VoIP & Gadgets Blog

10 Lessons from Volleyball, Part 2

By Peter on Thursday, May 23

Part 1 of the 10 Business Lessons from Volleyball can be found here. In volleyball, the only play you control yourself is...

Full Story »

Tagged sales, strategy, volleyball

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,"...

Full Story »

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...

Full Story »

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.

Full Story »

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...

Full Story »

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...

Full Story »

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...

Full Story »

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

Previous Pause Next

LOREX Live Connect Wireless Skype Home Surveillance Review

October 25, 2011

The LOREX Technology Live Connect LW2031 Series is a cool Skype-powered home surveillance system sporting night vision (via IR LEDs) and full color H.264 video. It can be used both for home surveillance, but also as a baby monitor due to its night vision and its portable handheld monitor sporting a color 2.4" LCD. It seemed like an interesting Skype product so I had LOREX send me a LW2031 to review.

Installation
Installing this was pretty straightforward. Two of the three devices - camera & handheld monitor use mini-USB power adapters, which are included.

Posted in Accessories, Gadgets, Skype, TMCnet, Video Conferencing, VoIP, Wireless

Tagged: h.264, home surveillance, live connect, lorex, lw2031, skype, video : Related Tags: handheld monitor, skype username, getting started, night vision, camera handheld, skype

View from my hotel at Astricon

October 24, 2011

The sun is setting and casting nice light and shadows on the trees. Looks like their trees have already changed color and are at their peak, while in my area in Connecticut the trees have just started.

Posted in VoIP

Arrived in Denver for Astricon

October 24, 2011

First time for me in Denver, which is a bit surprising considering all the travel I do. Looking forward to Astricon. Photo of Denver International Airport I took:

Posted in VoIP

Quantum Levitation = Back to the Future Hoverboard?

October 18, 2011

Tel-Aviv University recently demonstrated quantum superconductors locked in a magnetic field causing a superconducting disc to be suspended above or below a set of permanent magnets - seemingly defying the laws of gravity. But unlike other magnet tricks, you can move the object and it stays in the new position. Or you can spin it and it seems to spin endlessly due to near zero friction.

The magnetic field is locked inside the superconductor - a phenomenon called 'Quantum Trapping'.

Posted in Technology and Science

Tagged: back to the future, hoverboard, quantum flux tubes : Related Tags: magnetic field, quantum, hoverboard, future

Yankees Cup Stolen!

October 18, 2011

Damn it all, my lucky 2000 Yankees World Series souvenir cup was stolen (similar to one on right). The large soda cup was from the first ever Subway Series World Series game against the New York Mets. The game was a classic and was won by the Yankees in the 12th inning. The Yankees won it on a liner to the left field stands where I was sitting. I used this large cup as my daily water cup at the office since it was large and only need refilling once per day.

Posted in Personal and Humor

Tagged: cleaning, crew, cup, maintenance, new york mets, red sox, water, world series, yankees : Related Tags: world series, office, yankees, trash, large, years

Polycom VVX 500 Launches

October 17, 2011

In 2009, Polycom announced the Polycom VVX 1500, a touch-screen business media phone, that combines IP telephony with business-class video and the ability to integrate with business applications. It was a little bit clunky to be honest, so I'm intrigued by the new Polycom VVX 500 that was just launched, especially since it's slimmer and sexier than the VVX 1500. The VVX 500 has a 3.5-inch TFT (320 x 240 pixels) touch screen.

It has built-in Web applications and a Digital Photo Frame. Polycom’s “My Info Portal” serves up stocks, news, sports, weather, and other streamed content directly to the phone’s screen.

Posted in Polycom, SIP, TMCnet, Unified Communications, Video Conferencing, VoIP

Tagged: android, desktop phone, html5, ios, media phone, polycom, touch screen, video conferencing, voip, vvx 1500, vvx 500 : Related Tags: productivity suite, visual conference, photo frame, polycom desktop, desktop connector, polycom

Interactive Intelligence launches Quick Spin, a Cloud-based Unified Communications Trial Program

October 17, 2011

Interactive Intelligence today launched Quick Spin, a trial program that enables organizations to try their communications-as-a-service (CaaS) service for free. Interactive Intelligence gave me a demo of Quick Spin last week and I was pretty impressed. It features unified communications (UC), auto-attendant, presence, conferencing, desktop call control, unified messaging, ACD, skills-based routing, call and screen recording, workforce management, and more.

One really interesting feature included in Quick Spin is negative and positive word/phrase analysis. Using in-house developed real-time word spotting technology, Quick Spin can flag/route a negative call ("Speak to your manager", "Cancel service") to an appropriate agent or manager.

Posted in Call Center and CRM, Internet, TMCnet, Unified Communications, VoIP

Tagged: acd, call center, crm, interaction client, interactive intelligence, speech analysis, uc, unified communications, voip, word spotting : Related Tags: interactive intelligence, cloud based, based communications, skills based, trial program, quick

It's Official - Skype Now Part of Microsoft!

October 14, 2011

Both the U.S. and Europe anti-trust authorities approved the acquisition in recent days. Now it is official - Skype is officially now part of Microsoft with the closing of the $8.5 billion acquisition.

On October 13, Skype became an official Microsoft division, with the closing of the Microsoft acquisition of the company. Skype CEO Tony Bates will assume the title of president of the Skype Division of Microsoft immediately, reporting directly to Microsoft's Steve Ballmer. Good luck with that Tony! Though I hear he's an easier boss than Steve Jobs was.

Posted in Skype, VoIP, Wireless

Tagged: microsoft, skype, steve ballmer, tony bates, voip : Related Tags: official skype, microsoft, skype, official, acquisition

Rebtel Mobile VoIP app hops between 3G and WiFi/data Networks

October 14, 2011

Rebtel just launched version 2.0 of its free iPhone app, which allows users to make and receive free international calls using WiFi, 3G, or local minutes. TechCrunch discusses Rebtels's "new proprietary technology called “KeepTalking”, which allows users to transition (mid-call, mind you) from WiFi/3G to local minutes." VentureBeat also writes about them with this headline: "Rebtel’s Voice-over-IP app hops between data/voice networks, a first". Actually, they're not the first. Back in 2010 at ITEXPO Counterpath's Todd Carothers demo'ed switching a 3G voice call automatically to WiFi and a VoIP call to the cellular network.

Posted in Accessories, Android, Apple, Gadgets, Google, SIP, Skype, TMCnet, VoIP, Wireless

Tagged: bababoo, counterpath, rebtel, skype, techcrunch, todd carothers, venturebeat, viber, voip : Related Tags: allows users, cellular network, local minutes, rebtel, feature, counterpath

Nimbuzz launches Video calling for iPhone and PC

October 13, 2011

Nimbuzz today launched video calling for the iPhone and PC. You can download them here:

The Nimbuzz video calling works over 3G/4G as well as WiFi. Interestingly, they are also offering video chat, which is the same as video calling except no audio. Be sure you've got good miming skills if you plan to video chat with no verbal communication!

Posted in Apple, Video Conferencing, VoIP, Wireless

Tagged: iphone, nimbuzz, pc, video calls, video chat, voip : Related Tags: video calling, miming skills, download nimbuzz, calling iphone, video, nimbuzz

Previous 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 ... 498 Next