Nothing gets my blood pressure rising like someone passing off bad or misleading information as the real deal. This afternoon I followed a link in someones Twitter stream over to VOIP School where there was a post about HDVoice dating back to mid-June. Go ahead and read it, that way you might come to understand my exasperation.
Do you ever wonder what factors impact your experience using VoIP technology? Very recently Celideo, a maker of testing tools for voice and video over IP, posted a very nice summary of the issues surrounding VoIP quality. The post is entitled, “VoIP QoS Metrics Explained” and I find it a good tutorial on the subject. It’s comprehensive yet concise, and given in easy-to-understand terms.
Femtocells have been a topic of considerable discussion over the past year or so. Femtocells are small devices that act like a tiny cellular base in your home or office. To your cell phone it’s just another tower. However, instead of interfacing to the carriers back-end network it backhauls the calls over your local broadband connection. Some have noted that this is ideal for the carrier since they don’t actually incur the cost of that backhaul segment. As the person paying for the broadband connection, you do.
Vodaphone appears to be the first cellular carrier in the UK to actually introduce the little beasties. Andrew Grill’s “London Calling” blog has an excellent description of them based on his early first-hand experience. His tale includes both acquiring and installing the device. That he is able to extend cellular coverage into the basement flat (apartment) of a Victorian era home seems especially useful.
This set of screen shots was taken from the web GUI of the Gigaset S675IP, but the web GUI for the A580IP is very similar.
A couple of weeks ago I was told that our corporate HQ in Cambridge UK was starting to think about adding new conference room. Since I oversee the hosted IP-PBX that we use in the US they sought my suggestion for a suitable new conference phone. The requirements for the new device are a little odd, making device selection something of a challenge.
You will find references to Junction Networks’ OnSIP hosted IP-PBX service scattered all over this site. I’ve use them since the summer of 2007 for my home office phones. They’re extremely reliable, 100% SIP based and even wideband capable in many respects.
The basics of the OnSIP service are pretty simple. If you are a company and need the usual services you establish an OnSIP account, selecting one of their monthly service bundles. These run from $39.95/mo to $199.95/mo, scaling up to suit companies of various sizes. They offer a 30 day free trial to let you get your feet wet.