March 2006 Archives

Chris over at AsteriskBlog is working on providing some free beginner's Asterisk classes in South Carolina at a local library. He told me, "I think it could be a great advent to the community here, at least for those interested in telecommunications."

Hey, even if you think you know your Asterisk and Linux, you might still want to swing by his free classes. After all, there's nothing like a bunch of Linux/Asterisk geeks getting together in a library to share their knowledge! Maybe afterwards he can throw a really cool party. You know, like a Linux Quake Party.

A new public beta of Yahoo! Messenger with Voice is launching today, which you can download here. messenger.yahoo.com Yahoo! launched the international roll-out of Yahoo Phone In and Yahoo Phone Out back in December, and now today they are launching the general availability of Yahoo Phone In and Yahoo Phone Out for the U.S. Calls within the U.S. and to more than 30 other countries can be made for two U.S. cents a minute or less. Specific calling rates can be found at http://voice.yahoo.com. Pre-paid credit plans available in $10.00 and $25.00 increments.

For Yahoo Phone In you can select your own personal phone number and receive calls from your PC or mobile phone for $2.99/month or discounted to $29.90 a year which equates to $2.49/month. Comparatively, SkypeIn (also still in beta) is $12 for 3 months or $4/month - making Skype $1.01 more than Yahoo Phone In. Skype discounts their yearly subscription for SkypeIn at $38/year or $3.16/month which is $0.67 more per month than Yahoo Phone In when using Yahoo Phone In's yearly rate. You can also choose to have multiple phone numbers in different countries. In the beta service, country-based phone numbers are initially available in France, the United Kingdom, and the United States with additional country-based numbers available in the coming months.

Unlike Skype, Yahoo will come with free voicemail and it is integrated directly with Yahoo Mail, so you can retrieve your email and voicemail from Yahoo! Mail. Yahoo! Mail will also display the presence information of your buddies and enable you to call your buddies.

I spoke with Yahoo and they told me that as part of this beta release Yahoo with introduce ads at the bottom of the Yahoo Messenger client. "Yahoo! has made the strategic business decision to increase monetization of Yahoo! Messenger with the introduction of an unobtrusive ad in the client. As part of our thoughtful and considerate approach, we conducted a variety of usability tests and focus groups to ensure we are introducing it the right way. Our users told us that because we are providing a valuable free service, they accept ads. Ads will allow us to put even more resources behind developing and delivering compelling features."

A huge part of this announcement is that Yahoo told me they will be licensing Global IP Sound renowned VoiceEngine which ensures a high-quality VoIP call experience. The downloadable public beta release will be the first version with the GIPS codecs. Yahoo! Messenger with Voice is leveraging the GIPS VoiceEngine Multimedia infrastructure to deliver superb voice quality. GIPS Voice Engine Multimedia is a voice and video processing solution that handles all of the complex quality issues that come with IP communications including jitter delay, packet loss and acoustic echo. Yahoo Messenger doesn't currently have video, but I'm sure when they add it, they'll leverage GIPS's video processing algorithms.

Finally, they added a "Contact Search Bar". The new Contact Search Bar provides a fast way to find and quickly connect with friends and family. As people type their friends’ names, Yahoo! IDs, phone numbers, nicknames or any other information stored in their contact details, matching results will automatically populate the Contact Search Bar.

This version of Yahoo Messenger will leverage the Dialpad network for termination which Yahoo acquired last year.

RTX America, today announced U.S. general availability of PORTALphone, a hybrid, web-enabled cordless phone allowing consumers to view customized web content on a color display. It's a pretty cool phone and would love to review it, but alas I still have an RTX DualPhone I haven't tested. Soon though... soon...

In any event, the RTX PORTALphone, which was announced a couple of months ago, combines Internet Telephony (VoIP), standard telephony and personalized information delivery in an easy-to-use household cordless telephone. The phone is optimized for Casabi's platform to offer rich web content services that have traditionally been tethered to a PC. Customers can now access news, local traffic and weather reports, stock portfolios, entertainment, personal address books, buddy lists, instant messages and much more on the RTX PORTALphone.

