Graves On SOHO VoIP

One of the things that Santa brought over the holidays was a new Wifi access point. Back in November our Netgear router/AP just up and died. In fact, that was the third time in 18 months that the Netgear device has failed. It was twice replaced under warranty. On the occasion of this third failure it, and others of its kind, were not welcome to return….at any price.

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I find that I’m simply drawn to novel and innovative approaches to problems. In the VUC post-call ramble this past week Michael White of E4Technologies described something that’s stuck in my mind as being pretty cool.

He was working with a large-company-who-shall-remain-nameless on a very significant installation. It was going along well. They had selected a line of SIP hard phones from a large, well-known  manufacturer, and were generally happy with the results. That is, happy with one exception; they didn’t like the performance of  the speakerphone on their chosen model of desk phone.

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A few months back I received a sample of a new USB attached personal speakerphone device made by Yamaha. It arrived about the same time that I started looking for a better solution for ad-hoc conference calls in small rooms, like hotel rooms. You may recall that I felt this need after the experience after hearing Zeeek trying to conduct a VUC call from the host hotel at Astricon 2009.

As is my usual strategy, I tossed the little PSG-01s into my suitcase thinking that I make use of it for a while and see how it handles the road. It’s been on the road quite a while now, and doesn’t seem to suffer the travel a bit. The device is a rugged little aluminum tube. It’s built to last.

Yamaha has a long and enviable history in pro audio products, many of which I’ve used in TV and recording studios over the years. The little PSG-01s is a more consumer oriented offering, but it seems like a well-considered design.

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Over the past few months I’ve unconsciously made a curious transition. You see, last summer all of my requirements for mobility around the office were met by the Gigaset S675IP that I have installed. When I had to work near a server at my workbench I just grabbed the S67H handset and went over there. Often I used the Gigaset handset with a wired headset for calls lasting a long time.

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My recent review of the Polycom SoundPoint IP335 raised an interesting question in some readers minds. several readers wanted to know about the comparative sizes of the LCD displays across the various SoundPoint models. Since I have the IP335, an IP450 and my trusty IP650 in-house at the moment it was just a matter of time before I could take some photos to illustrate the differences.

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Now here’s something truly odd. This afternoon I took Shadow out for a walk through the neighborhood. This was just our usual PM stroll. However, about three blocks from our house we stumbled upon an AT&T wiring cabinet…unlocked and wide open.

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The folks at Junction Networks / OnSIP have recently posted a review of the Aastra 6730i, a recent entry-level offering in the Aastra lineup.

The entire 67xx series features Aastra’s Hi-Q technology. Hi-Q includes the combination of the G.722 wideband codec and software based compensation for the physical properties of the transducers on the device.

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Blogging about blogging is a kind of meta-blogging. I’ve not done much of that as yet, but this is something of a start. I’m even adding “meta” as a category for posts. Now on to the idea at hand…

In recent years VoIP has been one of my passions. It’s hard to know whether that been driven by a love of the technology or animosity towards ILECs. Perhaps equal parts of both. It’s passion in either case. But in reality there’s much more to SOHO operations that just VoIP.

This has been on my mind a lot lately. In fact, I’m seriously thinking about expanding the scope of this blog a bit. “Graves On SOHO VoIP” was an accurate statement of what I set out to cover a little over two years ago when I got started, but I find it a little confining these days.

I hate revisiting the same topics repeatedly, even though new readers are still learning those lessons. That’s why in various places, like the VoIP forum over at DSL Reports I tend to refer people to old blog posts for topics that I’ve already addressed. Heck, that’s a significant part of why I started this blog in the first place.

All things must grow, so I’ll gradually adopt a wider scope of SOHO technologies. Don’t worry, VoIP will always be a significant theme around here. But man cannot live by VoIP alone…or so I’m told…by people who should know.

So be looking for something of mild rebranding. Someday. Soon-ish. When I get around to it.