Tom Keating : VoIP & Gadgets Blog
Tom Keating
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Longview IoT Boosts Energy and Wireless Efficiency

Some of the biggest challenges slowing down the adoption of IoT are security, efficient battery usage and optimized wireless communications.One company has...

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Hallmark's Simple, Inexpensive Way to Boost Customer Satisfaction

In an effort to boost margins, companies often push more users to automated solutions such as FAQs, chatbots, voice bots and anything...

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Huawei Places the World's First 5G VoNR Video Call

Huawei recently completed the world's first voice over NR (VoNR) call. The voice and video call service was made using two Huawei...

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IGEL Advances Future of Work

IGEL is a provider of a next-gen edge OS for cloud workspaces. The company’s software products include IGEL OS, IGEL UD Pocket (UDP) and Universal...

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Tata Communications and Cisco Collaborate on SD-WAN

Tata Communications and Cisco have extended their partnership to enable enterprises to transform their legacy network to a customized and secure multi-cloud...

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How to Win the 50-Year-Old China Trade War

Today and this week in-fact is historic - the left and right in the U.S. agree that we have a major trade...

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Extreme Elements Enables The Autonomous Enterprise

Extreme Networks just announced Extreme Elements which in-turn enables the autonomous network and subsequently the autonomous enterprise. In a dynamic webinar, Dan...

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magicJack Plus Review

June 30, 2011

The magicJack Plus is due out very soon, perhaps as early as next month, but I was able to get an early sneak peek at it for a review. The big new feature in the MagicJack Plus is that it sports an on-board ARM CPU, which means you can make calls without the need for the MagicJack Plus to be connected to a PC. It looks almost identical to the original magicJack USB stick, but it now has an Ethernet jack for connecting to any broadband connection, enabling PC-less VoIP calling.

Skype for Android Gets Video Love

June 30, 2011


Skype today announced an updated version of its Skype for Android app (Skype for Android 2.0), which finally brings Skype video calling to the Android platform. No longer is the Android playing second fiddle to the Apple iPhone's version of Skype.

They did a complete redesign of the Skype for Android user interface. There's a new main menu on the Skype app for Android where users can navigate through their contacts, access their Skype profile to change personal details or see the balance of their Skype Credit.


Blue Jeans Network Launches Video Conferencing Service

June 29, 2011


Today, Blue Jeans Network announced the commercial availability of its cloud-based multi-party video conferencing service, which they've dubbed "any(ware) videoconferencing". I reviewed their impressive video conferencing product last month. I liked how their platform bridges together various business video solutions from Cisco/Tandberg, Polycom, Lifesize along with consumer video offerings from Skype and Google Talk. Users each get a private “meeting room” in the Blue Jeans cloud that they can use to schedule, host, and manage meetings through an easy web interface. Users can join the meeting using anything from a high-end Cisco/Tandberg videophone all the way down to a user running Skype and a cheap webcam.

As part of its public release, Blue Jeans announced that it has raised $23.5 million from Accel Partners, New Enterprise Associates, and Norwest Venture Partners.


Zombies, Toshiba Laptops, and the Butterfly Effect

June 29, 2011

Microsoft Patents VoIP and Skype Wiretapping

June 29, 2011


Microsoft was recently granted a patent for a technology called Legal Intercept, which apparently enables Microsoft to secretly intercept, monitor and record Skype calls. I'm skeptical. Many Skype calls are peer-to-peer (P2P) with the packets traveling across different router hops. There's no way to predict exactly where the packets are going.

Of course, if you know the target user's ISP, a government entity could put a packet capture device at the ISP where all the user's traffic goes first.


U.S. House of Representatives Approves Skype for Video Calls

June 28, 2011

Looks like the U.S. House of Representatives is adopting Skype to lower costs. According to Skype's Big Blog:
Today, the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Administration announced that they will open up the world of Skype communications to Members of Congress and their staff.

Microsoft Office 365 Launches

June 28, 2011


Today, Microsoft officially launched Office 365, the "cloud-based" version of Office, featuring the entire Office productivity suite and collaboration capabilities. Office 365 offers a range of service plans with monthly prices ranging from $2 to $27 per user per month.

Office 365 offers each user a 25-gigabyte (GB) mailbox and lets them send email messages up to 25 megabytes (MB). Besides email you can shared documents, do instant messaging, share your Desktop, perform video and Web conferencing, and more. The feature-rich Lync client lets you view presence, send IMs, and make VoIP or video calls.


Social ENUM Platform Enables Facebook & Twitter Phone Calls

June 27, 2011


ENUM resolves phone numbers into a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) or IP addresses. It's basically "DNS" for phone numbers, mapping a person's phone number to the person's IP address on the network for routing the call over IP over a carrier's network. ENUM offered the promise of a single point of contact for all communication devices, that has largely been unfulfilled. Now, with the exponential rise of social media networks, people are starting to self-identify themselves with their Facebook username or Twitter account ID more than their phone number.

Elfiq LB-800E Link Balancer Review

June 27, 2011

I had the opportunity to test and review the Elfiq LB-800E Link Balancer as part of a TMC Labs review for the September issue of Internet Telephony Magazine. It's an impressive product that does traffic balancing, ISP bonding, Ethernet bonding (EtherChannel), and enables plug-and-play bandwidth redundancy. I thought I'd share my review here. Enjoy!

FTC Lets Intel into the Nortel Patent Sweepstakes

June 24, 2011

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