Michael Graves

This author has written 1376 articles

Google Voice & Why Free Makes Me Nervous

GoogleVoiceLogoI’m an early adopter and I admit that freely. I opened a Grand Central account early its history, converted that to Google Voice when the time came, and have generally been impressed with the service. But I don’t use it much. I truly don’t feel that I can afford to use it for a variety for reasons.

The internet has created this crazy new paradigm of free services. The list is lengthy; Google apps, Twitter, Hotmail, Facebook, Blogger, Yahoo Pipes, Posterous, Gmail & WordPress.com are just a few. Free services are literally everywhere these days, like manna from heaven.

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Taking The Plunge On Sprint Mobile Broadband

sprint_mifi_2200_2-432x479After thinking about 3G based mobile broadband for the past month, and suffering through another bout of paying for less than stellar access at hotels, Andy Abramson finally broke through the last of my resistance with a post about weekend Mifi deals on Amazon. I fell for the offer of the one cent Mifi device and decided on Sprint as the carrier.

As I mentioned earlier in the week I had been wanting to add the service to my T-Mobile account, since that where I have my cell service…and I’m happy with them. But many people told me that T-Mobile’s 3G network was not up to the task. Also, they don’t yet offer a Mifi-style device. That left Sprint and Verizon as my options.

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Dan Berninger’s “Telecom Turnaround”

HDConnectLogoEarlier this week Dan Berninger, CEO of the newly formed HDConnect trade group offered up another guest post on Jeff Pulver’s blog. In this post, entitled “Telecom Turnaround,” Dan outlines the decline in demand for traditional voice services over the past decade. He also hints at the typical arguments that nay-sayers offer against wideband telephony. It’s all good stuff.

There’s something that I’d like to add to what Dan puts forward. By whatever name it’s known, HDVoice, HD VoIP, or simply wideband telephony…improved call quality is only the beginning. When voice is just another application on an IP network there are a many advantages that can be realized. Improved call quality is just the first benefit that we’ll see (hear?), and possibly the easiest to sell both to the public and regulators.

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VoIP Over 3G In The UK

vodafone-3g-usb-modemIn mid-July I traveled to the UK, visiting my employer’s head office in Cambridge. Being away from my home office is in some ways a drag. I’m so accustomed to being in control of my local network, which is certainly not the case when I’m abroad. Suffice it to say that I can’t use anything VoIP related from within the office LAN at HQ, with the possible exception of Skype.

At the hotel where we typically stay near HQ there is wired internet access provided by Swisscom. It’s a decent service, reasonably fast and reliable. However, at 15 Pounds Sterling (around $22 USD!) per 24-hour period it’s also very dear. To get around some of this cost one of my co-workers loaned me a company issued Vodaphone 3G USB dongle. This was the first time that I’d used one of these little gadgets.

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Considering Wideband Audio Over The Traditional PSTN

polycomlogoQuestion: What was the first HDVoice product that Polycom offered?

Answer: The Polycom VTX 1000 conference phone.

The thing that makes this fact so curious is not immediately obvious. The VTX 1000 is not a SIP device, nor even IP capable. Like it’s closest relative the Polycom SoundStation 2, it’s designed to connect to a plain old analog phone line (a.k.a. POTS, the PSTN).

Of course, the common wisdom is that you just can’t have wideband telephony over the PSTN. Yet the VTX 1000, circa 2003, delivers wideband conference calls so it seems that assertion is not strictly true. Understanding this is in a little more depth would seem like a good thing. Happily, Polycom published a white paper describing the internals of the VTX 1000.

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