VoIP & Gadgets Blog

CloudTC and N-Able Acquired

By Peter on Wednesday, May 22

"Australian-owned IP PBX systems company, Vixtel, has completed the acquisition of Silicon Valley based glass phone developer, CloudTC, for an undisclosed figure,"...

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Tagged hosted pbx, itexpo, mergers, phone system, RMM

ProfitBricks: Where InfiniBand Meets Cloud 2.0

By Rich Tehrani on Wednesday, May 22

In a recent meeting with William Toll and Pete Johnson of ProfitBricks, the pair were ecstatic to explain how their company has...

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Tagged amazon, cloud computing, data center, ec2, infiniband, interop, profitbricks, public cloud, technology

Proactive Care Puts Operators One Step Ahead

By Peter Bernstein on Monday, May 20

By Thomas Fuerst, Senior Director, Multimedia Solutions MarketingAlcatel-Lucent

Monitoring and analyzing network data proactively saves operators time, money, and customers.

When a network service fails, it makes headlines, ticks off customers, and costs that network operator money. When a failure is headed off in advance, on the other hand, there might not be praise-laden headlines, but it's newsworthy nonetheless.

The traditional approach to customer care has typically been: a disgruntled customer calls customer service and complains of a service interruption or problem; the rep, learning of it for the first time, sends out a technician the next day, and eventually finds a resolution. Often, customers are left feeling put out, and the operator has spent significant time and money resolving the problem. Even worse is the customer who doesn’t call and just feels this is ‘typical’ of their network experience. That is a customer at risk of leaving.

Proactive care flips this dynamic on its head by using predictive analytics to identify potential outages or errors in the network and stop them before they occur. It consists of three main parts: one, constantly monitoring and measuring data on the network; two, real-time analysis of the data; and three, the most important, acting on that analysis to fix the problem.

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Tagged Alcatel-Lucent, big data, customer care, KPIs, network monitoring, procativecare | Responses

10 Lessons from Volleyball

By Peter on Monday, May 20

I've played volleyball for over 25 years. I have traveled around the US to watch the pros live - both indoor...

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Tagged hiring, strategy, volleyball

Emerging Threats Combats a Million Plus Pieces of New Malware a Week

By Rich Tehrani on Friday, May 17

There are 250,000 plus new pieces of malware being produced each day equating to one piece per person in the US in...

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Tagged emerging threats, interop, malware, security

NFV-Based Software Telcos Need OSS/BSS Interoperability

By Rich Tehrani on Friday, May 17

One of the goals of ETSI NFV is to allow new entrants to provide solutions to carriers based on software instead of...

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Tagged bss, carrier, ericsson, huawei, interoperability, nfv, nokia siemens networks, nsn, oss, sdn, software telco

SysAid's Lifshitz: The Cloud Will Dominate ITSM Market

By Rich Tehrani on Thursday, May 16

Cloud computing has really become a household word with mainstream media outlets running stories on television about the growth in the space...

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Tagged help desk, itsm, mdm, sysaid

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Logitech Wireless Headset H820e Review

May 9, 2013

The Logitech Wireless Headset H820e targets the UC space nicely, sporting an amazing 300 foot wireless range, call indicator LED to let co-workers know you're on the phone, and wideband audio. The H820e is available in mono and dual versions and I took the dual version for a spin.

After initially charging up the headset I made a test call using Skype. After putting on the headset the first thing I noticed was how well this headset seems to block out ambient noise. They did a good job with the speaker padding and it's also worth mentioning they were kind enough to put padding on the underside of the TOP of the headset so you have some cushion and comfort when the headset is on your head all day.

Posted in Accessories, Computer Hardware, Gadgets, Headsets, Lync, Microsoft, Unified Communications

Tagged: 820e, echo cancellation, headset, logitech, lync, microsoft, review, uc, unified communications : Related Tags: wireless headset, ambient noise, frequency response, worth mentioning, using skype, headset

Nokia Lumia 928 Camera Shootout Against Galaxy S III & iPhone 5

May 8, 2013

Nokia put up some comparison footage from the PureView 8.7MP camera of the Nokia's Lumia 928, which is rumored to be the Verizon version of the popular AT&T Nokia Lumia 920. The video shows how it compares against the iPhone 5 and Samsung’s Galaxy S III when capturing video on a New York roller coaster. The results show the 928's superior color saturation, sharper focus and fewer overexposures from bright light sources than the competition. You can see how well the optical image stabilization works in the Lumia 920 by checking out this article and video.

The website also confirms rumors that it will feature 8.7 megapixel resolution and optical image stabilization, which surprisingly is identical to last year’s Lumia 920.

Posted in Apple, Gadgets, Mobile Phones, Wireless

Tagged: 920, camera, galaxy s3, iphone, lumia, lumia 928, nokia, s4, samsung, verizon : Related Tags: optical image, nokia lumia, image stabilization, lumia, nokia, video

SIP Trunking - What You Don't Know Could Cost You!

