM or CDMA more important than other bits? What if that voice call happens over data (e.g. with Skype)? If an operator prioritized more traditional forms of telephony over the newer, TCP/IP based methods of telephony, would that be a violation of net neutrality principles?

Unlike the other “wired” access methods, where one can upgrade the infrastructure to provide more bandwidth to end users in the last mile, or even lay more cable, mobile network operators cannot do this without more wireless spectrum–spectrum assigned and allocated by the FCC to both government, commercial, consumer, and amateur use. The spectrum allocated by the 700 Mhz spectrum auctions from a couple years back are now assigned to the mobile operators, but the previous “users” of that spectrum have not cleared out yet. Operators are chomping at the bit to start using this spectrum to roll out 4G wireless services.

Given the bandwidth crunch and net neutrality mandates, how is a mobile network operator going to solve congestion issues? What is “reasonable” network management practices? Who decides what is fair? Can anyone point me to a document that describes what constitutes reasonable network management practices?

At the end of the day, I have to side with CTIA. This issue is incredibly complex and needs more discussion, specifically around what constitutes “reasonable network management principles” and how to handle traditional voice calling and SMS in a truly “net neutral” world. What do you think?

Comments

16 December 2009, tom writes: most of what i have been reading lately is actually saying that it is the back-haul connections between the towers that are limiting the capacity not the radio interface. i often read reports that cell towers in major cities are connected via 1.5 mbps t1 lines. at least for right now faster back haul links should be a priority over spectrum increases. as far as the long term answer we need lots of very small low power cell all over the place. lately i read a lot about a future where things roam seamlessly between 3g/4g and private funded wifi spots in homes. i do not see this a viable in the long term. as the masses subscribe to mobile broadband they will be expected to be able to cut off there home connections. i think what is needed(and will eventually prevail) is something i used read a lot about but never see written anymore. we need radio transceiver on every lamppost(or on many of them) that are controlled by the carriers not individual users. as the world cuts out its land line phones perhaps much of that wiring can be reused to light up very small hot spots outside of peoples houses. it does not really matter if the technology is wifi or 3g/4g as long as the users do not know the difference. they just want phones, devices, and laptops that work every place they go.
16 December 2009, Aaron Huslage writes: It appears that you might have colluded QoS with other Net Neutrality provisions. Last I worked on this issue, a couple of years ago, it was completely allowable for an operator to prioritize voice traffic over other traffic (standard QoS). It was not, however, allowable for that provider to prioritize voice traffic to/from any one provider (including themselves) and not any other. QoS remained a service differentiator, but one provider was not able to discriminate based on source/destination of the packets.
16 December 2009, PhoneBoy writes: Backhaul is a problem, @tom, but it is far from the only problem. What you describe is something similar to what I'm told MetroPCS is doing: deploying a lot of smaller towers in neighborhoods. @Aaron it's not just about QoS. It's the fact that by nature of what the operators already do (prioritize their own non-IP voice traffic over all data), they potentially run astray of net neutrality rules.
18 December 2009, Bob writes: I have never had the problems as you mention near Moscone Center when in Europe. It's like all the "bars" are painted on the phone, calls don't get dropped, etc. This leads me to think a lot of the problem is that the US operators like AT&T just haven't make the same kind of investment in infrastructure as the European operators. It's not a problem with radio spectrum in as much as it can be solved by using a smaller cell sizes. If the cell size is too large for the number of active customers in it, then there will be problems. People know how to solve this problem. It doesn't need additional radio spectrum. Just more radios. I think the underlying question regarding "network neutrality" is should an operator be able to give preference to services it make more money on than lower revenue services. Should, for example, Comcast now that it is buying NBC, give better service to NBC shows than an other content provider. Can they use their monopoly position to squeeze out the competition? The stakes in this debate are significant. One of the bad outcomes will be that there won't be one Internet. An end customer will have to subscribe to multiple providers to get all content. IMHO, this is what will happen if we don't have some reasonable regulations in place. Given the pubic statements from providers like AT&T, I don't trust them to do the right thing. They seem to consistently saying they will do what everyone fears.

Yamaha USB Microphone Speaker (PSG-01S)

PhoneBoy — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 06:55:30 +0000

The folks at In Store Solutions have sent me a rather interesting piece of gear for review: the Yamaha PSG-01S, which is a USB speakerphone that is compatible with Skype. When plugged into the computer with the USB cable, the operating system treats it similar to a USB headset and is recognized instantly as an audio and microphone device.

I don’t normally go with speakerphones, mostly because I don’t want to disturb people around me and I don’t want to sound bad to the other person. The Yamaha PSG-01S solves at least one of these problems. If you’re about 12 inches from the microphone or so, you sound as if you’re on a wired headset to the other person! If you’re a little farther away, you still sound like you’re on a speakerphone, but the echo is greatly reduced.

