December 2008 Archives

According to Techcrunch, we can soon expect to see a 7" or 9" iPod touch, which would make it more akin to a tablet PC than a portable music & video player with app support. The app support is a key point here. One of the problems with the iPod touch and similarly the iPhone is the relatively small screen. Sure, it's bigger than most portable devices, but it's still not quite large enough for optimal productivity.

By stepping up the screen size, not only will it improve productivity, you may even see users actually "work" within business apps such as Excel on the iPod touch. Try working in Excel on the iPod touch or iPhone on such a small screen is nearly impossible. In fact, I should point out that natively the iPhone and iPod touch don't support Excel. There is a workaround however.

In what could portend several acquisitions in the VoIP space, Broadsoft has acquired rival competitor Sylantro Systems, both makers of softswitches and both heavily involved in carrier infrastructure, IMS, and converged services. TMCnet's Greg Galitzine has the full details on the acquisition.

With the global slowing economy, even the VoIP industry which has had exponential growth over the last 13 years, is being affected by the global downturn. No doubt we will see more consolidation within the VoIP space and likely a few bankruptcies as well.

I for one can't believe it's been 13 years since VoIP was first invented. It's amazing to think I've been covering the VoIP industry for over a decade, when most people have only heard of VoIP in the last 5 years or so. I still believe VoIP has not reached its full potential and will still be one of the few bright spots in the near future because of its cost-savings potential and other factors that will drive customer and carrier adoption.

As you may have read, Digium announced a sharp rise in Asterisk downloads for 2008 registering in a whopping 1.5 million downloads for 2008. That got me thinking just how does Asterisk & AsteriskNOW compare with Fonality's trixbox CE distro? Arguably trixbox CE is the either the #1 or the #2 downloaded Asterisk-based distribution. But are they #1 or #2? Let the Fonality vs. Digium download battle commence...

First, we head to Sourceforge, which tracks trixbox CE downloads and see how trixbox CE stacks up against Digium's claimed 1.5 million downloads.

Date (UTC)	Downloads	Bytes Served
Dec 2008 *	18,050	6.8 TB
Nov 2008	31,000	12.2 TB
Oct 2008	35,187	15.6 TB
Sep 2008	19,449	9.6 TB
Aug 2008	6,948	3.3 TB
Jul 2008	8,329	3.7 TB
Jun 2008	19,993	9.3 TB
May 2008	21,822	13.3 TB
Apr 2008	18,238	11.0 TB
Mar 2008	41,085	25.2 TB
Feb 2008	27,725	16.9 TB
Jan 2008	43,942	26.4 TB
Total	291,768	153.8 TB

^* Partial data: End of month not yet reached.
Taking a daily average, the final 2008 total downloads should be ~292,587.

That's 292,587 (year-end estimate) vs. 1.5 million (so far) for Asterisk. So it would appear Digium's Asterisk beats Fonality trixbox CE by over 5X!

Not so fast though. I was pretty sure the Digium download numbers were for Asterisk and AsteriskNOW combined. AsteriskNOW and trixbox CE are more comparable to each other, since both have FreePBX installed, both are .iso bootable CDs, they're both nearly plug-and-play distros, etc.

So to be fair to Fonality's trixbox CE, I should compare AsteriskNOW to trixbox CE. I contacted Digium's Bill Miller, VP, Product Management, and asked him for the breakdown in their 1.5 million downloads.

I told Bill my intentions of making a side-by-side download comparison, but also pointed out I had to wear my skepticism hat:

"The only caveat to any comparison I make between Asterisk/AsteriskNOW & trixbox CE is that you host your own downloads - not a 3rd party like Sourceforge. So there I have to have a healthy level of skepticism for any numbers Digium cites. Nevertheless, I think it'll be an interesting discussion if I post these comparative stats in an article."

Bill explained, "19.8% are AsteriskNOW. We are close to par with them.". Indeed at 19.8% of 1.5 million equates to 297,000 downloads or roughly 6500 more than trixbox CE. Although, I said above I had to wear my skepticism hat, I think the numbers Bill gave me sound credible.