April 30, 2013

SIP trunking is one of the best ways for businesses to save money on telecom costs, but it's not without its pitfalls, including: not all SIP trunking providers are created equal, latency / QoS issues, SLAs, and more. If you are the decision maker trusting your critical business phone calls it's perhaps easier to choose an expensive PRI over SIP trunks because you know it will work. It's like the old adage "No one ever got fired for buying IBM", which was later adopter by Cisco. The fear of choosing a SIP trunk, even if it saves hundreds of dollars may be too much for a decision maker to put their neck on the line if voice quality issues crop up.

TMC in conjunction with Sonus Networks is putting on one-day "Putting SIP to Work" seminars across the country.

Posted in Lync, SIP, TMCnet, VoIP

Tagged: education, seminar, sip, sip trunking, sonus networks, tmc : Related Tags: enterprise communication, presented sonus, service providers, unified communications, technologies watch, trunking

Vonage Mobile Adds Video Calls

April 18, 2013

After 12 years as a voice-only business, Vonage is finally making its first foray into video conferencing with the announcement of free video calling for Vonage Mobile. The app now features voice & video calling, texting, photo sharing, and location sharing.

Vonage Mobile video calling works over both Wi-Fi and 3G/4G and on Apple iOS and Android platforms. Features include the ability to toggle back-and-forth between video and voice, flip camera views and mute your call. The app also features limited time free calling to U.S., Canada, and Puerto Rico.

Posted in Android, Apple, Mobile Phones, Video Conferencing, VoIP, Vonage, Wireless

Tagged: 35, 4g, android, apple, video calls, vonage, vonage mobile, wireless : Related Tags: video calling, vonage mobile, video, calling, vonage, mobile

Grandstream GXP2200 Review

April 8, 2013

The Grandstream GXP2200 Gigabit IP phone is another Android-based IP phone in a growing line of Android-based IP phones that includes the Panasonic KX-UT670, CloudTC, and the ESI 250. A couple years ago I espoused the benefits of a tablet-based desktop phone running either iOS or Android, so that this "universal" device becomes your portable tablet/computer and your desktop IP phone. We're not quite there yet, since all the Android desktop IP phones are not battery powered and require either a Power over Ethernet (PoE) or AC adapter for power. Further, as with anything, cost will play a role.

Posted in Android, Google, Lync, SIP, Skype, TMCnet, Unified Communications, VoIP

Tagged: android, angry birds, grandstream, gxp2200, ip phone, review, skype : Related Tags: angry birds, desktop phone, voice dialer, phone number, standard android, phone

Detailed WebRTC Research Report Out

April 1, 2013

Well, it was inevitable - a detailed and possibly first WebRTC research report is out with full analysis of the WebRTC marketplace & value chain. I've been blogging on VoIP since 2004 and writing about VoIP since 1996, when I wrote what I believe was the first VoIP product review (Vocaltec). But I've never been as excited about a new VoIP technology as I am WebRTC. WebRTC is going to be huge, which is why TMC launched a show WebRTC Conference & Expo focused exclusively on WebRTC.

So I'm interested to check out this research report which measures 160 pages in length, including detailed commentary, analysis, forecasts and over 50 tables and charts with over 70 WebRTC companies discussed.

Posted in Google, TMCnet, Unified Communications, Video Conferencing, VoIP, WebRTC

Tagged: conference, disruptive analysis, expo, google, research report, webrtc : Related Tags: webrtc telco, research report, strategic issues, developers webrtc, months years, webrtc

Skype for Windows Phone 8 Gets HD First & More Feature Love

March 19, 2013

Today, Skype released an update for the Skype for Windows Phone 8 Preview, version 2.4, which for the first time ever adds HD video calling to a mobile version of Skype. This version leverages the hardware acceleration capability of Windows Phone 8 to enable the HD video experience.

It offers VGA video (640x480) on lower end handsets and 720P HD on higher-end devices including the Nokia Lumia 920, HTC 8X and Samsung Ativ S. Importantly, the app can intelligently determines the best quality available based on the speed of your connection. They also added People Hub integration, landscape mode for calls, and the ability to switch between front and back cameras.

Finally, the Microsoft acquisition of Skype appears to be paying dividends. Get the updated version now from Windows Phone Store.

Posted in Skype, TMCnet, Unified Communications, Video Conferencing, VoIP

Tagged: hd, nokia lumia 920, skype, video calls, video conferencing, voip, windows phone 8 : Related Tags: windows phone, skype windows, skype, version, windows, phone

Windows 8 Underscan / Overscan & HDMI Resolution Problem Solved!

February 25, 2013

I had a problem with Windows 8 having underscan (& overscan) issue where the screen was not filling entire TV screen over a HDMI connection, resulting in abnormally large black borders. Who wants to watch 1920x1080 (1080p) HD video content with black borders? Well, after some extensive researching I was able to resolve the issue.

The specific computer I'm using is a Dell Zino HD with a ATI / AMD 4330 video card, which was running Windows 7, but I upgraded to Windows 8 and which was when the problems began. On Windows 7, you simply install AMD/ATI's Catalyst Control Center (CCC) and then you can launch CCC and change the underscan/overscan settings to fill your whole screen.

Posted in Home Entertainment, Microsoft, Video Hardware & Software

Tagged: black borders, edid, full screen, hdmi, overscan, problem, resolution, startup, underscan, windows 8 : Related Tags: underscan overscan, black borders, windows, video, underscan, issue

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