Saying that they’re helping with “defining new ways to communicate with people through unlocked phones,” Cellhut officials have announced what they say are “the latest products on the market at some of the lowest prices available.”

This combination makes Cellhut “the site to go to for the latest in unlocked gadgets,” company officials say, adding that “the accessories sale also makes a great way to produce stocking-stuffers for other people.”

In one of the better quotes we’ve heard from a tech vendor in quite some time, Cellhut officials note that “staying up-to-date isn't an easy feat to accomplish, but somebody has to ensure that the products in stock are worth the customers' time.”

Indeed. By “searching through all the tech review website and message board to stay up to date, Cellhut makes sure that the only phone in stock are worth the customers time. This promise has been the motto of Cellhut for years and years.”

Read more here.

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Akron, Ohio-based Virtual Hold is trying to help establish a new meme.

Yes, we all know Black Friday, the day of shopping mall hell following Thanksgiving. “Now known as Cyber Monday, November 29 is the start of the online holiday shopping season,” company officials said recently. “People shop online for a variety of reasons, but ease of use is always a top reason.”

But, they say, when a customer needs to talk to a company representative, "easy" is often the last word a customer would use to describe the process: “Between busy signals, long hold times and disconnections, sometimes it's easier for a customer to just go somewhere else.”

And they do, believe us. In droves. Where they’re subjected to yet more terrible customer service. Transitioning from the self-service environment of a website to live customer service, say Virtual Hold officials, “can leave customers confused and discouraged, resulting in poor customer experiences, reduced customer loyalty and lost sales.” That’s why company officials are touting the Virtual Hold WebConnect web application.

Read more here.

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Because you didn’t already have enough TV content available in enough places, AT&T has announced that AT&T U-verse TV customers “now have full access to HBOGO.com and MAXGO.com, HBO and Cinemax's online video destinations featuring more than 1,200 hours of streamed programming."

U-verse TV residential customers who subscribe to HBO or Cinemax can automatically receive free, unlimited online access to HBO and Cinemax programming, respectively, at any time, from any U.S. location. They can access HBO GO and MAX GO with aU-verse TV log-in ID and password at HBO GO, MAX GO, and soon, U-verse Online.

"We're proud to deliver more value to U-verse TV subscribers by offering compelling content from HBO and Cinemax online," said Dan York, president of content for AT&T. "This latest U-verse enhancement is just one more way we're giving U-verse TV customers access to hit TV shows in more places -- whether that's on their big screen HDTV, downloaded to their smartphone with U-verse Mobile, or one of the more than 130,000 titles at U-verse Online."

Read more here.

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A new market research report titled, “The Future of Consumer VoIP: Leveraging Internet advances for profitable consumer voice services,” is now available.

"It is important to distinguish between a profitable business that successfully sells VoIP services and a profitable VoIP business,” said the report’s authors, adding that successful VoIP businesses “are driven by other services the company offers, and by services that align with customers' perceived needs, not by the VoIP business alone."

In the early 2000s, you might recall overheated telecom industry experts confidently assuring you that VoIP would change the dynamics of the voice communications business. But as the report’s authors noted, a decade later “the largest providers of consumer Internet voice services are, with one exception, conventional telecommunications companies.”

In point of fact some are pioneers and innovators, but others – dare we say most? – are not. What they do share, however, is a market strategy that doesn't rely solely on price.

And the pressure is on VoIP service providers to make VoIP mobile, the report’s authors conclude, “Driven by growing mobile handset capabilities and broadband subscriptions, and continued high prices for international calls, the market for mobile VoIP is developing quickly.”

Read more here.