VoIP & Gadgets Blog

Today, Skype announced that Skype for SIP is changing its name to Skype Connect. Guess the techie name "SIP" isn't exactly business-friendly, hence the name change. Today, they are also announcing that hat Skype Connect (formerly Skype for SIP) is officially out of beta.

By using Skype Connect with an existing PBX, your business can do the following:

• Make outbound calls from desktop phones to landlines and mobiles worldwide billed at Skype's standard per-minute calling rates;
• Receive inbound calls from Skype connected users worldwide by placing Skype's Click & Call buttons on their Web sites;
• Receive calls from landlines or mobile phones in the corporate PBX using Skype's online numbers that have been purchased separately; and
• Manage Skype calls using your existing PBX or UC systems' features such as call routing, automatic call distribution, conferencing, auto-attendant, voicemail, call recording and logging.

Since the beta launch of Skype Connect in March 2009, here are some of Skype's milestones:

• Skype Connect already has over 2,400 active global customers;
• Skype Connect is now certified to work with PBX and UC products from Avaya, Cisco, SIPfoundry, ShoreTel and other OEMs (see supported models here).
• Skype Connect also works with older TDM PBXs or Key Systems which can now add Skype calling capabilities through third-party IP gateways from AudioCodes, Grandstream and VoSKY (see supported models here).
• Launched Skype Manager, a simple web-based tool to centrally manage and control Skype usage in a company, and which enables a business to set-up Skype Connect;
• New dedicated customer support, including real-time chat, is now available for Skype Connect customers and Skype Manager administrators directly through Skype Manager;
• In addition, we've been enrolling VARs and system integrators in our new Skype Channel Partner Program and training them to support our business customers. We will share more details on this program soon.

Perhaps the biggest milestone is "dedicated customer support". Lack of access to customer support has been a huge complaint on the consumer side. In any business, having access to technical support is critical. Though I wonder if "phone" support will be available? The milestone listed only mentions "real-time" chat. I have a conference call with Skype in 15 minutes, so I'll ask and update this post then.

Update (12:29pm):
I recorded the call. Below is the podcast recording I had with David Gurlé, the GM of the Skype for Business team and Chaim Haas, Skype's PR representative. It definitely has some interesting "nuggets" about Skype and in particular Skype 5.0. Worth a listen. Some interesting tidbits include:
- David said customers are happy with text-chat, but Voice support will be available if customers request it.
- In the Skype 5.0 beta the limit for multi-party is 5.
- Skype 5.0 will launch in a couple of weeks

Netflix for the iPhone and iPod Touch has arrived! You can ditch the Netflix for iPhone & iPod Touch hack I wrote about. You can be legit. It is here my friends! Download it now here. Then sign-in, pick a video, and start watching over Wi-Fi or 3G. One cool feature is Resume. It's a button at the top of the screen that lets you go back to the last video you were watching.

Here's the release of the news:
Netflix App Now Available for iPhone and iPod Touch

Free App Enables Netflix Members to Instantly Watch TV Episodes and Movies Streamed from Netflix to iPhone and iPod touch

Netflix, Inc. (Nasdaq: NFLX) today announced the availability of its free Netflix App for iPhone and iPod touch, allowing Netflix members on plans starting at just $8.99 a month to instantly watch a vast selection of TV episodes and movies streamed to their iPhone or iPod touch at no additional cost.

The Netflix App is available for free from the App Store on iPhone and iPod touch or at www.itunes.com/appstore/.

"Apple has changed the game for mobile devices," said Reed Hastings, Netflix co-founder and chief executive officer. "We're excited that our members can now carry Netflix around in their pockets and instantly watch movies and TV shows streamed from Netflix right to their iPhone or iPod touch."

The Netflix App delivers a high-quality viewing experience, a broad array of movie and TV choices and a clean, intuitive interface. It is available via both Wi-Fi and 3G networks. TV episodes and movies are conveniently organized into a variety of categories based on members' personal preferences, popular genres, new arrivals and members' individual instant Queues. Members can choose a movie or TV episode from any of the lists and just tap the innovative Multi-Touch user interface to watch instantly or to save the title for viewing later.