According to RTX, the RTX PORTALphone provides better than toll quality voice for up to three simultaneous VoIP calls and allows customers to make and receive calls anywhere in and around the house. The included PORTALphone basestation simultaneously connects to a traditional telephone socket and a broadband Internet connection. The PORTALphone supports SIP-based VoIP telephony as well as standard landline (POTS) telephony.

The RTX PORTALphone enables carriers to differentiate and integrate services while enabling subscribers to personalize their telephony experience for each member of the family. This allows carriers to more effectively attract and retain subscribers and provide additional value-added services to offset the rapid decline in revenue associated with traditional voice calls.

"The RTX PORTALphone gives carriers a compelling opportunity to differentiate their VoIP services and add value beyond just voice," said Curtis Schmidek, Vice President of Marketing at RTX America. "And customers get the best of both worlds. They can have personalized rich web content and VoIP capabilities on a cordless telephone that seamlessly integrates with their traditional telephone line."

The PORTALphone operates on the newly opened 1.920-1.930GHz "DECT 6.0" spectrum to provide a WiFi-friendly, secure wireless connection for up to six cordless handsets. Its vibrant color screen also provides an ideal vehicle to view WML-based content and services.  The SIP-enabled LAN Cordless PORTALphone is the newest generation in the successful "DUALphone" family of products from RTX.

Casabi offers customers a powerful solution for tailoring content on the PORTALphone.  Unlike web surfing from the PC, Casabi sources, optimizes and delivers a combination of applications and services for the broadband-connected home phone.  For example, Casabi can deliver a user's personal phonebook, buddy list or message inbox directly to the handset.  The solution can also push time critical content, such as weather updates, traffic reports or calendar alarms, right to the handset when the user needs it most. Finally, users can choose to create profiles that personalize the home phone (with ring tones, content or information) in much that same way that many users personalize their cellular phones today.

"We are thrilled that RTX shares our vision for a smart home telephone," said Dave Weinstein, vice president of marketing and co-founder of Casabi.  "Powered by Casabi, the PORTALphone delivers valuable web-based content and services directly to the telephone handset, where and when they are most needed"

RTX PORTALphone Features:
-VoIP/landline hybrid phone
-Display web content on large, high-resolution back-lit color display
-DECT 6.0 cordless technology (WiFi-friendly)
-Supports up to three simultaneous VoIP calls
-Supports multiple phone numbers
-Multiple handset capability
-Speakerphone and headset jack (2.5 mm)
-Remotely upgradeable firmware
-Rechargeable, standard, replaceable batteries
-Range: Indoor 150 feet/Outdoor 1000 feet
-Distinctive ringing indicates landline or VoIP calls

Skylook has a new version of their popular add-on for Skype that adds Outlook integration. I've been meaning to try it out myself for quite some time. One of the nicest things about Skylook is it will auto-answer your missed calls, record the message, and store it in Outlook. No need to pay Skype a monthly fee for voicemail! Here are some screenshots...




Here are the highlights:

• No need for a Skype Voice Mail subscription
• Recordings saved as MP3 attachments
• Playback button in the Outlook toolbar
• Reply to messages with email, text or Skype call
• Forward messages to other contacts
• Manage your response just like you do with email - e.g. mark as unread, flag, copy to folder etc.
• Archive messages just like you archive email
• Answers Skype-to-Skype, SkypeIn and "add-to-conference" calls.
• Does not alter your Windows sound settings or drivers in any way
• Available in free trial, home and business versions only (not the academic or free versions)

Today GDS released GDS Voice Conferencing Solution for the Asterisk platform. GDS Voice Conferencing is a feature-rich enterprise voice conferencing solution built on top of native Asterisk MeetMe application. Amazing how many third-party companies are now developing applications for Asterisk. Indeed, within the VoIP industry we have the Skype Economy, and now we can add the "Asterisk Economy".

