Graves on SOHO Technology

A big thank you to Dave Zatz for pointing out that Verizon Wireless today decided to discontinue the HUB. This product has been very interesting to watch as it represents a fundamental rethinking of the “home phone” and could have changed the industry for the better.

But as is typical of Verizon Wireless, they’ve managed to kill the goose before the golden egg could emerge. Actually, that’s not a fair characterization of the project. They sealed its fate with their typically heavy-handed need to for cash & control. They held the goose so tight that it could never breathe, much less lay an egg.

As Dave points out, the device and its associated service was simply priced beyond the reach of its appeal.

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Ok, this is me diving into the deep-end of something that very possibly literally no-one in the world cares about. That’s just so typical of me. Actually, I know that a few people are starting to clue in about this because I’ve heard it come up here and there in conversation, most recently at the Sept 15th HDComms event in NYC.

This post is actually the third in a series. In the first (Pink Floyd: The Making Of Money & Directionality) I took a quick look at pop music recording practices and specifically the practice of recording things “close-mic’d” the adding ambience through synthetic means. In the second in the series (Codecs, Wideband & Stereo: A Conversation At Amoocon) I followed a conversation in the hallway at AMOOCON 2009, noting aspects of the discussion pertaining to “stereo” or the conveyance of directionality.

Once we get beyond PSTN audio quality, when wideband is accepted as normal, then “dimensional” or “immersive” audio becomes a new frontier for exploration in telephony. In fact, in some limited ways we’re already doing this in larger video conference room & telepresence suites.

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I really must make it to the US version of ECOMM in 2010. If only to hear Brough Turner in person. But for now, here’s a session he did at ECOMM ’09.

I especially like his point that “If you are arguing about network neutrality you’ve already lost!” That comes just at a time when the now ages old NN debate in the US is heating up at the FCC level.

The editors over at Small Net Builder just posted my review of the Polycom VVX-1500 Business Media Phone.

I’d like to add a special thank you to Chris Veazey at BlinkMind for helping me to capture some sample video from the device.

…power that is. I’m  such a sucker for a pun or inflammatory headline. The one area that the Sprint issued Mifi device leaves me wanting is in the battery life. If you are accustomed to wifi all the time then the battery in the mifi is just not going to satisfy. Oh, it lasts a good long while…perhaps 2-3 hours…but that’s not near long enough in many cases.

This is by no means a defect of the device. It’s just a little contrast between the permanence of a real wifi AP and the wee little Mifi. Around the house I expect that the wifi is just always there, and so the connection, although wireless, is constant.

I went looking last weekend to find the Mifi box. I wanted to check and see if I had overlooked a USB cable. I hadn’t. According to the manifest on the side of the box Sprint doesn’t provide the micro-USB cable. I gather that Verizon does.

Rumor has it that the Mifi will operate directly attached to a host PC usng a micro-USB cable. So attached the PC powers the device resulting effectively unlimited run-time. This seems more ideal tha my present situation so I bought a micro-USB cable on E-Bay for $4 and will try this when I get home on the weekend.

It’s no secret that I’ve been living with a couple of Polycom VVX-1500 Business Media Phones around my office for the past few months. My review of these devices will shortly run over at Small Net Builder.

This is one of the few times that 3000 words seemed like a problem. That is, I could use more space to get into more detail about the devices. Perhaps we’ll run a follow-up later on. That’d be great, presuming that I get to run a trial installation of the phones as I hope.

Anyway, Media Phones. It’s a whole new category. It’s like the iPhone for the home or office. That includes some other devices that I’ve shown interest in, like the Verizon HUB from Open Peak, and Glass from Cloud Telecomputers (pictured).

Analysts In-Stat have published a report on media phones. It’s free. Go fetch it. I’ll wait.

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There’s just way too much interesting gear out there for me to try all of it. That’s at least part of the reason why I was happy to read Ruben’s review of the Citel C-4100 IP phone. Back in May he won the phone in a contest on the VoIP Supply blog.

I hope that he makes good on his intention to use the phone to join a VUC call in G.722. At $99 it just might be a good low-end solution to providing a basic wideband capable desk phone. That is, if the handset truly delivers the call quality.

Beyond merely a wideband codec the physical device matters. It needs to be solidly build, with high-quality transducers. I guess we’ll see, or should I say hear, next week.

I wanted to be working on reviewing the Dreamwave SIP-D28p by now, but that effort has been delayed due to a firmware issue. The phone is powered-up and running. I’ve been able to use it a bit, exploring its firmware, web GUI, etc. It shows some promise. There are some nice features in the device.

However, I came to a screeching halt when I found that the phone doesn’t provide sidetone into the handset. This stopped me dead in my tracks. The lack of sidetone makes using any phone very unnatural. Thus I’ve not been able to put it on my desk and actually use it as my primary phone. That’s the process that forces me to gain enough experience with a device to write about it sensibly.

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Some time back the folks over at VoIP Supply posted something about a collection of new SIP Wifi handsets. Whereas in the past that would make me take notice, even catch my interest, I found myself completely disinterested. In fact, it was surprising how little appeal these gadgets had.

Over the years I’ve tried various SIP Wifi handsets and come to a very simple conclusion. That is, for my home office application they have no merit at all. The fact that I have a solid cordless SIP solution eliminates the possible interest that any of these new products might have.

In everything experiment that I’ve ever tried DECT/CATiq products soundly beat any dedicated SIP Wifi handset. Now that there are affordable SIP/DECT products from sources like Gigaset and Snom dedicated VoWifi handsets just don’t measure up for many applications.

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As devices come my way I’m always looking for the most effective way to review them and present the resulting information. Most typically this means writing a detailed description of my experiences with the device, but I also think that supporting images are important to making the material visually interesting.

Recently I’ve been thinking about using more recorded audio (podcasts?) and even recording some video laying hands on the product.

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