Apparently, in Bangladesh if you try and resell VoIP services out of your house, you're apt to get raided. Hope what happened to American Eliadah "Lia" McCord (forced to smuggle drugs, caught by Bangladesh airport security, gets 30-year sentence, but eventually pardoned thanks to help from Gov. Bill Richardson) doesn't happen to people who run VoIP services out of their house.

I happened to see the Eliadah "Lia" McCord story a few nights ago on TV. It was a tragic story that ended up well, but not before spending 4 years in prison. In Bangladesh drug smugglers are typically executed (hung) and they don't have the lengthy appeals (death row) process that happens in the U.S. and other countries.

Imagine getting executed for operating VoIP. Though I doubt even Bangladesh is that extreme. Probably just a 10 year sentence.

check it out:

Tk 1cr VoIP equipment seized in city

Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) equipment worth around Tk 1 crore were seized from two places in the city early yesterday.

A committee formed to inspect and detect telecommunication installations conducted separate raids on two houses at Kanthalbagan and Paribagh from 12:30am to 4:00am and seized the equipment.

Officials of Bangladesh Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (BTRC) and Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) are the members of the committee.

The equipment include 120 tellular of various models, 7 gateways and one 32 port channel bank, says a BTRC press release.

Vonage today announced two new low cost call plans for their Vonage UK subsidiary. According to Vonage UK, "Following customer research and reacting directly to consumer concern about increasing household costs and spiraling business overheads, Vonage has created two new fixed rate call plans."

They added, "Vonage subscribers report enormous savings on their monthly bills and comment on the speed and ease of swapping providers as well as installing Vonage. The new call plans fly in the face of increasing utility prices and the new £6.99 plan has been designed for the high percentage of Vonage consumers requesting more cost efficient plans for North America."

Vonage's £7.99, £14.99 and £18.99 plans incorporating up to 45 countries remain unchanged. The two new call plans offer Vonage's lowest ever rates and are called V-Plan UK and V-Plan US.

• £5.99 per month - unlimited calls to the UK (V-Plan UK)
- Premium features such as call waiting, caller ID, call diversion, voicemail, three way calling (normally billed as extras with other providers), are included as standard.

• £6.99 per month - unlimited calls to the UK, United States and Canada (V-Plan US)
- As above plus, for only £1 extra per month, unlimited calls to the US and Canada to include calls to US and Canadian mobile phones.

Here's a screenshot of the various V-Plan calling options. Click image to see the plans:


Vonage to Vonage calls are free. Also, there are no hidden costs with Vonage - prices are always quoted including VAT.

Vincent Potier, Managing Director of Vonage, said; "We recognise how important it is for customers to keep costs low and as predictable as possible - especially in light of the current economy. Our new plans enable customers to make worry free calls for as long as they want and show our long term commitment to listening and responding to our customers as well as offering the highest level of customer service and value for money".

I missed the 8x8/Packet8 news on July 16th about its new hosted small office "key" system and plug-and-play IP phones. Joan Citelli, Director of Corporate Communications emailed me asking for a briefing, but apparently I never replied since her email was still marked as unread and nothing in my Sent Items. Email overload I guess. The news was about 8x8, working with handset maker Aastra Telecom to provide a key system to the SMB market,which is part of the new Packet8 675xi series.

I happened to come across Carolyn Schuk's article while surfing the web and came across her post about some 8x8 news that I missed. She writes, "8x8 is VoIP's Rodney Dangerfield. It just gets no respect." She has an excellent point and one which I wholeheartedly agree with.

Carolyn then lays out her case: "Consider how it stacks up against its far better-known pure-play VoIP competitor, Vonage: In the last five years, 8x8 revenues grew 460.3 percent while Vonage's grew 0.0 percent. 8x8 made $700,000 during the first quarter of this year. Vonage lost $8.9 million and is shopping for a $215 million refinancing deal to stay out of bankruptcy. 8x8 holds 73 patents. Vonage just got its first. Despite this, Vonage's stock price is $1.58 while 8x8's is $1.03."

She goes on to explain that the news coverage of the new Packet8 675xi series was sorely lacking, which sparked the Rodney Dangerfield comment. I'm guilty as charged, since I didn't cover the news. Though it wasn't for a lack of respect that I didn't cover the Packet8 news. Sometimes it's just impossible to cover all the daily VoIP news in addition to my testing of VoIP products, managing the MIS department as CTO, etc.

