Graves on SOHO Technology

A couple of weeks ago friend Tony up at Gigaset promised to send me a couple of the newer Gigaset DECT handsets that they’ve started to sell in the US. The box arrived and true to his promise there are a couple of handsets..but this is not about them. Left with a little space in the box Tony threw in a Gigaset One Bluetooth interface device. It’s proven to be a curious and interesting little device.

Let me be completely clear about this….it’s not often that manufacturers just send me stuff (disclosure statement). After almost 600 posts to this blog I’ve managed forge a few good relationships with manufacturers, but in most cases I simply buy whatever hardware I truly need, and that’s what I get to write about.

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This a a really good interview. If you carry a cell phone you need to watch.

Paul O’Flaherty released this curious little vidcast that makes a good point.

For months I’ve been waiting for a new cell phone. There seems to be a dearth of suitable candidates available. So I’m going to try running a reader poll. I had been very interested in the Nokia N97 which has been shipping for about six weeks. Yet few people I know are using the device, and I don’t necessarily trust everything that I read about it online. If you have one I’d like to know your thoughts on it.

[poll id="2"]

Feel free to leave a comment or suggest an alternative.

Femtocells have been a topic of considerable discussion over the past year or so. Femtocells are small devices that act like a tiny cellular base in your home or office. To your cell phone it’s just another tower. However, instead of interfacing to the carriers back-end network it backhauls the calls over your local broadband connection. Some have noted that this is ideal for the carrier since they don’t actually incur the cost of that backhaul segment. As the person paying for the broadband connection, you do.

Vodaphone appears to be the first cellular carrier in the UK to actually introduce the little beasties. Andrew Grill’s “London Calling” blog has an excellent description of them based on his early first-hand experience. His tale includes both acquiring and installing the device.  That he is able to extend cellular coverage into the basement flat (apartment) of a Victorian era home seems especially useful.

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Over at VoIP Supply’s VoIP Insider Cory Andrews poses a good question, ” When Will HD Audio Come to Mobile Phones?” He frames it up in the context of having first hand experience with enterprise class wideband hardware like the new Polycom VVX-1500 Media Phone, but then recasts the question in the mobile space.

With 3G here and 4G coming, the bandwidth is certainly there to support HD calling on mobile devices. Seems all that is currently lacking is a traditional carrier or mobile VoIP provider and a handset manufacturer with a wireless device that supports G.722 or alternative wideband codecs. I wonder if there are existing mobile phone devices with a large deployed base that could be made “HD capable” via firmware update?

I’m certainly not  an expert in all facets of the technology involved, but I have been investigating wideband for some time, and tapping many sources along the way. After a while all the little pieces of information start to form a more complete picture of what’s involved.

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Truphone issued a couple of press releases today. The first release announces full interoperability of IM with MSN Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger and GoogleTalk in its iPod Touch and iPhone applications.  They have also integrated Twitter into the TruFriends view of the Truphone application.

In the case of GoogleTalk users can also make and receive voice calls using the Truphone application. Similar voice capability is in the work for users of MSN Messenger and Yahoo! Messenger.

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Andy Abramson has posted with respect to AT&T deciding to purchase Wayport and so expand their Wifi hotspot business. Although I still prefer to not do business with AT&T I have over the years spent a considerable sum with Wayport. Such is the life of one who inhabits hotels quite frequently.

Andy notes, and I’m very pleased to hear, that one of the beneficiaries of the deal will be Boingo. While I haven’t posted about this before I’ve been using Boingo for about a year. In fact I just upgraded my account to their Boingo Unlimited access.

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