Bill Miller ads, "Due to the other open source packages they have integrated, and the head start they had, we suspect that they have more in trixbox than AsteriskNOW in production but we are taking downloads and share from them."

I would agree with Bill that there are indeed more trixbox CE boxes in production, but it does appear from these numbers that Digium's AsteriskNOW is closing fast in production numbers and already exceeding Fonality's trixbox CE in downloads.

To be perfectly frank, I'm a little bit surprised AsteriskNOW has surpassed trixbox CE, since I'm sure even Digium would admit that trixbox CE, which was formerly Asterisk@Home, had a huge head start and developed a strong community (see trixbox forums and the sheer number of posts & threads). In fact, Bill Miller mentioned the head start in our conversation. Still, the number of downloads between the two is very close and they are neck-in-neck.

Of course, if you add in regular Asterisk downloads it's no contest. Digium wins by a landslide.

More proof that my prediction of a Blu-ray Christmas is coming true... According to the Blu-ray Disc Association, British consumers bought 462,500 Blu-ray discs in November, an increase of 165% from October. They put out a release with a very positive title that proudly claims, "Blu-ray Beats Recession Blues Sales Soar in Lead Up to Christmas at Even Quicker Rate than DVD".

Like I said in my pro- Blu-ray prediction, "I think consumers are looking to escape today's harsh economic climate. Watching movies is a heck of a lot cheaper than going to the movies. People are going out a lot less, eating out less, but they still want some form of escapism and quality entertainment. For that reason, I think it's going to be a very "black" Blu-ray Christmas."

Echoing my sentiments, according to the news release, "Despite the gloomiest of financial forecasts, sales of Blu-ray disc movies are defying the odds and bucking the credit crunch - with record figures reported in the run up to Christmas. And it's not just films flying off the shelves, Blu-ray disc players are also following suit, with a strong upsurge in European sales that is expected to continue into the New Year. In fact, overall sales are predicted to more than triple in 2009, reaching 2.5million units Europe wide* (and that figure does not even include the millions of Playstation 3 consoles, with their in-built Blu-ray players, that will be sold over the next few months)."

It also states that sales figures from the British Video Association (BVA) released in December, show that block-buster Hollywood titles such The Dark Knight sold a whopping 513,000 units in one day with Blu-ray disc representing 21% of all discs sold.

What's even more telling in these figures from the U.K. is that the British pound is much weaker against the Japanese yen and since no Blu-ray players are made in the U.K., that means there is a premium paid due to the pound-to-yen exchange rate. The U.S. dollar is also weak against the Japanese yen, however there are Blu-ray players made in the U.S., including the Magnavox NB500MG9 Blu-ray player which was sold on Black Friday at Walmart for $128.

So I expect U.S. sales of Blu-ray players this Christmas to be even better than the United Kingdom. We shall see if my prediction was right when most experts are expecting Blu-ray disc sales to disappoint due to the global slowing economy.

Rich has an excellent piece on Nortel where he talks to Nortel's President of Carrier Networks' Richard Lowe and Bruce Gustafson, Director of Marcom, Carrier Networks. With all the bad news surrounding Nortel it's interesting to get a perspective of Nortel from the horse's mouth. Of course, Nortel's job or any company for that matter is to try and spin things in a positive light.

However, reading the article it seems that Nortel was fairly open about their current status and the direction they are taking. For instance, Rich's article states, "He did say a large number of carriers are slowing their spending in CDMA... they have deployed 1x he mentioned for voice and have their first EVDO deployments in place for data. He says they will be looking for this line of business to decline perhaps 5-10% a year."

The article adds, "He further explained that ROI parameters are getting more challenging so operators are slowing their CAPEX investments which would be used to upgrade TDM to VoIP. He says these operators will hold onto their Class 5 switches longer than originally planned... As long as it continues to support the traffic he explained."

Rich's article then goes into Nortel's views on their prospects in GSM, WCDMA (wideband CDMA) and more.