Well, better late than never. Today, I thought I'd give an overview of the new Packet8 675xi series, which is actually part of their Packet8 Hosted Key System Services. Perhaps most importantly, this offering supports "call appearances" commonly referred to as "shared line appearances" or SLA, which enables you to know when someone is using a line. It's a popular feature of key systems and one which is often difficult to reproduce on VoIP systems. Supporting SLA is often a key selling advantage when targeting the SMB which is used to call appearance functionality.

First off, the Packet8 675xi IP phone series consists of three models -- the 6753i entry level phone, 6755i intermediate phone and 6757i CT advanced phone. Essentially these are OEM'ed versions of the Aastra 53i, 55i, and 57i CT but with a special firmware load. Each model offers full duplex speakerphone functionality, programmable softkey appearances, LCD display screens, embedded XML browsers and up to nine call appearance lines. All models support Power over Ethernet and come equipped with dual auto-sensing switched Ethernet ports.

Here's pictures of all 3 models:




The Packet8 675xi series include intercom paging and direct dial from a searchable corporate directory. Prices for the Packet8 675xi series range from $129.99 for the 6753i to $349.99 for the high end 6757i CT model which includes a DECT cordless phone as part of the bundled offer. The 6757i CT model's built in DECT antenna allows the user to roam up to a 300 foot radius from the 6757i CT base telephone. The Packet8 675xi IP phones also feature corporate directory display and lookup, intercom paging, and shared line appearance.

The Packet8 675xi series of IP phones incorporates 8x8's advanced NAT traversal technologies. This allows users to simply plug the phone into any Internet connection and immediately make or receive calls without performing any network or firewall configuration.

The high-end Packet8 6757i CT includes an integrated cordless handset with coverage up to 300,000 sq ft. It has a large 144 x 128 pixel graphical backlit LCD display and 6 dynamic context-sensitive softkeys, and with its large screen it can take full advantage of XML based programs.

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, the Packet8 675xi series use SIP trunking to Packet8's network infrastructure. All of the telephony functions such as transfer, conferencing, voicemail, etc. reside on the Packet8 network. Thus, you don't need any costly IP-PBX hardware at the customer premise - you just need IP phones. This can be a huge cost savings for SMBs looking for an inexpensive VoIP solution, especially as the costs and margins for IP-PBXs continue to shrink with growing price pressure from more competition and open source solutions like Digium's Asterisk.

Packet8/8x8 certainly has earned my admiration with some great products and services, a cool videophone, and more VoIP patents than you can shake a stick at! My 'respect' has been duly given.

Today, Objectworld introduced Unified Communications for just 7 cents per day per user. Their platform can work with your existing non-VoIP PBX via gateways or you can go the 100% VoIP route as well since their server can communicate with any SIP-based IP-PBX.

It's a pretty feature-rich solution offering VoIP, personal call control, text-to-speech, conference server, unified messaging, integrated fax server, Active Directory-based administration, ODBC-enabled service creation environment, presence-based operator console and more. Often unified communications solutions are priced out of the range for the SMB. Essentially, Objectworld's solution helps being UC to the SMB at an affordable price.

Check out the news...

Existing PBX systems become UC-enabled delivering improved workforce productivity and efficiency

Objectworld Communications Corp., a leading provider of unified communications (UC) and communications-enabled business process (CEBP) software solutions for small- and medium-sized businesses with Microsoft Windows platforms, announced today the most cost-effective UC solution for businesses. For as little as 7 cents a day per user, businesses can reap the benefits of unified communications including email, voicemail, messaging and fax capabilities accessible from one interface and from any device.

Objectworld's bundled solutions based on organizational size deliver the lowest possible cost to customers and include VoIP, personal call control, conference server, unified messaging, integrate fax server, Active Directory-based administration, ODBC-enabled service creation environment, presence-based operator console and more.

With Objectworld's UC Server Standard Edition, businesses are not required to deploy VoIP in order to reap the productivity benefits of unified communications, saving them tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands more by leveraging their existing PBX systems in the process. However, if businesses want to upgrade their existing phone system, Objectworld UC Server SIP Edition can provide an end-to-end unified communications solution for only 37 cents a day. The 37 cents per day solution includes not only software, but also new hardware such as third-party desktop phones, server hardware and gateways.

