Not long ago I wrote up my experience using the Voyager Pro UC these past six months. Given the overall positive nature of that tale I thought it interesting that this morning’s mail includes an offer of the Voyager Pro…
Yesterday Information Week ran a story entitled, “The End Of Wireless Tether For Android.” The story quite rightly describes how Google is responding to carrier requests to disable the distribution of free tethering apps via the official Android Marketplace.
According to the author,
“The wireless carriers would rather you pay a fee either for tethering plan or buy a device like a MiFi or USB dongle that will let your PC get online.”
..further…
“Take the example of AT&T. To require a data plan that is 80% more expensive than a non-tethering plan is a bit of a money grab. AT&T has data caps, so why do they care how you use it?”
I’ve long held that there’s a fundamental disconnect with how wireless data is handled. It should not matter what device I use, as long as I’m paying for the data. If I pay for 5 GB/month then why does the fact that I’m using a netbook, laptop, tablet or cell phone make any difference?
If I had a USB type interface I could well move it between a desktop, netbook, laptop and even some tablets. The carrier simply wouldn’t know anything beyond the amount of data consumed transferred. And why should they?
In part one of this review I examined the use of the Plantronics Voyager Pro UC in mobile applications. In this chapter I’ll share my experience using it in my office for computer-bound applications.
Given that I still have the Plantronics Savi Go headset in my home office I felt that at least theoretically the Voyager Pro UC presented me with more opportunities for mobile applications. After all, the Savi Go is a Class 1 Bluetooth device with a one hundred foot range that covers my workspace completely. The Savi Go sounds good and I like the convertible wearing options. In general, I didn’t feel that I needed something better for office-bound activities.
Nonetheless, most people will buy one headset for use both in the home office and with their mobile phone. Thus I felt it only appropriate to explore the use of the Voyager Pro UC around my home office.
Preface: I’m taking a little different approach with this review. Plantronics offers the Voyager Pro headset in several versions; the Voyager Pro targets the common portable application accompanying mobile phones, while the Voyager Pro UC extends it reach to use with soft phones or Unified Communications (UC) clients on computers. Since these use cases might be considered separately I’ve decided to offer the review in two parts, one addressing each use case specifically.
While I have tried a number of Bluetooth headsets over the years, I’ve found that most are seriously disappointing. Until relatively recently I had simply given up on trying to find a Bluetooth headset that would meet my needs.
In the fall of 2009 Plantronics gave me a Savi Go Bluetooth headset to use in the presentation that I was developing for Astricon. Given the project at hand I had some very specific needs, including wideband audio capability to compliment a SIP soft phone. The new generation of cordless headsets targeting “Unified Communications” application seemed like a good match for my needs. “UC” implies wideband audio.
Last Friday Mike Oeth, CEO of Junction Networks appeared on the VoIP Users Conference to make a pre-release announcement of a new, free voip service called GetOnSIP. It’s not often that the VUC gets to scoop the rest of the voip world on some kind of news, but since OnSIP is a long time sponsor…why not, eh? GetOnSIP certainly seems like a great idea.
GetOnSIP is built upon the same SIP and XMPP foundation of their existing OnSIP hosted PBX service. However, GetOnSIP is a stripped down offering that has a much sharper focus. Anyone can register an account completely for free. Each account is issued a set of sip credentials, and has a corresponding SIP URI. Once your SIP phone or soft phone is registered you can start making and receiving calls to any other SIP URIs.
The free accounts provided by GetOnSIP don’t require the use of a credit card, making them very approachable indeed. Of course, there is a limit to what can be done from a completely free account. You will not be able to make calls to the PSTN. Nor will you get a DID to receive calls from the PSTN. Even so, I’m sure that GetOnSIP will be a welcome and popular addition to the SIP user community.
In the recent past there was an issue with the Skype client for Android suffering a vulnerability that could expose private information to third party applications on the phone. This week Skype released an update to address the matter. That’s…