Here is a short overview:

• Multiple conference types (scheduled, recurrence, reservation-less)
• Intuitive web interface for conference management, personal contact management, user management and system administration
• Manage conference attributes like announce user leave/join, wait for marked user and associate contacts and its roles within the conference (listen only, admin mode etc.)
• Monitor live conferences (mute/un-mute participant, kick out participant, lock conference, view on line participants and its attributes etc.)
• Integrated personal contact management for simple invitation and notification
• Import existing contacts
• User roles based privileges
• Port resources management (TDM and VoIP)
• Recurrence and conflict conferences management
• Automatic email notifications and reminders
• API for integration with third party applications and more

Good article yesterday on Wired News about "How To Prevent Hearing Loss" now that we're all walking around with headphones on -- either with iPods or other MP3 players or even cell phones. Worth reading before it's too late and all you can do is read -- http://www.wired.com/news/columns/0,70434-0.html?tw=wn_index_3.

Didn't really think more than a quarter million people would catch the free live webcast by CBS SportsLine of the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament, but I was wrong -- last Thursday's games drew a record 268,000 simultaneous online video feeds, according to Mediaweek. This topped the previous record of 175,000 simultaneous online video feeds from the Live 8 concert. (Remember, these are simultaneous feeds.)

Was there a question about lost productivity during March Madness? Indeed!

In the past couple of weeks, I've commented about how music download prices all seem to be the same and about how record companies are bemoaning their falling CD sales (while not really acknowledging their booming online revenues).

Well, if you think CDs are too expensive here, how about these prices south of the border (down Mexico way)? The Beatles White album (double CD) for $49.80 and Green Day's American Idiot CD for $25.80!!!! Ouch!

Who buys at those prices?

Just forget about Web 2.0, or even VoIP 2.0 - we now have VoIPSupply.com 3.0! Ok, a bad metaphor, but I wanted to share this bit of news from VoIPSupply.com, one of the leading suppliers of VoIP equipment - and they're really great guys to boot. I've met several of their staff at past Internet Telephony Conference & Expo shows and they certainly know their VoIP stuff. Whether you need some "handholding" to figure out your VoIP needs or you know exactly what you want, VoIPSupply.com will certainly fulfill your VoIP needs. In any event, VoIP Supply recently announced the launch of VoIPSupply.com Version 3, new version of their website that features advanced functionality for online customers.

Here's the news...

VoIP Supply, LLC the leading provider of Voice over IP telephony products, software, and services, today announced the launch of VoIPSupply.com Version 3. This next generation site features advanced functionality that makes finding specific items within the robust online catalog effortless. In addition to the advanced functionality, VoIPSupply.com Version 3 features a section for bandwidth and VoIP service quote submission, the ability to view real time pre-owned inventory, Vendor Spotlights which focus on a specific vendor’s products, and increased informational content for better customer education.

“In order to exceed the ever changing expectations of our customers, it was necessary for us to effectively deliver a variety of changes that will continue to position VoIPSupply.com as the place to shop online for VoIP hardware, software, and services”, stated Benjamin P. Sayers, President and CEO of VoIP Supply, LLC.

To view the latest enhancements to VoIP Supply’s website, please visit www.voipsupply.com.

It's March Madness which means office pools, periodically getting the NCAA basketball tournament scores on the radio or the Internet during the work day. However, this year CBS Sportsline is offering free video streaming of the 56 basketball games in the first three rounds making it even more tempting to be a slacker while at work. I checked it out yesterday (yes while at work) and the video quality was pretty good. When you first pick a game to stream you go into a waiting queue and it tells you where you are in line. It said I was 19,432 in line. Ouch! I said forget that, I'll never get in. But noticed that every 30 seconds it updates the line queue and it dropped a few thousand, so I figured I'd wait it out. Sure enough I was in within about 5 minutes. The first game I picked was Boston College vs. Pacific, a really thriller going into double overtime. But wouldn't you know it, the video player said that due to "local airing restrictions" it was blacked out and I couldn't watch the game. Must be using IP address geolocation to figure out I lived near the Boston area. Technically, I live in Connecticut - in UCONN Husky territory (also my alma mater) and closer to the New York market than the Boston market, so this blackout algorithm seemed a bit overly strict to me.

