The Pixel Tells Me About HD Calls
Throughout 2016 I carried a Nexus 5 mobile phone. So did my wife. Hers is the red one. She loves it. My Nexus 5 suffered a crack in the display the very week that I bought it. In fact, that happened…
New Gear: Grandstream’s HT812 Analog Terminal Adapter
In the earliest days of consumer VoIP services the venerable Cisco ATA-186 was the way to connect a traditional analog telephone to one of those new-fangled Vonage accounts and save some loot. It didn’t take too long before our strategy evolved from an analog terminal adapter (ATA) plus a an analog phone or a cordless phone, to SIP desk phones and SIP/DECT cordless phones.
As such, it’s been years since an ATA held any interest at all…until last week. Last week I received a couple of notices about a new pair of ATA’s from Grandstream, the HT802 and HT812.
The first thing I saw was a promotional email from VoIP Supply for the HT812. It described the HT812 as a two-port FXS with a built-in router and Gigabit Ethernet.
VoIP Supply On Conference Phones
A few weeks ago VoIP Supply issued a blog post based around an infographic. It’s titled, “Best Conference Phones for Different Room Sizes.” Go now, have a look. It’s a quick read.
Normally I wouldn’t pay much attention to such writing. I suspect it’s really aimed at satisfying the mighty Google, and driving more traffic to their web site. However, I’m not the sort that lets the dissemination of questionable advice slide past unnoticed. Most especially from an organization that purports to be the subject matter experts.
The author suggests a number of different devices for different sized rooms. In this particular case I’m familiar with most of them. In fact, I have quite a few of them in inventory.
T-Mobile Moves Beyond HDVoice
I’ve been a T-Mobile customer for a long time. In fact, my transition to T-Mobile happened when I bought my first smart phone, a Blackberry 8100 (aka Pearl).
More recently I’ve been using an LG-made Nexus 5. No, not the newer 5X. Late last year I semi-regressed from a One+ One to a Nexus 5. One of the reasons for that step backward in time was to finally be able to enjoy mobile HDVoice calls to my wife, who also carries a Nexus 5.
T-Mobile, who lead the US in the rollout of mobile HDVoice, supports it’s use for in-network calls between a list of supported handsets, including the Nexus 5. That initial rollout of HDVoice came before the big build of their LTE network. They enabled the AMR-WB codec (aka G.722.2) over their existing 3G HSPA+ network.
Most other US carriers waited until their LTE rollout to launch HDVoice. An LTE network is natively an IP network, readily supporting advanced voice codecs and video. When the voice calls are handled over the LTE network it’s called Voice-Over-LTE or VoLTE, which is very different from how voice was handled on 3G networks.
A Microphone Deep Dive: Part 1 – Frequency Response
Last week, in response to Chris Koehncke’s blog post, I set about creating a couple of sample recordings to support my belief that a headset trumps a laptop’s built-in microphone. Along the way I came to a couple of realizations, or perhaps I should say remembrances, of things that I hadn’t thought about in a long while. There are numerous subtleties to the matter of microphones.
Microphones, like most things, are built to address specific applications. There are microphones for recording studios. Microphones for stage performers. Microphones for board rooms. Microphones for mobile phones. Even a microphone for that cheesy tape recorder that you bought at Radio Shack back in the 1980’s when it was still a great gadget shop.
Polycom Revisits DECT with the VVX D60
Today saw the introduction of a new model in Polycom’s VVX Business Media phones. The Poycom VVX D60 is described as a “wireless accessory” to compliment the existing VVX series of desk phones. Examining the brochure it seems that the…