Tom Keating : VoIP & Gadgets Blog
Tom Keating
CTO
| VoIP & Gadgets blog - Latest news in VoIP & gadgets, wireless, mobile phones, reviews, & opinions

October 2013

You are browsing the archive for October 2013.

Asterlook - "The CTI Asterisk Client for Outlook" Launches

October 31, 2013


A new software Asterlook, what they're calling "the CTI Asterisk client for Outlook", was just released allowing you to manage incoming and outgoing calls directly in Outlook. According to the feature list, it works with any flavor of Asterisk. On an inbound call a toast popup appears showing the contact name and the phone number.

You can also make outbound calls directly from Outlook due to the TAPI TSP installed. Oh and if you have TAPI dialing issues, check out my popular post on solving TAPI problems.


AT&T TL7910 DECT 6.0 Headset Review

October 30, 2013


The AT&T TL7910 DECT 6.0 headset is one of the best combo PC/phone headsets you can buy with some pretty powerful features. With the AT&T Softphone Call Manager software it supports Skype, and Microsoft Lync, and can even import your Outlook contacts. Back in 2009 I reviewed the AT&T TL7610 DECT headset, which looks almost identical to the TL7910, but looks can be deceiving - the TL7910 hides some pretty cool new features. I decided to take the TL7910 DECT headset for a spin, so enjoy the full review along with a YouTube video demo below...


The first thing of note is the secure magnetic charging cradle, which makes it easy to charge the headset.



Dot-com and VoIP Explosion - Is WebRTC Next?

October 24, 2013

Some exciting news from my company, TMC, to report. TMC, Systemwide Media and PKE Consulting announced today that Google has signed on to be a Diamond Sponsor at WebRTC Conference & Expo III. The event, held November 19-21, 2013, in Santa Clara, Calif., explores how WebRTC is set to transform the way we communicate by enabling true browser-to-browser communications. The event caters to enterprises, service providers, Web providers, investors, developers and more.

WebRTC is just starting to hit its stride, but early enough for companies to jump on the WebRTC bandwagon before it leaves them behind.

AstriCon Keynote Photos

October 10, 2013

AstriCon 2013 Atlanta - Photos!

October 9, 2013

FreePBX High Availability Project Launches at AstriCon

October 9, 2013



At AstriCon, Schmooze Com Inc., maintainers and core developers of the FreePBX project today announced a High Availability version of FreePBX called FreePBX HA. I'm a huge fan of FreePBX, and have deployed it, so I'm pretty excited about this new high availability feature.

Until October 15th they are offering a pre-release special of FreePBX HA that includes two node licenses for $1,500, which is a 50% discount! Pre-release buyers will also receive access to private BETA releases and HA development team conference calls.

Schmooze redesigned the FreePBX platform to integrate HA utilizing DRBD, Cluster Manager and Pacemaker. This enables automatic mirroring and failover between FreePBX nodes.





AstriCon 2013 Keynote Panel [VIDEO]

October 9, 2013


This morning the first keynote kicked off featuring some well-respected Asterisk thought leaders and experts. They included Asterisk founder, Chairman & CTO Mark Spencer, Alistair Cunningham the Founder & General Manager, Integrics, Olle E. Johansson, Founder & President, Edvina AB, Philippe Lindheimer, FreePBX Project Leader and CTO, Schmooze Com, Inc., Schmooze Com, Inc.

The room was packed and the keynote panelists were moderated by Digium's David Duffett who posed some great questions. I pretty much captured the entire keynote, but did stop the 1st video at the 18 minute mark, since I was worried my mobile phone was running out of storage space and didn't want the video to be corrupted. I immediately kicked off the 2nd video, however.


Digium's Billy Chia Speaks to Packed AstriCon Session

October 8, 2013


The first session I checked out was by Billy Chia, the Asterisk Marketing Manager for Digium and it was a packed house. I didn't count people, but it must have been at least 80-100 people. Billy gave a live demo running Asterisk on a virtual machine on his Mac where he ran into a minor snafu where restarting Asterisk wouldn't fix his sip reload command. Nothing Bill Gates BSOD during a demo cringe-worthy, and Billy handled it well.

Xorcom Launches CXE4000 CompletePBX

October 8, 2013


At AstriCon, Xorcom today released a new hybrid (VoIP + PSTN) telephony solution called the CXE4000 featuring Xorcom's CompletePBX distro (based on Asterisk and FreePBX). The CXE4000 is a heavy-duty, stand-alone, pre-configured, out-of-the-box IP PBX It is optimized for businesses with extremely high call volumes and / or additional communication applications.

At the last ITEXPO in Las Vegas I spoke with Xorcom's Ruth Bridger who talked about their CompletePBX solution, which is based on Asterisk and FreePBX with Xorcom's secret sauce added in. I recall her mentioning how they use USB to add scalability and redundancy to their product line. Indeed, the new CXE4000 supports various combinations of telephony ports via Astribank units connected via USB2: up to 960 PSTN/analog phones ports, up to 24 E1 R2 / T1 CAS PRI ports, up to 1500 users and up to 750 concurrent calls.



10th Annual AstriCon Kicks Off!

October 8, 2013

I’m excited to be attending the 10th annual AstriCon, which also happens to nearly coincide with my 10 year wedding anniversary back in August of this year.  AstriCon has changed over the years, new people, new exhibitors, but a lot has also stayed the same. Asterisk legends like Mark Spencer and Joshua Colp are speaking at AstriCon. FreePBX project leader Philippe Lindheimer is here and keynoting this week, as is WebRTC evangelist Phil Edholm, and Edvina’s Olle E. Johansson.

Today is the pre-conference, so the exhibits open tomorrow. Companies that utilize Asterisk and are participating including Elastix, Xorcom, YeaLink, snom, Grandstream, Schmooze / FreePBX,  Sangoma, Algo, PBX in a Flash, and more.

Featured Events