So then I tried another game and was able to stream it. After watching about 2 minutes of the video & audio quality my curiousity was satisfied, I turned it off and I returned to work. But this got me thinking about sports fanatics that can't just "turn it off". I know several coworkers were worried they wouldn't be able to get their NCAA "fix" and check scores online since we use Websense, an Internet filtering software program to limit personal surfing, pornography, etc. We're not draconian about our Internet filtering - we do allow the sports category during lunch hours along with a 20 minute quota time that employees can use any time, which should be enough for anyone to check scores while not spending their entire workday "glued" to NCAA news coverage. Leveraging freedom + employee morale against employee productivity and abuse is always a challenge for any corporation.

Indeed my thoughts about employee productivity were confirmed by a USA Today article today which says, "As if the distractions of the March Madness tournament didn't bedevil bosses enough, advances in technology could reduce productivity to a crawl this year." It explains that free streaming video is affecting productivity in the workplace and adds "Then, there are the millions who plan on checking scores and contest pools online. The madness, which starts Thursday and concludes with the championship game April 3, is expected to have a significant impact on workplaces as perhaps no other major sporting event." According to the article, employers (as a whole) will lose $237 million in wages for every 13.5 minutes workers spend on the Internet tracking games.

The USA Today article states, "Everybody is in office pools. The games are on until I leave," says Graham Atkinson, principal of HR Staffing Solutions in Fayetteville, N.Y. He watches games on TV in his office and checks scores online. "You can't reach clients. You can't reach anybody. Many people just take personal days (off), and there's no question as to why. ... It takes over."

I wasn't the only one in the office experimenting with streaming NCAA basketball games. A coworker stopped by and said "Hey, did you know you can stream NCAA basketball games on CBS Sportsline?" I didn't ask him if he just did it for curiosity or if he actually watched the games, but it might explain why our Internet access was a little sluggish yesterday.

Ok everyone, come clean. How much time did you spend checking NCAA scores or streaming games while at work? Cleanse your soul and redeem yourself by confessing your sins in the comments section.

With Spring officially just around the corner -- it's this coming Monday, March 20 -- wondering if anyone has given thought to the gadgets of spring? (Winter holiday buying and summer beach/vacation times seem to get all of the attention.)

BTW, first day of Spring is the vernal equinox, one of the two days each year that the day and night are equal in length. (Thanks to www.equinox-and-solstice.com for the help.)

Anyway, back to the topic at hand -- gadgets. Any ideas?

Check out this news from Skype and their celebration of St. Patrick's Day. Is it me or is Skype discounting on just about every holiday? Just recently they had a Valentine's Day special. Oh well. I can't complain any time I can discounted SkypeOut credits, I'm a happy man. Remember to wear your Irish green with pride tomorrow!

So it's not just me that thinks that it's more than coincidence that so many music download sites charge 99 cents for a song.

Apparently both the U.S. Department of Justice and New York Attorney General Elliot Spitzer think so, too. Both are investigating potential price-fixing by online music sites -- at the core of it is whether the major record labels, such as Sony BMG Music, Warner Music Group, Universal Music Group and EMI Group, colluded to determine and set the price of music song downloads. (Napster anyone?)

All of this comes when these record labels are bemoaning falling CD sales, but neglecting to delight in the boom in online music sales. (Money in one pocket, money in the other pocket.)

Do I hear the intro to Pink Floyd's "Money" starting to well up in the background?

Let me know what you think about online music pricing ...

Reminder that streaming broadcasts of NCAA college basketball's spring tradition -- March Madness -- start today on NCAASports.com!

As I blogged about last week, today is the day that all new products with digital television receivers – including TVs, video recorders, set-top boxes and media center PCs with tuners built into the motherboard – must incorporate parental control capabilities with a new "open" version of the V Chip -- v.gis.

Like its older brother, the new chip is a device that enables televisions to filter content so that inappropriate material is not seen. The owner of the box himself or herself decides what is viewable and what is not -- the ultimate remote control.