Additionally, users have the option of fast-forwarding and rewinding the video stream, and stopping at any time. When users want to start watching again, the video stream starts exactly where it was stopped, even on a different device capable of streaming from Netflix.

The Netflix App supports any iPhone or iPod touch device running iOS version 3.13 or later.

Both Trend Micro and Symantec have announced they are exhibiting at MSPWorld co-located with TMC's ITEXPO in Los Angeles. I'm a huge fan of both Symantec and Trend Micro. They both make very good antivirus, anti-Spam and Internet security software. Symantec also makes backup software in hosted and customer premise versions. I've used several of their products in the past. Can't wait to check them out when I attend ITEXPO / MSPWorld in early October. As I already recently mentioned, ITEXPO is beating estimates and MSPWorld is doing quite nicely as well. Hope to see you at the show in Los Angeles.

Gmail is already many user's centralized communications portal - an always-open browser window. It offers access to our email, chat, contacts, calendar, documents, and soon it might add browser-based VoIP.

According to CNET, Google has started testing Gmail-integrated VoIP, which would enable users to make phone calls directly from your browser.

Google already offers several voice offerings, including Google Voice, Google Talk, and the recently acquired SIP-based Gizmo5 softphone client. To be honest, Google Talk and Gizmo5 are sort of redundant. Google should consolidate the two clients. It'll be interesting to see if users embrace browser-based telephony or if they'll stick with tried-and-true softphone clients like Skype.

Interactive Intelligence sent me their new Interaction SIP Station to check out and review. It's an interesting little product that aims to replace big bulky desktop SIP phones with a simple little SIP-based Power over Ethernet (PoE) box that has a headset jack for connecting any standard headset. The obvious market is call centers where agents often take calls using a headset and a softphone application and have no need for a desktop phone with a full touch-tone keypad, speakerphone, handset, etc. In fact, often the handset stays cradled and the agent simply answers the call with the headset, which essentially means the desktop phone is a glorified PBX-to-headset converter. Why waste valuable desk space and money on a phone when all you really need is a headset that can connect to your IP-PBX over the LAN?

Enter Interactive Intelligence's SIP Station. It's very small - only 4.5"x4.5" and 1.5" high, it's as simple and as basic as you can get, sporting only 5 buttons, including answer/hang-up, emergency speed dial button, volume up, volume down, and mute/unmute. For ports it has a headset jack, PoE LAN port, and PC port. Lastly, it has a LED on top for various status indicators used for troubleshooting, i.e. blinking, orange, blue, or red. The SIP Station comes with a desk-mounting plate and a headset hanger for docking your headset.

Installing the SIP Station was a snap. Because the SIP Station only works with Interactive Intelligence's IP-PBXs (CIC and EIC), I had two methods of testing this. I could have Interactive Intelligence send me a CIC or EIC IP-PBX and register the SIP Station locally or I could simply VPN to their corporate demo IP-PBX. Since I wasn't testing the IP-PBX itself, it made the most sense to simply VPN into their IP-PBX using a Cisco ASA 5505 router.

Interactive Intelligence sent me two SIP Stations pre-configured with the SIP credentials to register to their demo IP-PBX. I connected each to the ASA 5505, which supports Power over Ethernet so it could power the SIP Stations directly. The units went through their bootup process, flashing orange periodically, until they registered and the LED stayed solid blue. Like many IP phones, the SIP Stations leverage a TFTP server to acquire their settings and firmware. For the headsets I simply used the VXI 10V, a relatively inexpensive headset that supports a quick disconnect cord.

Next, I installed the Interaction Client software on two PCs to perform some of the call control functionality, such as entering a phone number to dial. Once installed, I dialed from 8001 (SIP Station 1) to 8002 (SIP Station 2). SIP Station 2 rang and I saw a Toast popup window from the Interaction Client in the lower-right corner. I had the choice to answer the call via the Interaction Client or simply pressing the handset icon on the SIP Station to answer the call. After answering the call I has one of my co-workers take one of the headsets and we had a one minute conversation to check out the audio quality. Both of us felt the audio was excellent

I should point out that since their is no dialpad on the SIP Station, to ensure safety (i.e. PC crashes so no dialing software) there is an emergency button on the SIP Station which will speed dial a pre-configured emergency number set by the administrator, i.e. 911.

