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Voip Blog
Have you tried voip.com's Make a Call, yet?
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
If life is like a box of chocolates, then voip must be a paper origami puzzle box. Every time you think you've got voip all figured out, it shifts in your hand, unfolding itself to reveal yet another hidden treasure for voip internet phone users.
Take voip.com's Make a Callprogram, for instance. Instead of monthly fees, you buy low-cost minutes--as many or as few as you like. In order to use those minutes, you have to log into your free-to-create account and type two numbers into the boxes provided. The first would be the phone you want to be talking on, while the second is the person you'd like to call.
Then, simply click the button that says, "Make this call," and wait for the magic to happen. Your phone will ring before very long; pick it up and wait a moment. Then your friend's phone will ring. When they pick up, your calls are connected and voip.com drops out of the equation, much like an old fashioned telephone switchboard operator.
Here's what's so fantastic...when I did my test run, I used a landline number for the first one, and a cell phone for the second--no voip adapter, no special phone, no anything. Yet still, the phones rang as if on cue and after both parties picked up, the calls managed to automatically merge themselves, without any trouble, into a crystal clear phone call.
And that, my friends, is certainly worthy of puzzle box status.
Next generation home alarm
Thursday, January 18, 2007
TiVo's release of voip-supported DVR units was a really good indication that voip has not only gone mainstream, but also is a technological advance that makes financial sense for companies to accommodate.
Following in TiVo's footsteps, home alarm systems are also starting to gear up for the voip internet phone invasion. Previously, voip and home alarm systems were completely incompatible. Broadband, no matter how good a connection, has little gaps and lags in transmission. For most uses, it doesn't matter, but alarm systems generally can't deal with even a little bit of garbled sound.
NextAlarm announced at this year's Consumer Electronics Show a new kind of home alarm service. One that is compatible with voip, or even broadband without a voip phone. Their system includes a special adapter that connects your alarm system to your broadband and helps ensure the smooth transmission of critical alarm information. It also streamlines the alarm handling process. The end result is a home security solution that doesn't depend on landlines to work.
In the cold, hard light of day
Friday, January 12, 2007
Much like the proverbial beer goggle effect, gadget freaks everywhere are wondering exactly how attractive that iPhone is going to be after the initial intoxication wears off. The Apple iPhone is undeniably sexy, but it comes with some pretty significant baggage.
The first of which would have to be that oh so exclusive deal with Cingular. Requiring a two-year contract for US subscribers is pretty short sighted, especially when the service provider Apple wants us to jump into bed with rates dead last or second to last in performance, according to Consumer Reports. Why not allow people to choose their own provider?
Another big issue is the closed OS. That's right, as in no-third-party apps closed. I'm sure they'll release additional software and widgets for the phone, but I'm equally sure we'll be paying a premium for them. And having to wait an interminably long time before Apple decides there's enough interest to warrant the release of new features.
No G3. I think that says it all.
A 2 megapixel camera seems a little hinky for such a high-tech device. A mere quibble to be sure, but it's a little hard to swallow when phones that cost a quarter of Apple phone can manage to come up with a higher quality camera.
The high price. Yes that's a whole lotta innovation going on, but there's also a barrel of negatives to contend with. Stick us with a sky high price tag and open the phone up to any provider or drop it and lock us into one--don't do both.
You can't use WiFi to synch with iTunes or another phone. They claim the reasoning behind that one has to do with the faster transmission speeds that come with a hardwired connection and also the convenience of recharging your phone at the same time. Again, nice sentiments, but let users choose.
A five hour battery might work ok for an MP3 player, but a communication/internet device? I predict that sporting a spare iPhone battery in each of your back pockets will be the new fashion statement in 2007.
Then there's the whole unsavory iName controversy. No matter what angle you view it from, Apple keeps looking like the bad guy here. Especially when you take a look at their defense...
No voip on the iPhone. Unhunh. That's the whole of their argument. See, Cisco's iPhone is a voip internet phone and Apple's iPhone is a cellular phone that, sure, is capable of voip but they're not including any actual voip clients, nor are they letting people roll their own solutions. The best you can hope for is using a web based version of your voip softphone.
Suddenly, I'm not so sure I'll be lining up for that first batch of iPhones. Call me stubborn, but I hate being painted into a corner.
With an iPhone here and an iPhone there
Tuesday, January 09, 2007
All together now, kids, "Old McSteve Jobs had a farm, e-i-e-i-o. And on his farm he had an...iPhone?" How's that again? I thought we already had an iPhone.
I guess the market is going to support two iPhones, because the people who own the trademark "iPhone" aren't taking legal action for trademark infringement. In point of fact, they seem pretty confident that their people and Apple's people are on the verge of hashing out a shared custody agreement that everyone can live with. It'll be interesting to see how this plays out.
Especially in light of the conspicuous non-mention of voip internet phone support. Some people think Apple's betting that if their product is sufficiently different from the original iPhone, there won't be any quibble over trademark infringement.
At any rate, Apple's version of the iPhone looks to be nearly everything the competition was afraid of; let's just hope voip's not the odd man out, here:
- Supports multiple wireless protocols, including GSM, 802.11 b/g, Bluetooth 2.0 and EDGE (Cingular's proprietary data network).
