Graves On SOHO Technology

Preface: This post is a rework of the HDVoice session I presented in cooperation with Polycom at Astricon 2009. The Powerpoint slides in support of that session as well as a videotape recording of the session are anticipated in a few weeks on the Astricon web site.

In considering this subject I developed more demo material than was possible to use in the 40 minute session at Astricon. This post begins a series that is a kind of superset of the Astricon session, intended to go into more depth with a larger variety of HDVoice examples.

The introduction to the session was given by Tim Yankee, Director of Product Marketing, Voice Communications at Polycom. Tim’s intro gave an overview of the state of HDVoice in the industry.  Hopefully his slide set will be included in the presentation materials to be put online at Astricon.net

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This coming week I’ll be doing a short presentation at Astricon 2009 in Phoenix. For some reason the description of the session has never made it onto the event web site so I thought I’d describe it here in case anyone was interested.

The topic is “HDVoice & Asterisk: Hearing The Siren’s Song.” The session is essentially an overview of the very recent implementation of the Polycom Siren7 & Siren 14 codecs in Asterisk v1.6. The session is part of the “Tech Track” and the conference and happens Wednesday, October14th at 11:40am.

I’ll be sharing the stage with Tim Yankee, Director of Product Marketing, Voice Communications for Polycom. Tim will start the session, presenting on the state of HDVoice as envisioned by Polycom. When Tim passes the mic to me I’ll offer a demo of the Siren codecs.

We hope to make it both informative and entertaining. And, oh yes….there will be a test…of sorts!

In a previous post I described the settings necessary to have my Gigaset A580IP register for use with OnSIP. This time around I’ll show you the settings necessary to use SIPGate in the US.

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In the month or two since I posted my review of the Gigaset A580IP SIP/DECT phones I’ve been contacted a number of times by people struggling with configuring the phone for their chosen ITSP. In most cases it’s a simple matter of the people not being familiar with some of the terminology common to SIP service providers, and being able to map the terms use by their ITSP to the menus on the Gigaset web admin portal.

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We do love our Squeezeboxen. In fact, we love ‘em enough that we have four of the little beasties scattered around here. They are at the core of our strategy for “whole house audio.”

The strategy is simple, nothing fancy or even built-in. In each room where we like to listen to music or internet radio we have a Squeezebox3 and a pair of self-powered monitor speakers. When we entertain a crowd, we sync up the whole shebang so that we have music throughout the property but independent control of volume in each room.

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Yes, it’s true, I’ve been a little distracted. Recently a lot of my focus has been work related, as I’ve been on a project in Baltimore the past two weeks. During the time I’ve been staying at a Doubletree near Johns Hopkins University. It’s a quiet place with a good restaurant, including a nice wine list.

Sadly, cellular service in the area is spotty. I’ve had no T-Mobile coverage in my room. That leaves me relying upon VoIP over the hotel Wifi or my Sprint Mifi. Happily, those have been decent options.

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