Tom Keating : VoIP & Gadgets Blog
Tom Keating
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VoIP news, trends, and opinions, VoIP reviews. Covering Asterisk, Cisco, Grandstream, Polycom, Microsoft, Vonage, Packet8, etc.

Skype@Home Telephone Products Coming?

April 20, 2012

Today, Rich Tehrani wrote about Microsoft "working on Skype Everywhere Initiative" based on another Microsoft-careers.com job listing. Just a few days ago I wrote about a Microsoft job listing was pointing toward Microsoft and Skype building a HTML5 Web version of Skype.

Rich believes there are some good synergies with Microsoft and Skype that can result in a whole like of Skype at home phone products (Skype@Home?) including DECT 6.0 phones. The problem with DECT wireless phones over WiFi phones is you need a base unit, which adds to the cost. Wi-Fi phones can just connect to the Wi-Fi access point with no additional hardware necessary.

However, what if the next XBox 360 has a built-in DECT transceiver?



RingCentral Cloud Touch Platform - Configure Phone System from iPad, iPhone, or Android

April 18, 2012


Imagine being able to record prompts, configure IVR/auto-attendant, and remove a disgruntled employee's access to your phone system all while sitting on a beach - simply using your tablet or mobile device. That's exactly what RingCentral's Cloud Touch Platform does and they proudly claim this touch-enabled phone system configuration platform "Reimagines Business Phone Systems". They may just be right.

Founded in 2003, RingCentral (>1000 employees) is by far the largest cloud-based phone system with RingCentral's Naveen Gupta, Chief Product Officer, claiming "hundreds of thousands of paying customers". AT&T and Rogers resells RingCentral's platform, which partly explains their impressive customer base.

The RingCentral Touch platform enables businesses to setup, manage and use their phone system from a smart mobile device.




Google's Chrome Team Reveals WebRTC Roadmap

April 18, 2012

Google's Chrome team stated in their recent WebRTC roadmap that the main components of WebRTC are now stable and they will be releasing it to the 200M+ Chrome users later this year. However, they want developers to get a sneak preview of what will be in the first WebRTC release. I should mention that two days ago I discussed how Skype and Microsoft were working on a HTML5 web-version of Skype. I felt that HTML5 would be inadequate and any Skype web app would likely also use WebRTC.

Cisco Extends SMB Product Portfolio With Several New Products

April 12, 2012

Cisco today launched a new portfolio of small business products, including wireless, routing, switching, and voice solutions. They are also extending and enhancing the Cisco OnPlus managed service.


                                      Cisco WAP121                                                        Cisco WAP321

The new wireless products include the Cisco WAP121 and WAP321 Wireless-N access points. Both products feature flexible mounting, PoE, IPv6, and QoS for video and voice. The WAP121 features 4 SSIDs, 2.4GHz, Fast Ethernet LAN and retails for $173.




netTALK DUO Wi-Fi Review

April 4, 2012

netTALK DUO Wi-Fi is the latest generation of their VoIP product which brings low-cost phone calling to consumers and competes directly with the popular magicJack plus product. I reviewed the original netTALK DUO last year and was very impressed. When I heard a new Wi-Fi version was in the works I was looking forward to checking it out. First the unboxing:

ZANGI New Mobile VoIP & Video App Launching Soon

March 29, 2012


ZANGI is a new mobile app that supports free SMS, voice and video calls, multi-user conferences, instant messaging, file sharing, screen sharing, integration with other programs and more. ZANGI is still in "stealth mode", but I'm told their offering is coming out next month with support for multiple mobile platforms including OS, Android OS, Symbian, Windows PC, or Windows Mobile. It can also be used via web interface or through social networks like Facebook, Google+, etc. How integrated with these popular social networks remains to be seen.

SoftPhone.com New Cloud VoIP Offering - Invite Only

March 26, 2012


Interesting new web-based VoIP offering I came across via CounterPath's Todd Carother's Google+ status update. The website is softphone.com and according to a whois lookup is indeed owned by CounterPath. Check out the website description:

Coming soon is a new cloud offering for SMBs for the United States and Canada — SoftPhone.com. With SoftPhone.com business users will be able to leverage their current IP-PBX or hosted offering to connect with other colleagues for FREE.



HP Aims to Simplify Unified Communications Deployment

March 26, 2012


HP today announced two new offerings that aid in the rapid adoption of   unified communications (UC) solutions from Microsoft and Polycom. The new offerings include HP AppSystem for Microsoft Lync, a turnkey platform designed to expedite Lync deployments, and a customizable HP and Polycom Rich Media Communications (RMC) solution for video and collaboration.

Although many organizations are deploying Microsoft Lync, not everyone is embracing it. One reason is that internal staff lacks expertise or can dedicate time to deploy UC.

Skype Releases Retina-Optimized Skype for iPad

March 26, 2012

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