Great read. Check it out.

This morning I was playing with the new video e-card creation tool from Skype, which is just in time for Christmas, Hanukkah and the rest of the holidays. It's called Video cards with Skype (http://www.skypevideocards.com).

Facebook fans can easily embed/send the cards to your Facebook friends instantly or use the "Video cards with Skype" Facebook app (http://apps.facebook.com/videocardswithskype).

The new skypevideocards.com is a no-download Flash-based video creation tool that lets you embed videos or email them to friends/family. Sightspeed and others have had this for awhile. What's interesting is that this is the first app by Skype outside of the main Skype client - at least that I'm aware of. With this Flash-based video recording tool, could a Flash-based VoIP client by Skype be far behind? We shall see. That would be huge news if Skype did create a no download Flash client, but there are some technical hurdles to that I'm sure (i.e. supernodes would be hard to run under Flash).

Here's a video demo from me with some holiday greetings to fans of the VoIP & Gadgets blog. Thanks for your support and readership these past 4 years!

I had to do a double-take when I read the Verizon FiOS pricing plans page that shows Verizon FiOS Internet with Verizon home phone service is less expensive than FiOS Internet without Verizon home phone service. It's $5 cheaper per month to have the voice service than without? I don't think I've ever seen any double or triple play offering that actually is cheaper when you have an additional "leg" offering in the package.

Here, see for yourself from this screenshot from their pricing plans web page:

Why would someone choose the Single Play (broadband Internet only) option over the Double play (broadband Internet + Voice) if it's $5/month cheaper and you get a voice line?

I was doing some Christmas shopping on Amazon when I was curious what sort of VoIP phones were available on Amazon. I came across the Belkin Desktop Internet Phone for Skype, which I never heard of.

The Belkin Desktop Internet Phone for Skype is a standalone Skype phone with no PC running Skype requirement. All that is required is a wired connection to your LAN with Internet access. Because it's a standalone Skype phone it's much more suitable as a landline phone replacement in your house than some of the USB-based Skype phones.

The Belkin Desktop Internet Phone for Skype sports a 1.8-inch color LCD display and a phonebook that supports over 500 sets of phone numbers. Importantly, it supports all key Skype features including Skype-to-Skype calling, SkypeIn, SkypeOut, Skype Voicemail, Skype search directory, Skype contact list, Skype Presence, call waiting, conference call (guest only), call history, and user profiles. (Note: The SkypeIn capability is critical if you want to replace your landline phone.)

Belkin espouses the fact that unlike many other Skype phones that use a WiFi connection and require additional SSID or security-key input, the Belkin Desktop Internet Phone is a plug-and-play device that connects automatically to the Internet & Skype at boot up. While no wireless SSID keys to fuss with is certainly a plus, the fact that this phone is completely "wired" without even a wireless handset, may make this a deal breaker for some. The only time I use a "wired" phone is at work and even then I have a DECT 6.0 wireless headset I can use if need be. The phone does have a speakerphone for a hands-free experience, but that doesn't make up for no roaming around capabilities.

Still, if you want to have a standalone Skype phone and make this a landline replacement for cheaper calls, it certainly has some nice capabilities. Other features include phone-book dialing, mute, redial, hold, and a call-timer display.

Available on Amazon for $79.99

p.s. You should also check out my Philips VoIP841 review, which sports a DECT cordless phone and is also a standalone Skype phone.

Toshiba announced that it will showcase a 512GB solid-state drive (SSD) at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) next month, with shipments of this large SSD in the second quarter of 2009. These NAND-flash-based solid state drives (SSD) will be the industry's first 2.5-inch 512-gigabyte SSD and features fast read/write times and reliable performance for laptops/notebooks, and other equipment.

In addition to the 2.5-inch, 512GB drive, the 43nm NAND SSD family also includes capacities of 64GB, 128GB, and 256GB, offered in 1.8-inch or 2.5-inch drive enclosures or as SSD Flash Modules. The drives feature a maximum sequential read speed of 240MB per second (MBps) and maximum sequential write speed of 200MBps. This should definitely result in faster boot and application loading times. The drives also offer AES data encryption to prevent unauthorized data access.