Overall, the SIP Stations performed quite well in my tests. I contacted Interactive Intelligence to discuss why they developed this product.

Here's my interview:

Q: Why did Interactive Intelligence feel the need to develop this product? Cost savings by eliminating the desktop phone since many agents/users use a headset + Interaction Client any way? Any other reasons? Because it's small / portable / pocketable?

A: Our customers were expressing a need for a more cost-effective and reliable alternative to the IP desk phone. The IP desk phones, while typically offering sufficient functionality, were getting increasingly pricey. When our customers tried to use USB headsets in conjunction with a softphone, many experienced reliability and voice quality issues. Finally, many of our contact center customers - especially those who would staff up and down frequently - expressed the need for a more compact device to make better use of limited desktop and storage space. The Interaction SIP Station also gives us an opportunity to put our name and logo on the agent's desk.

Q: What is the price of the Interaction SIP Station?
The Interaction SIP Station™ list price is $49. This is compared to IP phones today that commonly run between $110 and $350 apiece.

Q: How long has this been in development
The Interaction SIP Station™ became generally available March 2010. The company began working on developing the product in August of 2008 and the idea with graphics started a year prior to that.

Q: Why not allow other IP-PBXs to use the SIP Station? I guess one difficulty is you would need a softphone similar to the Interaction Client to integrate with it since there is no dialpad to make outbound calls. Still, many call centers only RECEIVE phone calls and aren't allowed to make outbound calls, so in theory this product could have a market niche for 3rd party IP-PBXs not made by Interactive Intelligence.

We wanted an affordable, reliable, and simple device that would highlight and promote our software - in particular, the Interaction Client.  However, the main reason we are not supporting or selling the Interaction SIP Station for use with other IP-PBXs is because our PBX is specifically designed to simplify the setup and configuration through our provisioning interface.

[end interview]

I think it's fine that Interactive Intelligence wants to target the SIP Station strictly for users of their IP-PBX products. However, it got me thinking. They're leveraging all industry standard stuff - TFTP and DHCP options for provisioning and the SIP protocol. I don't see why this wouldn't work with other IP-PBX manufacturers so they can take advantage of this very inexpensive ($49) PoE phone device. Curious, I decided to logon to the SIP Station's web interface to see if I could get it to work on trixbox Pro, an Asterisk-based IP-PBX.

From the web interface I went to the Quick Setup, entered the SIP Registrar settings, the port number (5060) and the line settings (SIP credentials - username / password) as seen here:


Next I changed the SIP transport protocol from TCP to UDP, which is used by most Asterisk distros, including trixbox Pro:


Lastly, I rebooted the SIP Station and it went blue (registered). With no dialpad and no softphone integration between trixbox Pro and the SIP Station all I could do is make inbound calls to the SIP Station. I dialed from my Aastra 67i to the SIP Station by dialing extension 143 and the SIP Station rang. I answered the call using the button on the SIP Station and was able to transmit audio both ways. Success! I now had a $49 inbound calling station. Well, they may not support 3rd party IP-PBXs, but it works.

Specs:

• G.711, G.723.1, G.749A/B, G.722
• Acoustic echo cancellation: G.148-2004 compliant, 64ms tail length
• Adaptive jitter bugger: 300ms
• Voice Activity Detection
• Comfort Noise Generation
• Packet Loss Concealment
• DTMF Relay (RFC 2833)
• Web-based management
• Autoprovisioning for firmware and configuration file upgrade
• RJ-9 headset port
• Wall / desk mounting (optional)
• Keys: Mute, volume up/down, Emergency Speed dial, Pickup/Disconnect
• Multifunction LED: Idle, On mute, Connected
• DHCP Client
• NTP Client

Ratings Score Installation Features Usability Performance Value Overall

Conclusion:
All in all, this is an impressive little box featuring Power Over Ethernet, virtually plug and play operation, full SIP support, and excellent audio quality. The fact that it works with any standard RJ9 headset is a plus. I think Interactive Intelligence, who has a large community of call center customers will do quite well with this product. Now that I let the cat out of the bag that it works with any SIP-based IP-PBX for inbound calls, they may even get some interest from other users.