With these new capabilities, businesses can improve workforce productivity and increase responsiveness. Depending on system size, Objectworld's UC Server can save businesses up to hundreds of thousands of dollars, demonstrating immediate business value to implement UC.

"We believe that any-sized business, especially an SMB, should be able to enjoy the benefits of a unified communications platform," said David Levy, president and chief executive officer of Objectworld. "Objectworld can deliver UC for only 7 cents a day per user for 200 users, which is amazing considering what incumbent PBX vendors are targeting for much less functionality. It's even more remarkable considering that businesses can spend 22 cents a day for coffee services for their employees. I think the return on investment is very visible."

To see a cost estimation of Objectworld's software-based solutions, incorporating Objectworld Connect-certified and supported, third-party vendors for phones such as Polycom, Snom and Grandstream, as well as a variety of media gateways, please visit http://www.objectworld.com/pricing/

ITEXPO is still two months away (September 16-18, 2008 -- Los Angeles, CA) yet Rich reports that the exhibit booth space is already 90% sold out.

Rich is pretty excited when he writes, "There has been more interest in ITEXPO Fall 2008, Los Angeles, CA September 16-18 than any other Internet Telephony Conference & Expo I can remember in recent years."

At first I thought perhaps Rich is being a bit too exuberant. After all, one well-known communications show (VON) faltered this year, so surely ITEXPO might not have its strongest show - at least if VON is any indication. But ITEXPO has been growing steadily and hasn't truly had a bad show (yet).

Also, the economy is certainly slowing, so many companies are holding back on their advertising and marketing budgets. However, if anything companies are looking to increase productivity in their communications to help reduce costs. One sure-fire way to do that is to deploy VoIP or unified communiations solutions. So perhaps that explains why in addition to the exhibit hall space being 90% sold out, pre-registration for attendees is actually ahead of last year at this time by 30%! Our VP of Marketing, Mike Genaro gave me these latest pre-attendance numbers.

Perhaps with one less IP communications show, that could have something to do with it. Rich had the same thought when he wrote, "It seems people are beginning to realize this show is the only major IP communications event left -- it is growing quickly and it draws attendees from around the world."

Here's a floor map:

Paul Adams contacted me recently since he's been reading my posts about Asterisk and 'Microsoft OCS 2007' integration.

Paul wrote an interesting application that enables call queuing that 'respects' OCS presence. That is, if the agent's OCS status is "Busy", "Away" or "Do not Disturb", don't send them a call from the call queue. Leveraging Asterisk.NET & the Microsoft OCS development tools - in C# (Visual Studio 2005) - he was successfully able to control calls in Asterisk 1.4 based on any user's presence in OCS.

He wrote a simple test app that register's with OCS 2007 for a single or multiple users presence. Whenever a users presence changes - OCS 2007 informs his app directly.

Using an agi entry in the Asterisk dial plan, Asterisk asks his app what to do next. Then - based on the user's presence - the app tells Asterisk to queue the call or pass it to the user.

Eventually, he intends that the user can 'register' themselves for call queues (via a web page perhaps) - and this information will be used by the app to determine what calls should go to what users & if they are available right now or now. He explained that he intends to turn this app into a service and run it on his OCS or OCS Mediation server - and control incoming calls for his call center.

He told me, "I'm impressed with Asterisk.NET - and with the tools from Microsoft - they have made it really easy to monitor presence. It's more difficult to CHANGE presence - but I'm not so worried about that right now."

With information Paul sent me I was able to write a tutorial on controlling Asterisk based on an OCS user's presence. Credit goes to Paul for this tutorial.

Controlling Asterisk based on an OCS 2007 User's Presence Tutorial

This tutorial, although very basic, demonstrates is that it's easy to add 'OCS presence' awareness to desktop apps written in Visual Studio. Then you can control Asterisk using Asterisk.NET.

This is not intended to be a professional, server-based solution (because it uses the desktop Office Communicator client) - there is other MS development API's for OCS server interaction. Still, this provides some powerful presence integration with the popular Asterisk and OCS 2007 platforms.

Microsoft's Office Communication Server 2007 does not include call queuing, (it is believed call queuing shall be included in R2 of OCS 2007 - but how it will function or what it will offer is not yet clear).

