Graves On SOHO VoIP

Over a period of years I’ve used quite a number of these portable USB attached speakerphone devices. A while ago I summarized my experienced with them, but as a couple of new models have recently emerged so I find that they have my attention yet again. These new devices, if I should be lucky enough to try them, will be the focus on some future posts. For the moment I have another observation to share based upon a recent experience.

All of these portable speakerphones I find well suited to individual use. That is, they work well enough for an individual who sitting at their PC and doesn’t like to wear a headset. They’re also sufficiently portable to please a road warrior. One of the nice things about this kind of device is that they often support HDVoice when paired with a suitable soft phone.

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I’ve been traveling a lot lately so the phones around my home office have been idle. Even so, I was a little surprised to find that my snom m3 was not making or receiving calls this morning. Well, it was and it wasn’t. I could dial out and the call appeared to be placed, but I never heard any audio. Once clear of today’s VUC call with Dan Behringer, and lunch with my wife, I was able to investigate this further and get the matter resolved.

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A few days ago on the Asterisk Users Mailing List Tzafrir Cohen of Xorcom fame started an interesting thread about the possibility of a community developed IP Phone.

A common wisdom here is that one should use a proper hardware phone rather that an extra software on the user’s PC. Why is that such a big issue?

One thing that bothers me with the current crop of hardware SIP phones is that they are hopelessly proprietary.

So what would it take to build a fully-adaptable phone?

I am 100% behind the assertion that most users want a hard phone on their desk. Soft phones, even good ones, seem to be exclusively the domain of those who travel and vertical niches like call centers.

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Since mid-October the snom m3 has been the only phone on our home account. That’s when the old Panasonic KSU finally breathed its last gasp. I’ve been using one of the snom handsets in my office since they arrived in January. In general I’m pleased with the device. It does what I need and it’s been reliable.

About a week ago my wife came to me with one of the little snom m3 cordless handsets in her hand. She wasn’t mad, but she said that the little phone is source of frustration, and she’d like me to replace it on the home line.

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Just this afternoon I heard that I might be able to lay hands on one of the new snom 820 handsets for my own little field trial. Funny how things come full circle. The very first SIP desk phone I ever bought was a snom 200. At the time it was a nice phone. A little quirky maybe, but very nice.

It’ll be interesting to see how far they’ve come with their new top-of-the-line model. And of course it gives me another wideband capable end-point to experiment further with interoperability issues.

..or is the correct term “Twittersphere?” In any case, I noticed that snom is officially on Twitter as @ snom. This is nice as it gives a direct channel to/from them. I’ve been exchanging occasional emails with some of their staff as I was a very early user of the m3 SIP DECT system.

I also noticed today that they have recently launched an online forum. It’s in early days yet so there are not that many posts, but the staff seem to be actively engaged. This has to be a good thing. The more end user contact they can manage the better of everyone will be.

Finally, they are running a contest for users of snom 3×0 and 8×0 phones. They’re giving away one m3 SIP DECT system every day until Christmas. In order to participate you must first register, then configure your phone to access their Advent Calendar URL.

I’d love to try it out but I don’t have any of these phones. It’s a very novel marketing concept that leverages online interaction using the micro-browser built into the phones. It’s a great idea!

A recent beta firmware for the snom m3 cordless system introduced a most annoying bug. The handset could be turned off with a simple press of the end call button if the phone was not actually on a call. This made it way too easy to accidentally turn the handset off.

Happily, since I have my phone set to automatically load firmware updates it recently loaded v1.20 beta, and that problem has been resolved. The handset now required an extended press of the end call button to turn it off, just like any cell phone.

Snom tells me that a major firmware release for the m3 is forthcomming.

As of firmware v1.19 beta (and onward) you can upload the contact directory to the snom m3 cordless SIP/DECT phones using the web GUI. The process requires a comma delimited text file (.csv) where each field is enclosed in quotes. For example;

“Alistair Parr”,”666″
“Amanda Blundell”,”684″
“Chris Hopkin”,”667″
“Chris Leonard”,”674″

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