Polycom Firmware Matrix
I'll be upgrading a small herd of IP phones over the holiday break, which had me looking for new Polycom firmware. There once was a time when Polycom directed all end-users to obtain firmware from a reseller. These days the…
GIPS Comments On My Soft Phone Rant
Global IP Solutions, the people behind the codec package that helped bring Skype to prominence, has recently launched a blog. Amongst their first entries they decided to weigh in with a response to my recent rant about soft phones. I…
Idea For a New Online Service
This morning I awoke thinking about new little uses for my Asterisk system in a SIP URI world. It occurred to me when I lived in Toronto that there was a radio station that had a sponsored "joke of the…
My Approach To Mobile VoIP For Low Cost Overseas Calling
For the past three years I’ve used Stanacard as the basis for placing overseas calls from my cell phone.This has recently changed as I’ve leveraged our company’s OnSIP account to provide a similar capability to all of our US staff.
Stanacard describes themselves as a “next generation calling card service.” The service is simple enough. Like most calling card services they have a variety of US points-of-presence (POPs) with local numbers. You dial that number, then authenticate using a PIN to get at a second dial-tone, and finally dial the overseas number you want to reach.
Soft Phones: An Opportunity For Someone
<RANT> Let’s face it, the soft phone segment of VoIP space is stagnant. There’s been little change in literally years. I’ve spent the past six months looking for a Windows soft phone that was G.722 capable. In the course of my search I’ve tried a number of soft phones. The list is getting lengthy:
- Counterpath’s X-Lite (Free edtion)
- Counterpath’s Eyebeam (Retail edtion)
- Counterpath’s Eyebeam (OEM edtion)
- Ekiga for Windows
- EyePMedia Communicator
- Pulver Communicator
- Freshtel’s Firefly
- Zoiper
- DIAX
- SJ Labs SJPhone
- QuteCOM (Formerly OpenWengoPhone)
Corey Andrews over at VoIP Supply also blogged a great summary of Free SIP Soft Phones a while back.. There are a couple on this list that look promising. I’m about to try both MizuPhone and Mirial.
Blog & Blog Some More
Over the past couple of weeks I've split my blogging in two. Respecting the fact that many readers have a singular focus SOHO VoIP and networking topics remain here as usual. However, more varied topics and curiosities are on a…