Asterisk can provide call queuing - but Asterisk is not aware of the presence of a user in OCS. So how do we control Asterisk to pass calls to OCS users based on their presence?

Tools needed:
- Microsoft's C# - there is a free version of C# called the Express Version which maybe suitable for this - Visual Studio Professional 2005 or later works just as well.
- Asterisk.NET (1.4.0.1) - http://sourceforge.net/projects/asterisk-dotnet
- Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 SDK 
- Office Communicator Presence Controls

You can 'tweak' the example app provided with Asterisk.NET & demonstrate this can be done.

"Preparing your Persona"
Install the "Office Communicator Presence Controls".
Now open "Program Files\ Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 Presence Controls".

Here you will find a readme.doc. Pages 7 & 8 tells you how to compile the managed control - which will produce "PresenceControls.dll".

Remember where this dll is - we'll need it later. Close this project.

"Check Asterisk.NET works with your Asterisk server"

On your Asterisk server, edit your extensions.conf file and add these 2 lines in any context you wish to use:
exten => 200,1,agi(agi://<ip address of dev PC in here>/customivr)
exten => 200,2,Hangup()

Open Asterisk.NET in Visual Studio - once loaded - you should see two projects inside it:

Asterisk.NET & Asterisk.NET.Test

Under the Asterisk.NET.Test project - view the code in "Program.cs". Update the IP address & login credentials to match your Asterisk server.

From the Solution Explorer panel, right-click on the Asterisk.2005 solution - and choose Rebuild. When it finishes - navigate in Windows to the "bin\Release" subfolder under the Asterisk.NET folder. Run the Asterisk.NET.Test.exe

You should see a command window running the test app. You should now be able to use a softphone to connect to Asterisk - and dial 200. If you are watching the Asterisk console - you should be able to see Asterisk receiving instructions from the test app running on your desktop.

"Amend the Asterisk.NET test app to react to OCS presence"

Return to the Asterisk.NET solution in Visual Studio. Right click on Asterisk.NET.Test - choose Add...- and from the sub-menu, choose Windows Form... I shall leave the name of the form as default - Form1.cs

Look at Form1.cs in the Designer View (not code view). Right-click anywhere in the toolbox panel & select "Choose Items..." You should see this window...



Press "Browse...". Now find the "PresenceControls.dll" from earlier. This will add the following two controls to the toolbox.


The "Persona" control is to monitor one user, and the "PersonaList" monitors multiple users.

Drag a "Persona" control onto your form. Now change the "Modifiers" property of the "Persona1" control to Public.

Now change to the code view for Form1.cs. Immediately after the InitalizeComponent line, I added a line to assign a user to the persona control - as below:

InitializeComponent();
persona1.SipUri = "<username>@<domainname.com>";

Once assigned a SipUri - the Persona control will register with the OCS server for that user - and continue to receive updates from the OCS server whenever the presence changes for that user.

You do have to have Office Communicator installed for the persona control to work - but the assigned user can be any user that you can detect presence for. Basically - if you have the permissions to add a user to your contacts in the Office Communicator (OC) client - you can monitor the presence of that user here.

Move to the code view of Program.cs - and change line 29 to exclude the checkManagerAPI(); command - like this below:

// checkManagerAPI();
checkFastAGI();

Move to the code view of CustomIVR.cs - here is the code controlling Asterisk when you dial the extension numbered 200.

Approx line 40 - after the answer command, add a new line to create an instance of the form1 we created.

Form1 testform = new Form1();

The form contains the persona control for our user.

We then use the persona control within the IVR code to control the call flow based on the presence of that user. "TextStatus" from the Persona control will give us a text response of the status of that user.

Use this line to display to the console the status of the user:

Console.WriteLine(testform.persona1.TextStatus);

Then use this code anywhere within the IVR code to control call flow based on the presence of the user in OCS.

if (testform.persona1.TextStatus == "Busy" || testform.persona1.TextStatus == "On the Phone")
{
<runs some code in here if the user is busy or one the phone>
}

Note that within OCS the "On the Phone" status is used when a user is on the phone (doh!) - but from an OC client it appears their status is set to "Busy".

If a user is not logged in to OCS - the presence is set to "Unknown". It also shows the text from the four OC client custom presence states if you have used them.