- 2.0 megapixel camera
- 4 or 8 GB capacity
- Big screen iPod
- Safari web browser that displays web pages as they were meant to be seen
- Google Maps
- Helpful phone-top widgets that give one-touch access to weather info, stocks and more
- An Enterprise worthy touch screen user interface
- Full QWERTY "smartware" keyboard that automatically corrects common errors
- OS X
In keeping with the bleeding edge futuristic theme, they've also put some really cool sensors in the phone that you don't exactly need but they really make for a seamless experience:
- Accelerometer: it tells when you've turned the phone from portrait to landscape mode and it will rotate the display accordingly.
- Proximity sensor: When you put the iPhone to your ear, it automagically puts the display/user interface into standby mode, so you don't accidentally face dial the inlaws.
- Light sensor: automagically adjusts the display, relative to the ambient lighting.
While I wasn't lucky enough to actually touch one in real life, I did browse around Apple's promo material and I have to admit...iCan't wait till this thing hits the shelves. All I want to know is--does this phone make me look like a fanboy? No wait--don't answer that; I don't even want to know.
Reason #365,954 why voip outperforms the phone company
Saturday, January 06, 2007
In the normal scheme of things, you sign up for phone service, chatter away all month, and pay the bill when it pops up in your mailbox. If you get your bills in the mail, you might squirrel them away in a records file for a year or so, but mostly, you don't think about it too much--until there's a problem.
We've got voip internet phone service and a traditional landline. We also get both statements via email; it's convenient and cuts down on the clutter. Recently, we needed to verify a call that came into our landline number a couple of months ago. I went online and discovered that, no...they don't grant account holders access to that kind of information.
So I called customer service, and talked to an infinitely unhelpful young man who let me know that Caller ID is what you use to find out about incoming calls. Or sometimes, if you sign up for this thing that's kind of like an answering machine (but you have to pay extra) and if they call and you're not there it will take a message and whatever, or something to that effect and maybe you could find out that way. And I said, "Voicemail?" and he was all, "ummmmm, sure. Do you want to sign up?" Then I asked what if the police called and needed to get a hold of phone records. What then? To which he replied, "well, I don't know--maybe you need a court thing or something." You have got to be kidding me.
Too bad the call didn't come in on our voip line. All I'd have to do is login to my account and take a gander at my phone logs. Incoming, outgoing, length of the conversation, time it happened...pretty much anything you might need to know (excepting a transcript of the actual conversation, of course).
Veddy interesting
Friday, January 05, 2007
Remember that crystal clear voip call I made to my brother? Apparently, the broadband they grow up there in Washington is not the same as what we get down here in the Sunshine State.
Just for kicks, I decided to run a little comparison while the memory of my voip internet phone nirvana was still fresh at hand. First, a few statistics:
- My brother's broadband is DSL coming in at a theoretical 1.5 Mbps
- Our "vastly superior" broadband is Cable, coming in at an advertised 3 Mbps, however for the last several months we've been lucky to see speeds above 1.2 Mbps.
- Voip only needs about 90 Kbps to work
The call I made to my brother was pin-drop clear without noticeable lag. Results using my own household broadband weren't nearly as good. We made calls to both a cell phone and a traditional cordless phone, using four configurations:
- Corded phone attached to voip internet phone adapter
- Cordless phone attached to voip internet phone adapter
- Headset and laptop connected to wireless network
- Headset and laptop with a hard connection to broadband network
In each instance, we experienced lag, echo, overlap, dropped snippets of conversation, and static. Calls coming from the PC were marginally more clear, but the overall quality was pretty abysmal. Not surprisingly, when I ran a speedtest on my connection I discovered there were problems with my connection:
- Download speed: 1.2 Mbps (less than 50% of what I'm paying for)
- Upload speed: 225 (right around what I'm paying for)
- Average round-trip time: 295 ms ( rtt > 250ms = a whole lotta bad audio)
- Maximum pause: 285 ms (yeah, that's not good either)
- QoS: 45% (you really need an 80% or better to be happy with the sound quality)
Sooooooo...what I want to know is how in the sweet bye and bye is my ISP going to make good on the automatic speed upgrade they just told everyone about, when they can't even regularly provide a) half the advertised upload speed we're paying for and b) a consistent signal?
Turn that frown upside down
Thursday, January 04, 2007
When last we spoke I was huddled in the fetal position under my mom's desk, suffering from severe broadband withdrawal. Not a pretty sight and also, there is no such thing as internet methadone, so think twice about landing yourself anywhere close to a dialup-only zone--especially if you're gonna be there a while. Don't say I didn't warn you.
My long suffering mother lives in the vicinity of secret underground militia, Sasquatch tribes and--I kid you not--Tonya Harding, so not only are there no fast and/or reliable internets, you also run the risk of encountering unexpected and painful knee injuries whilst out caroling at the neighbors.
Thank the sweet baby Jesus, my brother lives somewhat closer to civilization and has DSL at the ready. After we set him up the wireless router, all our base were just fine. When we tried the VoipStick experiment at his house, everything worked beautifully. I called his cell and holy moley--I did not know a call could sound so clear. Voip or no voip, that was the best sounding call I've ever made. I can't wait for broadband to work it's way into the back of beyond where my mom is living so she can start with the voip internet phone, already. I don't know if it's all the rain they get up there but every time she calls the lines are full of static and weird random noises. Just once I'd like to have a conversation that didn't sound like we were sharing the line with angry, disembodied something-or-others.