May 2008 – Graves On SOHO Technology

A Readership Milestone: Over 3500 in May

May 31, 2008
Michael Graves
VoIP

I started writing this blog just over six months ago. It was largely a reaction to the fact that I saw a lot of people in various places asking the same questions over and over again. How do I make the best of VOIP in my home or home office? What is QoS? How do I ensure call quality?

I’ve been involved with VOIP in one fashion or another since 1997. Back then I lived in Toronto and was engaged to my lovely wife, who lived in Texas. Back then dial-up was the primary means of internet access and long distance calling was costly. We used software from Vocaltech to stay in touch over 1800 miles apart.

New Web Site On Michael Gerzon, Surround Pioneer

May 30, 2008
Michael Graves
Audio

This morning on the sursound mailing list I read about a nice new web site detailing the life of the late Michael Gerzon. Michael Gerzon is a mathematician and pioneer in surround sound theory. He invented the Ambisonic approach to…

Telecom Junkies On Disaster Planning & Recovery

May 29, 2008
Michael Graves
VoIP

OK, so maybe I consider myself a Telecom Junky these days. I've been listening to these podcasts from The Voice Report for a while. They're mostly aimed at enterprise concerns beyond SOHO scale but the most recent one on disaster…

Astlinux Renewed

May 24, 2008
Michael Graves
Asterisk, VoIP

In working towards completion of article on the GSM gateway I took some time to rework my Astlinux server. I finally got around to installing Lonnie Abelbeck’s new web interface. It’s really good.

Siemens S675IP & The Great Randulo

May 23, 2008
Michael Graves
VoIP

Judging from today's post-recording VUC call Randy (aka Randulo) seems quite taken by his new Siemens S675IP SIP-DECT system. He's written about it a couple of places including the VUC Ning site and over on his HUB Pages psuedo-blog. Between…

Video Phones Revisited With OnSIP

May 23, 2008
Michael Graves
Video, VoIP

While doing some admin tasks today I stumbled upon a recent post by Mike Oeth at the Junction Networks blog. He says:

As long as the video is using the SIP standard, we at Junction Networks are all for it. Our OnSIP Hosted PBX already supports video codecs using the SIP standards. Today, any customer with a video phone can make video calls.

He further states:

Oddly, however, I have the capability and most of us here at Junction Networks have video cameras, but I do not make it a habit to make video calls for business. My kids call the grandparents on the video phone every now and then, but as a business tool, at least here, it has not caught on. Does anyone have an industry where they use the video phone all the time? If so, I would love to hear about it.

Amen. That about sums up the state of video phones in general.