Rebuild the Asterisk.2005 solution - and run the Asterisk.NET.Test.exe again. Now when you call 200 from a Asterisk connected softphone - you should see the presence of the OCS user you are monitoring appear on the console of the test app each time the IVR menu 'loops'.

To help with troubleshooting - this is the contents of the "Release" directory when finshed.


Note: Make sure you have you need RTMPLTFM.dll & Uccp.dll in the working directory.

Happy OCS 2007 presence integration with Asterisk! If you try it, let me know how it goes.

You remember Pudding Media, right? They offered ad sponsored phone calls in exchange for "listening" in on your phone conversations so it could target audio ads. Pudding Media essentially leverages keyword wordspotting using speech recognition. Well, today, I learned about Plumble from Telecom Monthly. The article seems giddy with what it thinks is some new revelation...

Once in a blue moon, a new product comes along with an idea so obvious that you just want to slap your forehead that you didn't think of it first. For a couple of years, companies like Jajah and Skype have been offering "Free" phone service. But both still collect your credit card number and charge you for calls that you make off their networks. So they aren't really "Free," although they can come close if you call mostly other Jajah or Skype users.

Plumble, The Free Phone Service

A new beta service called Plumble offers actual free phone calls without collecting your credit card number or even your name.

Well, Pudding Media offers free ad-sponsored calls, so this is nothing new. Of course, I didn't care for Pudding Media's eavesdropping ad model. Plumble is limited to U.S. and Canadian calling, which isn't that expensive anyway. Where's the international free calling? Heck Jajah has been offering free international calling since 2006. Further, Plumble requires that you dial 818-742-0110. Um, that's not toll-free - that's a California area code. So I have to pay to dial long-distance to make a "free" phone call? Not to mention it is currently limited to 5 minute phone calls. Thus, this is only useful for short calls anyway and only for people where 818 is a local call.

Thanks, but no thanks.

I've written about T-Mobile's VoIP blocking shenanigan's here, here, and here.  Not to mention their blocking of MinuteWatcher for tracking cellphone minute usage. I also wrote how Truphone won an injunction against T-mobile ordering T-Mobile UK to stop blocking calls to Truphone. T-Mobile's heavy-handed blocking tactics is getting a bit old.

Well, according to TUAW, T-mobile is at it again. Thilo Salmon, CEO of sipgate, told TUAW that T-Mobile Germany has asked his company to cease and desist offering the company's VoIP software called sipgate, which can run on the Apple iPhone. sipgate launched their VoIP app for the iPhone in June.

I busted out laughing when I read, "T-Mobile claims that sipgate is making the jailbreak process appear more attractive, which could lead customers to breaching their contracts."

Yeah, so? If I buy a radar detector does that mean I'm more apt to speed? Maybe, but that doesn't mean I can't legally (in most states) purchase a radar detector. You can't block something just because it might 'entice' someone to do something that breaches a contract or the law.

Now if T-Mobile makes its customers sign a contract stating they won't jailbreak their phone or install VoIP, that's fine. If you catch the users doing so, then you can cancel their service, demand the cancellation fee, etc. But you can't pre-emptively punish your customers or 3rd party applications for something they may or may not do. You have to break the contract first, then you have a breach of contract and not one second before.

T-Mobile's contract currently disallows jailbreaking, running VoIP, instant messaging, and VPN applications. But again, you can't send cease-and-desist letters to 3rd party companies because they haven't done anything wrong. It's not illegal to write software. Just like guns. It isn't illegal to own a gun, but you can use a gun illegally. Do you send cease-and-desist letters to gun manufacturers? No. You prosecute the gun owners who use their guns illegally, i.e. taking it into a school, shooting someone, etc.

The interesting part is that sipgate only works via WiFi (and not GPRS or EDGE), and doesn't run on T-Mobile's wireless data network. So it's not like sipgate is bypassing T-Mobile's per-minute voice service entirely using an unlimited data plan. WiFi hotspots aren't ubiquitous either, where as you can get GPRS/EDGE data service much more readily. You could argue blocking VoIP on GPRS/EDGE/3G has some merits. Even the iPhone blocks VoIP unless it goes over WiFi -- but the iPhone at least permits VoIP over WiFi!

sipgate said it does not plan to comply with the order. The article states that Salmon boldly claims, "we may need to fight this all the way through the courts." and suggested that it's largely a government policy issue for Germany, and wants to lobby for a net-neutral environment for telecom carriers.

