Graves On SOHO Technology

Clearly, some people have just too much time on their hands. The release of the iPad has garnered a lot of attention this week. As I’ve mentioned elsewhere it doesn’t suit my needs especially well, but I accept that its pretty cool and bound to be useful to many people.

I am amused at how some people try using things like the iPad in roles that are on the surface at crossed purposes with its design. For example, people are starting to try and use it as a phone. As far as I know Truphone was the first, as highlighted on CrunchGear. This morning I see that Rob Wolpov from Junction Networks is trying SIP clients on his shiny new iPad.

Rob’s a nice guy, and we love their OnSIP service….but I’m amazed that anyone would bother with this. Surely an iPad owner already has an iPhone or an iPod Touch? Both of those devices seem much better suited at being a phone.There’s a little issue of scale and form factor to be considered.

I suppose people will want to try this simply because they can. That it works at all will be amusing. I wonder how many people will routinely make use of the iPad for calling? It’s lack of support for multi-tasking would seem to make that a non-starter for many people. When you’re on a call that’s all you can do. In this regard the iPad doesn’t even measure up to it’s little brother…the iPhone.

On the other hand, with the iPad effectively sucking all the oxygen from the room at the moment perhaps its only natural that everyone wants a little piece of the iPad action.

While I’ve had a Dreamwave DP-28 in-house for some months I’ll admit that I’ve not yet made much of an effort to put it into service. I bought it because it was relatively affordable and G.722 capable. I was seeking to try some low-cost wideband capable hardware.

Mark Sumpter, National Marketing Manager for Dreamwave, has been in touch to spread the word of a year-end sale on the phones. He posted a comment but I feel that this could be of interest to folks so I’m giving it a little more attention.

The fact is that we have provided both the D28 and D26 models of this phone to PBX in a Flash for testing. Early results from Ward and Tom are that the sound is phenomenal but we don’t have lots of the fun scripts like Aastra units.

If anyone is interested we have a sale on both models in the PIAF forum in this thread:

http://pbxinaflash.com/forum/showthread.php?t=6873

Mike we are really interested to hear your opinion on the phones also.

Mark Sumpter
Dreamwave Networks
mark@dreamwave.net

The very fact that they’re working with PIAF implies that the phones interop well with Asterisk. Dreamwave themselves offer a line of Asterisk-based PBXs. If you visit the PIAF forum you’ll find that they’re offering the 6 line DP-28P model for $133.09 (drops to $115.34 in qty) and the 3 line DP-26P for $109.69 (drops to $95.60 in qty)

These phones are made by Yealink and they have some interesting features. For example, the DP-28P can itself function as a router. In so doing it provides itself a QoS solution, ensuring that voice streams get priority over other data. This is ideal  where a company might want to place one phone in the home office of an employee and have a simple, inexpensive, easily managed QoS solution.

Originally published at www.smallnetbuilder.com on August 13, 2008

When I was asked several months ago about reviewing a pair of new Polycom desk phones, I simply could not believe my good fortune. It was a little like being asked if I’d like to have a Tesla roadster for a few weeks. But of course my good man! Where do I sign?

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Originally published July 21, 2008 at www.smallnetbuilder.com

By: Michael Graves

Date: July 21, 2008

From my first exposure to Slim Device’s original SliMP3 back in 2003 I was taken with the idea of streaming music throughout my house. The designers approach to this task I found very interesting. They literally give away an open source media streaming software intended for use on a file server. Then run their business by selling a dedicated hardware device to interface the music stream to a traditional stereo system.

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My wife is a very patient woman, well much of the time. And I am very grateful, well most of the time. This past Christmas she gifted me a new Plantronics .Audio 480 wired headset. This week is my first business trip since the holidays so I decided to bring it along.

This trip finds me in Toronto. Normally I’d just use my cell phone for everything but international roaming rates are very high. Most typically a week in Canada adds $100-150 to my monthly T-Mobile bill.

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Originally published June 6, 2008 at www.smallnetbuilder.com

Welcome back! In Part 1, I took you through the thought process that led me to want to add cellular-based access to my home’s VoIP system. I ended up with the following project goals:

• Ensure the ability to make outgoing calls should our DSL fail
• Provide access to 911 service
• Provide access to 411 service
• Provide a low/no cost way to stay in touch when I’m traveling
• Provide a means of making oversea calls from my cell phone without paying cellular carriers oversea long distance rates

In this second and final part, I’ll focus on the little box that makes it all possible.

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