Microsoft just announced they are exhibiting at  MSPWorld co-located with TMC's ITEXPO in Los Angeles. ITEXPO is already beating estimates and MSPWorld is doing quite nicely as well.

So why should you attend MSPWorld?

Here's an overview:

Philadelphia, the home of the Liberty Bell wants bloggers to pay up or shut up. The crack in the Liberty Bell just grew wider. That's right, forget your free speech rights, because according to Philadelphia it isn't free. It'll cost you $300 if you run a blog with any ads that creates even 1 cent of income.

According to a Philadelphia newspaper:

For the past three years, Marilyn Bess has operated MS Philly Organic, a small, low-traffic blog that features occasional posts about green living, out of her Manayunk home. Between her blog and infrequent contributions to ehow.com, over the last few years she says she's made about $50. To Bess, her website is a hobby. To the city of Philadelphia, it's a potential moneymaker, and the city wants its cut.

In May, the city sent Bess a letter demanding that she pay $300, the price of a business privilege license.

So she earned $50 and has to pay out $300? Like most people, she didn't think placing ads on her blog classified her blog as a "business". Of course, the city only knows about the ads you're placing on your blog if you report that income on your taxes. So it's the honest bloggers who are being screwed. I'm not advocating being a tax cheat, but if ever there was a reason to not report taxes, this would be it. Maybe she'll join the Taxed Enough Already (TEA) Party?

Another blogger, Sean Barry on his blog Circle of Fits, hosted on the free Blogspot earned just $11 in profit over two years and also received a letter from the city.

Barry wrote on his blog Friday

Circle of Fits is a labor of love for the most part. I re-launched it in Sept. 2008  as therapy...as a project  that could allow me to reconnect to a long dormant creative writing/ side of my life trapped under years of doubt, loss and laziness...and inspired into fruition by the snapshots of the last year of my late sister's life.
...
...
I never expected Circle of Fits to "make money" or be deemed a "business"... I put ads on it as an experiment, and I don't ever expect anyone to click on them..I don't even know how to put the time in to learn how to control which ones are being presented.

I for one have never heard of a "license" to blog.

Fine, if they want to play it that way and consider hobbyist blogging in the basement as a "business", then two can play that game. Since you are a "business", you can now safely deduct your Internet costs (~$400/year) and computer on your federal income tax return. You can also deduct your home office and a percentage of your electricity, mortgage, heating, etc. Also, you can deduct losses for 5 years, which should more than offset the $300. Of course, these deductions really only work if you don't take the standard deduction on your federal income tax. And if the IRS agent comes knocking, just say "Hey, my stupid city says I'm running a business. Take it up with them."

Teevox, founded by former MIT students is an iPhone app that allows you to remotely control watching Hulu and Netflix on your computer. According to Techcrunch, Hulu and Netflix are just the beginning. I use Orb and PlayOn for remote media access, which are similar - especially PlayOn which supports Hulu and Netflix. Speaking of PlayOn, I just noticed last night that when I went to http://m.mobile.tv within Safari on my iPhone it forced me to add PlayOn to my Home Screen. I could no longer use PlayOn from within Safari. Of course, that may have something to do with Apple delaying the approval of the PlayOn native app and finally PlayOn decided to just go with their HTML5 workaround and add a home screen icon to circumvent the Apple application process. Still, I wish PlayOn didn't remove the access from within Safari. I may not want to switch out of Safari to launch and use PlayOn. Before I was able to switch Safari tabs between PlayOn and other websites I was viewing.

In any event, check out the cool video demo of Teevox below:

Google has finally announced the long-awaited voice and video chat for Linux. Head on over to gmail.com/videochat to download the plug-in and start chatting with your buds. No install via RPM is available yet. Though RPM installs are for wusses. Real Linux gurus compile from source, baby!

In a cool video titled 2010: A "Case" Odyssey, you can see how Case-mate lets you customize your iPhone. Available now for iPhone 3GS and soon for iPhone 4, www.imakemycase.com lets you bring your cellular accessory dreams to life.