512GB soon... next stop 1TB (1 terabyte)!

More

I have a Blu-ray player on my Christmas list that I hope to get. Santa Claus hasn't failed me yet. I also have a subscription to Netflix and planned on upgrading it to the Blu-ray package for an additional $1/month should I stay off Santa's "naughty list" this year.

This would give me access to Netflix's massive Blu-ray library. Apparently, I shouldn't get too excited though. According to this CNET article, Blu-ray movies discs aren't being delivered as quickly as regular DVDs.

I love CNET, it's one of my favorite technology, electronics, and gadgets sites. But I'm just not feeling the love. You see, I wrote a quick review of the just launched GizmoCall Flash-based VoIP service this morning. A few hours later, see in my RSS alerts another article on GizmoCall. Naturally, I want to see other people's opinions on it, so I click through and see that it's a CNET article. (http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-10124311-94.html)

The CNET article had very similar sentiments to my own and performed the same test I did by dialing a free 800 number. I thought to myself what a waste of a click, it's basically the same thoughts I had and did the same test I did. How boring. I was about to close the window when I noticed my username (tkeatingtmc) on the CNET screenshot within the CNET article! WT-??

That's just fantastic, CNET! There goes my privacy. You just gave away my GizmoCall username. And what, no link love? You 'borrow' my image with my username in it and you don't link to the source? Bad form, CNET. Bad form!

Also, you would have had to have read the article in order to see the image. So why not say "Tom Keating also checked out GizmoCall. Here are his thoughts."

Here's a snapshot in case it is deleted:

From the "Oh no you didn't!" department, BerryReview.com has an article and some sweet photo goodness showing a Windows Mobile HTC Touch Pro running a virtual BlackBerry operating system. The Windows Mobile OS running the BlackBerry OS? What's next, the iPhone running Windows Mobile? Soon there will be human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria!

The BlackBerry OS runs as an application on Windows Mobile allowing you to run your favorite BlackBerry apps. Similar to other "virtualized" software out there that lets you run other operating systems. BerryReview claims it should have all of the BlackBerry 4.2 OS features in it.

More...

GizmoCall, a Flash-based, no download, cross operating system VoIP app launched on Monday. GizmoCall isn't the first to offer a Flash-based VoIP client. I believe the first Flash-based VoIP app was Flashphone, which I discovered last year. I also found a Flash-based app that not only did VoIP, but it did SIP-based video as well.

In any event, I decided to give GizmoCall a go. Registering was easy and was done from within the Flash application. Simple entering a username, password, email address, and the captcha code was all that was needed.

Once logged in I was able to try the 'Test' call button which initiate a test call to their system. It worked flawlessly. I then made a test call to TMC's 800 toll-free number. The quality was good, but not great.

So who can you call? Well the beauty of GizmoCall is that not only can you call any other GizmoCall or Gizmo5 users, you can also call 800 numbers or SIP addresses for no charge. Ok, it's not free calls to any phone number, but it's a start.

You can also receive calls using GizmoCall. Simply login and then any other GizmoCall user can call you at that username. As long as GizmoCall is open in any window or browser tab (even if in the background) you will be able to receive a call.

Since it is Flash-based, GizmoCall works on all computers (Mac/Windows/Linux). While I like the idea of a "no-download" SIP client, I still like the full-fledged Gizmo5 client, which not only does SIP/PSTN calling, but it also supports IM/chat with Gizmo5, MSN, AIM, Yahoo! and Jabber. So I'd like to see a GizmoCall-lite (no IM/chat/presence/) and a GizmoCall-Full with IM/chat/presence capabilities.

Interesting message on The Pirate Bay today. At first I thought maybe the FBI, Interpol, or some other law enforcement entity took them offline. Or perhaps the plethora of Christmas downloaders had knocked them offline. Though, I'm not sure giving a gift of pirated music or movies burned to a CD/DVD is exactly the type of Christmas spirit that Jesus would approve of. See Commandment "Thou shall not steal."