This device is peculiar in that it has an accelerometer in it. If you turn the device on its side, it beeps and the microphone portion of the device mutes. You can then just listen to the folks on Skype (or your favorite music, if you prefer). If you set the device vertical, the top of the device lights up, beeps, and the microphone is active.

As you can see, the device is brick-shaped and roughly the size of a Grande at Starbucks. It’s very lightweight, but solidly built.

There are also buttons on the side of the device. Theoretically they will go “on hook” and “off hook” for Skype, but I did not test this on a Windows machine, where there are drivers you can install that do this. On the Mac, they are inactive. However, the volume button and Rec/Mic button work on the Mac (the latter functions as a mute button).

The audio quality of the device was fantastic. Both sides of the conversation were outstanding audio quality. Considering how much I generally detest the audio on speakerphones, that’s saying something. In music playback mode, the device also sounds superb.

While I’ve said a lot of good things about this device, I personally wouldn’t buy it for two reasons. My own personal usage patterns don’t lend themselves to speakerphones, so it’s not a kind of device I would seek out in the first place. The second, and perhaps more important aspect, is the price. At $219 in the US Skype store, it’s well outside of my price range. However, if you need an excellent quality speakerphone and money is less of an object, I’d say get it.

Yamaha’s PSG-01S is the speakerphone version of a mullet (engadget.com)
Yamaha Skype-certified USB speakerphones (ubergizmo.com)

Comments

24 November 2009, Inbox Liquidation, Part 51 « The PhoneBoy Blog writes: [...] More on the Yamaha USB Speakerphone Gadget I reviewed: Jim Courtney sent me a followup letter about the Yamaha USB Speakerphone that I reviewed a few weeks ago. One of the things he points out is that a lot of people are put off by the price, as I mentioned as a concern in the review. If you can make that jump, however, the “on site” experience of using the gadget is quite good and can prove to be valuable. To that end, In Store Solutions wants to encourage user trial and will extend its return policy such that anyone purchasing during this promotion can return it, shipping prepaid but “no questions asked”, for a full credit until January 31, 2010. This gives purchasers a chance to make their own “on site” decision about its value in the end. Nice promo, guys! [...]

How Inbound VoIP Calls Could Happen on the iPhone

PhoneBoy — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 22:29:32 +0000

Imagine if you will, a VoIP service hooked into Apple’s Push Notification Service (APNS). An inbound call comes in on your VoIP service. The notification is pushed to your handset. From that notification, you can launch a VoIP app that essentially connects the incoming call to your iPhone or iPod Touch over WiFi.

While not perfect, this is basically a way around the whole lack of background applications on the iPhone. Any service provider could easily do this.

There are some logistics to work out with this system, such as what happens if APNS is delayed in delivering the message or the caller gets impatient and hangs up, but none of those problems are insurmountable.

So the question is: which service is going to implement this first?

Comments

27 September 2009, Ravens writes: iSip, a SIP client running on iPhoneOS has already implemented such a feature. A remote sip client is connected to your sip account and push notifications via APNS when an incoming call arrives. Works fine. Only Problem is, what to do if no WiFi network is available ? I think its need to implement a basic call forwarding to GSM when launching the app...
28 September 2009, Ruben Olsen writes: As Ravens said, iSIP is doing this - another client is Acrobits. You might want to check out my comparative review on such clients at http://bit.ly/adz5x There will be a followup post later today on why using the APNS is a very good idea, but a extremely bad implementation. @RubenOlsen
28 September 2009, Aswath Rao writes: I thought there are many apps that use this method, both in iPhone and Android. But I think this doesn't work in Touch because the wifi radio is turned off when the device goes into idle mode. In other words, there is no Push Notification service.
28 September 2009, Tsahi Levent-Levi writes: While this may work, it is an ugly workaround - a lot worse than what people are doing to plug holes in firewalls...
28 September 2009, PhoneBoy writes: An independent client is one thing, but one integrated with a service provider--or a service provider itself offering it--is quite another. I'd love it if Skype did that :)
29 September 2009, tom writes: you still have the problem on an itouch or an iphone with no SIM or a voice only SIM(such as prepaid). that problem is that the WiFi gets turned off when the screen goes blank. for me as a strictly prepaid type of guy it is very attractive to have an iphone with a voice only SIM but use VOIP most of the time over WiFi. the current solution is to use jailbreaking and apps that force the WiFi to stay on. but this is not at all ideal.
29 September 2009, Corvys writes: I say small companies may win the race to be the first, but Google will buy them all in order to be the first dominant player.

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