Scitable is an offshoot of Nature Publishing Group, which is the publisher of Nature, Scientific American and about 70 other magazines. I interviewed Vikram Savkar, Scitable's SVP of publishing to learn more about Scitable and how this online social network is changing the face of learning in the scientific community.

Vikram, "We're one of the leading publishers in science research in the world. What we've never done until recently is publish something for the scientific education community. We always published research for researchers, but we came to feel that there was a real possibility that there aren't going to be enough researchers in the next generation to do the important scientific work that needs to be done."

He added, "40% of students that start their college years in the U.S. drop out by their second year. That's an enormous loss and it suggests that there is an alienation between this young generation and the way science is being taught. So we decided to jump into the game and invest a lot of our thought and time in creating a new approach to teaching science - and the fruit of that is Scitable."

Vikram went on to explain exactly what Scitable is. "Scitable is an online learning space for science and what that means is that it has a library of very high quality content that we have created." He continued, "It's not crowd-sourced Wiki(pedia) content. It's content that editorially we've commissioned and reviewed and vetted in all the life sciences."

Some great news from TMC that I thought I'd share. Internet Telephony Conference and Expo (ITEXPO) pre-registration is trending ahead of last year by 70%! I'm obviously going to be there to check out and write about the latest happenings in VoIP, 4G, smart grid, cloud communications, and more. I get some of my best news scoops there and obviously get to do some social networking with some leading industry insiders. Check out TMC's news:

TMC Announces Pre-Registration for ITEXPO Trending 70 Percent Ahead of 2009

Expanded Content, New Collocated Events, and Increased Sponsor and Exhibitor Participation Set to Make the 22^nd Edition of ITEXPO the Best Ever

Norwalk, CT, August 18, 2010-- TMC today announced that pre-registration for their upcoming ITEXPO West 2010, taking place October 4-6 in the Los Angeles Convention Center, has increased by 70 percent over last year's show.

Through organic growth, substantial vendor support, and the addition of several collocated conferences, the 22^nd edition of ITEXPO is on track to be the largest in terms of attendance and participating vendors since the show's inception in 1999.

"We've invested significant resources to make ITEXPO the world's leading communications and technology event, and we're thrilled with the response we're seeing for the upcoming October show," commented Rich Tehrani, CEO and group editor-in-chief of TMC."Anyone and everyone involved in the communications and technology industries can find interesting and valuable content at ITEXPO, and we're looking forward to hosting a record number of attendees, speakers, media, and exhibitors at our upcoming show."

ITEXPO delivers unrivaled educational programs that teach service providers, resellers, enterprises, SMBs, and government agencies how to select IP-based voice, video, fax, and unified communications solutions to purchase or resell. The show also provides the industry's most active forum for buyers, sellers and manufacturers to forge relationships, create partnerships, and close deals.

The 22^nd iteration of ITEXPO features a new level of content, with more industry experts, more sessions, and more companies showcasing their latest technologies - many at these collocated events that have now become a central part of ITEXPO:
 

 

1. 4G Wireless Evolution (4GWE)
2. M2M Evolution Conference (Machine-to-Machine)
3. App-Time Mobile Developers Forum
4. Cloud Communications Summit
5. Voice Interconnect and Peering Conference (VIPeering)
6. SIP Tutorial
7. ChannelVision Expo (CVx)
8. MSPWorld
9. Social-CRM Expo
10. Lightwave Optical Networks for Enterprises (ONE)
11. Smart Grid Summit
12. Smart Products Ecosystem Conference (SPEC)
13. StartupCamp: Communications Edition

TMC invites past attendees, and first time evaluators to examine the event Web sites, to see how ITEXPO has evolved. Each aspect of the global communications spectrum is represented, to provide attendees with a unique opportunity to examine the issues, discuss the trends, and learn more about new technology that enhances the way we work, live, and communicate.

The current lineup of ITEXPO Keynote Addresses is also available online. This year's lineup includes Alcatel-Lucent, CA Technologies, BT Ribbit, ShoreTel, Fonality, and Salesforce.com.

Registration for ITEXPO conference programs is open on the event Web site. For exhibit and sponsorship information, please contact Joe Fabiano. Members of the media can reserve press credentials by contacting Todd Keefe at todd@firpr.com.