I was getting an authentication window popup asking for username and password. The initial message said something about "Forbidden Planet". Now I see this message below that says "A username and password are being requested by http://thepiratebay.org. The site says: "Dont Panic! TPB will be back shortly. Dont enter":



Interestingly, this message only appears on one of my ISPs but not another. Much be some .htaccess rule they're playing with that blocks some IP addresses but not others.

As to why I was visiting a known pirate/warez site, well, I actually like their Top 100 lists for DVDs. It gives me ideas for what popular DVDs I should buy my family for Christmas. Call me a prude, but I don't download movies illegally. Least not any more...

Some good news from my company TMC and Digium, the founder of Asterisk that I thought I'd share. If you're an Asterisk fan, you need to be at Asterisk World, which is co-located with the #1 VoIP tradeshow in the U.S., namely TMC's ITEXPO.

Technology Marketing Corporation (TMC) and Digium, the Asterisk Company, today announced the educational program for Digium|Asterisk World, scheduled to take place February 2-4, 2009 in Miami. The event is collocated with TMC's ITEXPO East 2009.

TMC and Digium also announced that although the conference content and exhibiting opportunities are more than 90 percent complete, additional opportunities remain for interested Digium partners.
Digium|Asterisk World at ITEXPO is the conference that addresses "Everything Asterisk" for business users, resellers and executive decision-makers. The initial conference sessions featured in the program include:

1. Web-Aware Unified Communications with Switchvox
2. Asterisk for Enterprise
3. Enterprise Pitfalls: Lessons Learned
4. The Case for Asterisk: Call Center App Integration with .NET
5. Multi-Site Open Source Call Center Deployment: A European Case Study
6. Asterisk as a Regulatory Compliance Toolkit
7. Website Identity Management and Authentication Using Asterisk
8. VoIP Transparency: Asterisk and the Economics of Monitoring
9. The Asterisk VoIP Conversion and the Opportunity for Substantial ROI
10. Druid: Case Study for Selling UC Solutions
11. Ingredients for Successful Asterisk PBX Sales

Limited booth space and sponsorship opportunities are still available for companies to showcase their offerings and provide training to Digium|Asterisk World and ITEXPO attendees. Companies exhibiting in the showcase include: Asteria Solutions; Camrivox; Freeside Internet Services; High Powered Help; Interlink Communications Systems; OpenLine Networks; Orecx; TransNexus; Voice Pulse; and Xorcom.

Registration for Digium|Asterisk World and ITEXPO is now open.
"Now in our third year, Digium|Asterisk World's content is evolving to reflect the maturity of the world's most widely used open source telephony software," said Mark Spencer, CTO and founder of Digium and the creator of Asterisk. "Our three-day event at ITEXPO will provide the hands-on training and education that Asterisk developers need to build more advanced and more flexible telephony solutions."

"We're proud of several new and innovative programs that will make the 19th iteration of ITEXPO one of the best ever," said Rich Tehrani, TMC president and ITEXPO East 2009 conference chairman. "Digium|Asterisk World bolsters an already strong developer focus, and other programs like TMC University, the 4GWireless Evolution event, TMC Editors' Week and the balance of the conference content make ITEXPO the one-and-only 'must-attend' event in the communications industry."

ITEXPO East 2009 is the world's largest and most significant communications technology event, featuring hundreds of companies exhibiting on the EXPO floor and hundreds of sessions led by the industry's most prominent thought leaders. The show helps attendees identify the issues and challenges affecting the deployment of communications technologies. It provides a comprehensive forum for evaluating the latest products and services and delivers a face-to-face networking opportunity that service providers, carriers, resellers, distributors, equipment manufacturers and IT executives from enterprise and SMB companies need to cultivate new business relationships. For more information on ITEXPO East, please visit: http://www.tmcnet.com/voip/conference/.