End-user perspective on small office tools & technology

New SIP Wifi Handsets: Yawn!

SQ3000Some time back the folks over at VoIP Supply posted something about a collection of new SIP Wifi handsets. Whereas in the past that would make me take notice, even catch my interest, I found myself completely disinterested. In fact, it was surprising how little appeal these gadgets had.

Over the years I’ve tried various SIP Wifi handsets and come to a very simple conclusion. That is, for my home office application they have no merit at all. The fact that I have a solid cordless SIP solution eliminates the possible interest that any of these new products might have.

In everything experiment that I’ve ever tried DECT/CATiq products soundly beat any dedicated SIP Wifi handset. Now that there are affordable SIP/DECT products from sources like Gigaset and Snom dedicated VoWifi handsets just don’t measure up for many applications.

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The Nature Of Product Reviews

Dreamwave-D28P-200As devices come my way I’m always looking for the most effective way to review them and present the resulting information. Most typically this means writing a detailed description of my experiences with the device, but I also think that supporting images are important to making the material visually interesting.

Recently I’ve been thinking about using more recorded audio (podcasts?) and even recording some video laying hands on the product.

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Considering LifeSize Desktop Software

LifeSize-logoAustin-based LifeSize recently released a software-based PC video conferencing client that they call the LifeSize Desktop. Since I’m always looking for new tools I took the opportunity to download the 30 day free trial and have it installed on a desktop and laptop, both running Windows XP.

The software is intended to be a SIP soft client for their HD video conferencing products. To that end they recommend it be used with a webcam that supports 720p images, that is 1280 x 720 pixels @ 30 frame/sec. At the time of its release the only one available was the Logitech Quickcam Pro 9000. Since then Microsoft has announced a suitable webcam. I expect that others will eventually do so as well.

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Revisiting A GSM Interface For Your Asterisk Server

Some time ago @Boxdog pointed me to a uCPBX in Bulgaria. They are reselling various small Asterisk systems based upon the Astfin project. They have a few variations on the IP04, including an 8 port variant (IP08 = 8 FXOs) as well as 1 or 4 port BRI capable versions.

ucpbx-astfin-br4-back

The design of the base system supports adding interface ports through the use of little daughter cards. I believe that their daughter cards are compatible with Digium’s TDM-400P card. The cards even use the standard DAHDI driver making installation especially easy.

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GIPS Comments On G.722

Not long ago Dr. Jan Linden, V.P. Of Engineering at GIPS, wrote a really good blog post called G.722 Revisited. In it he considers the trend toward the use of G.722 in the rollout of new wideband telephony projects.

Dr. Linden collected a nice stable of facts in making his points regarding the use of G.722. It’s simply old and less than optimal for use over IP networks. It’s not as bandwidth efficient as many of the new codecs, resulting is lower call quality for a given data-rate. He points to a 2007 study of ITU standard wideband codecs that is quite clear that G.722 is back-of-the-pack from a pure performance perspective.

The post is a great collection of information and he is absolutely correct in making all of his points. But I think that there may be more to it than the argument he lays out, strong though it may be.

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