Graves On SOHO Technology

Raves

Companies that I truly admire. Products & services that I both use and recommend. In no particular order, and by no means a complete list. I’ll add to this list is as the thought occurs to me, or remove offenders as necessary.

	Astlinux is the very best embedded Asterisk distribution that I’ve ever found. It’s everything that you need, and little that you don’t, without the overhead of complex GUI systems.
	Comcast Business Class Internet Access has fundamentally changed how I think of Comcast. Their service offers several key advantages over consumer cable modem service: better performance (16/2M), a local sales rep to handle all contacts, and no transfer caps. At $99/mo it costs 40% more than top tier consumer services, but it’s worth the price for a home office dweller.
	We’re just rolling onto our fifth year using Covad as our primary DSL provider. We use their TeleSOHO Extend service, which is a home office oriented service. It’s not cheap, but it’s been extremely reliable. On the few occasions that I’ve needed assistance their tech support staff was outstanding, both knowledgeable and capable of delivering a solution.
	A recent addition to my suit of Most Favored Vendors, E4Strategieshas been very good to deal with. Their prices are excellent and they are very engaged with their user community.As a thank you for sponsoring the VoIP Users Conference I automatically link to their web site when I make references to specific IP telephony products.
	I’ve been using Junction Networks myself since June 2006, initially just for terminating calls from my Asterisk server. Later I transitioned my employers US operations to their OnSIP hosted PBX service. The service is great and their support, when required, has been exemplary.
	m0n0wall is one of the most successful open source projects ever launched. A brilliantly simple, yet powerful router/firewall it’s extremely reliable. Community support is great and I’ve even contributed some details about traffic shaping for VoIP. It runs on any PC with two network ports, or varioous embedded hardware platforms including Soekris and PCEngines hardware.
	Polycom is IMHO quite simply the leader in desktop IP phones. For years a SoundPoint IP650 graced my own desk. I also oversee a small fleet of various lesser SoundPoint models. They are the definition of high quality and reliable, with an extremely flexible provisioning mechanism. For my money nothing else comes remotely close.
	Words cannot express how much I admire my Slim Devices Squeezebox3 music players. In fact, we have four of them, and will soon have a fifth. They are central to how we listen to music and radio here in our home. Each Squeezebox is paired with a set of self-amplified monitor speakers. All four can play the same playlist in sync, or each play a separate track. These are an outstanding product!
	Over the years I’ve used just about every cellular carrier. For the past four years I’ve settled on T-Mobile and I’m very happy with their service.In a little unusual move I also use them as the carrier for the GSM gateway that once backed up my IP based office phones.
	If you’ve not experienced a truly high-quality conference service then I recommend VUC sponsor ZipDX. Theirs is a unique service in that it’s both wideband and based upon open standards.