About TMC:
Technology Marketing Corporation (TMC) is a global, integrated media company helping clients build communities in print, in person and online.TMC publishes Customer Interaction Solutions, INTERNET TELEPHONY, Unified Communications, and NGN magazines.TMCnet, TMC's Web site, is the leading source of news and articles for the communications and technology industries. TMCnet is read by two million unique visitors each month on average worldwide, according to Webtrends.TMCnet has ranked within the top 3,500 in Quantcast's Top U.S. sites, placing TMCnet in the nation's top .03% most visited Web sites. In addition, TMC produces ITEXPO; 4GWE Conference and M2M Evolution (in conjunction with Crossfire Media); Digium|Asterisk World (in conjunction with Digium); and Smart Grid Summit (in conjunction with Intelligent Communication Partners). TMC serves other communications market segments with the Cloud Communications Summit (in conjunction with Light and Electric); CVx ChannelVision Expo (in conjunction with Beka Publishing); and MSPWorld™ (in conjunction with the MSP Alliance).

TMC also serves technology professionals with industry-specific Web sites: InfoTech Spotlight, 4GWE, M2M Evolution.com, Smart-Grid.TMCnet.com, Smart Products Ecosystem, Robotics.TMCnet.com, Cable.TMCnet.com, Satellite Spotlight, Green.TMCnet.com, Healthcare.TMCnet.com, and Education.TMCnet.com.

Skype is now available on Verizon Wireless multimedia phones on the BREW platform. What's interesting about this partnership is that it is NOT VoIP - the call is actually routed over Verizon Wireless's network. It requires a cellular connection and won't work over WiFi. Additionally, you actually use your Verizon minutes when you make a Skype to mobile or landline number. I suppose that's better than having to pay to charge up your SkypeOut minutes. As long as you don't go over your monthly allotment of minutes the call is free. But why wouldn't you just dial directly from the native Verizon dialer? What's the point?

Anyway, here are the three charging methods:

Skype-to-Skype calls, to or from your mobile, computer or TV

These calls are completely free*. They don't count towards your Verizon Wireless minutes allowance.

Calls to another mobile number or landline number in the US

These calls count towards your Verizon Wireless minutes.

Calls to an international mobile number or landline number

These calls are great value - pay for these using Skype Credit or one of our subscriptions. For example, you can make unlimited calls† to landlines in Guadalajara, Mexico City and Monterrey for just $6.99 per month.

The real value though is inbound calls. You can receive inbound calls from your Skype buddies (or your Skype DID phone number) seamlessly from any Verizon BREW-based phone.

The Plantronics M100 Bluetooth headset has arrived and here is my unboxing + review. The first feature you should be aware of is the dual mics on the M100. When the dual mics are combined with the built-in Digital Signal Processing (DSP) and Plantronics wind and background noise reduction technology, in theory you have the best damn sounding headset on the planet. But before I we determine that, first the unboxing video...

Here's a couple photos of the Plantronics M100:

Ear-bud and microphones side


Plantronics M100 Rear showing Micro-USB charging connection

Review Analysis:
I paired the M100 with my iPhone 3GS. It didn't ask for a PIN/passcode, but the default is 0000 if it does ask. The M100 supports multipoint so you can pair the headset with two Bluetooth devices, a very convenient feature. After pairing the M100 with my iPhone 3GS, the first thing I noticed was an extra battery meter on the iPhone screen. This is a pretty cool feature. It enables you to monitor the level of the headset battery on your iPhone screen. No more guessing how much battery life your BT headset has. I haven't seen this in any other Bluetooth headset I've tested on the iPhone, but obviously Apple must have "baked in" this functionality into the phone firmware to support it. I asked Plantronics about the battery meter and they said this is the first headset of theirs supporting this feature, but other headset manufacturers have the ability to do this as well. Plantronics said they are working on adding a battery meter to Blackberry and Android devices.

In any event, the battery meter is located in the top right corner as seen here (located in-between the Bluetooth logo and the 84% iPhone battery life):


Testing Call Quality

Here are the new features / bug fixes