Fight the good fight, sipgate! I'm with you all the way.

Some BroadSoft, Fonality, and ITEXPO news all rolled in one. First, TMC put out a release about BroadSoft keynoting the next ITEXPO, the leading VoIP conference:

The energy behind the upcoming ITEXPO West 2008 (www.ITEXPO.com), the industry's only Major Communications event taking place this Fall, continues to grow everyday. The most recent news - Broadsoft CEO, Michael Tessler, has committed to delivering a keynote speech, which will take place on Wednesday, Sept. 17, 2008, at 3 p.m. at the Los Angeles Convention Center. This news, while significant, is only one of many reasons not to miss this year's conference. For a full agenda, please visit: http://www.tmcnet.com/voip/conference/west-08/w08-conferences.aspx.

BroadSoft, a SIP-based service provider, also announced today that they've teamed up with Fonality to offer managed IP PBX for service providers. BroadSoft certified that Fonality with BroadWorks, annd Fonality Welcomes BroadSoft into its FACE Program.

Fonality®, the leading provider of open-source phone systems, and BroadSoft Inc., the leading provider of VoIP application software, announced today that the two companies have certified their products to work together, enabling service providers to market and deploy Fonality to their small and medium-sized business (SMB) customers with confidence. BroadSoft®, which provides VoIP applications and SIP trunking to seven of the top 10 and 13 of the 25 largest carriers worldwide, has completed certification of Fonality trixbox® Pro and PBXtra® with BroadWorks®, BroadSoft's industry-leading VoIP application platform for fixed-line and wireless service providers. BroadSoft has also joined the Fonality Authorized Certified Ecosystem (FACE).

BroadWorks offers a range of carrier-grade applications that includes hosted PBX, unified communications, mobile PBX, business trunking, and residential broadband. Fonality products include a family of open-source-based, hybrid-hosted IP PBX offerings tailored for SMBs. By certifying the products together, the companies offer service providers a complete line of hosted and premise-based unified communications offerings for customers of all sizes.

"By collaborating with Fonality, we're giving service providers a way to go to market quickly with fully integrated, market-tested offerings for smaller companies," said Leslie Ferry, Vice President of Marketing for BroadSoft. "Service providers can now take new products to their customers with the confidence that comes from knowing that both companies' solutions will work together seamlessly."

"BroadSoft is the dominant VoIP platform deployed by service providers and MSOs," said Chris Vuillaume, Vice President of Business Development and Channels at Fonality. "Their certification is an important stamp of approval for Fonality products and expands our market opportunity to include Tier 1 and Tier 2 providers."

Fonality business phone systems are designed for modern workplaces, accommodating companies that have a mix of office, mobile and home-based workers. Fonality solutions support both VoIP calling and traditional phone lines, allowing a smooth transition for businesses upgrading their calling services. Its patented, hybrid-hosted architecture allows employee identity to be maintained as they travel between work, home and hotels. Fonality products, when paired with the award-winning HUD® presence software, provide a unified view of Instant Messaging, e-mail and calling for all fixed and mobile workers.

Forget all the E911 issues, VoIP 911 problems, etc. Just imagine texting 911 and having emergency personnel locate you. According to NWCN, King County believes the technology will be "available sooner than you think." King County is testing this new concept in Western Washington and four other municipalities by the U.S. Department of Transportation.

It can handle text messages, OnStar vehicles that crash, and even VoIP emergency calls. King County calls it "Next Generation 9-1-1".

"The 9-1-1 system today cannot interface to any of those new technologies," said Marlys Davis, a spokesperson for the county.

According to the article, Davis stated it could still be a couple of years before the high tech service becomes reality.

The article is short on technical details. How does the 911 dispatcher locate someone that sends an SMS text message? Is it GPS? Is it cell tower triangulation (most likely since most cell phone don't have GPS). How are they tracking individuals that send an SMS? Should privacy advocates be concerned? Is this some super secret black ops program that the government is installing on the carriers network to track all SMS messages and their originating location? Would be perfect to send a GPS-guided bomb or Hellfire missile onto anyone that sends a terrorist-related message. You know, like if you SMS your friend, "Tomorrow's party at the Seattle Space Needle restaurant is going to be da bomb!"