VOIP News

r />I just wanted to let all the readers of this blog know that Weblogs Inc. has rolled this blog into Download Squad–so you’ll be able to read and comment on my VoIP-related posts there, as well as at my personal blog, Signal to Noise. So, farewell to “voipfan.com” and hello to my new readers and commenters at my new digs! Please come visit often. No further explanation needed: “Never explain–your friends do not need it and your enemies will not believe you anyway.”

is is intended to help VoIPSupply.com get their act together. Since I normally don’t go bashing my vendors when they make mistakes, this should be taken in the spirit of constructive criticism.  In a nutshell, VoIPSupply.com doesn’t understand customer service.  Why do I make a public note of this?  To save you the potential aggravation of dealing with a company who doesn’t share my definition of customer service. 

For example, why put a phone number on your web site if, when your customers call it, you just tell them to go back on your web site and fill out forms?    GREAT  service ethic there, let me tell you.   You can have the prettiest web site in the world, a great domain name, and a ton of Polycom in stock, but if you can’t add value, then why are you in the business to begin with?  Compound that with an order entry system that belly-flops whenever you place an order that bills to one state and ships to another (happened to me twice with these guys), and the result ain’t pretty.

Perhaps customer service is as alien to VoIP purveryors as it is to the Gas Company and the Mortgage Company.

his recent post ripping the purported conflict of interest that exists among conservative lobbies–gun owners and big business–who ostensibly support AND oppose legislated network neutrality, Russell Shaw has demonstrated one of the fallacies of the pro-net-neutrality crowd: misplaced priorities.   I support some form of network neutrality measures, but the old addage “let’s not get carried away” certainly applies.  Take a look at Russ’s writing and see what you think:

Seems like almost all the 11 Senators who voted against net neutrality are of a political stripe, and party, accurately perceived as being sensitive to the wishes of gun owners and conservative Christians.

So why didn’t this big tent work? Easy. Because if I am a conservative Senator who is reflexively anti-regulation and pro-big business (i.e. carrier duopolists) while being say, pro-life and pro-gun, I know that gun owners and Christian Coalition members are not going to vote for my opponent out of disappointment I didn’t vote for Net neutrality.

I know this because I know these people. They care about gun-owner rights, pro-life legislation, etc. far more than they do about Net Neutrality.

Now, in case you didn’t read between the lines, here’s the fallacy: Russ seems to be saying that network neutrality is arguably more important than religious freedom or personal liberty (ie. the first and second amendments to which he alluded), which are guaranteed protections against the government in the Constitution.  How on earth Russ complain that conversative senators will never vote net neutrality because of these things?  These issues are fundamental to personal freedom and make the entire issue of network neutrality appear tiny and insignificant.

Proportion. Priorities. Don’t forget who you are and where you live.  And to all my freedom-loving American friends, happy Independence Day (a day late).

>Today’s New York Times has an interesting story on the impact VoIP services have had on the traditional phone companies. Basically, VoIP services like Vonage and Packet8 are beginning to force the big phone companies to rethink their service offerings and, most importantly, bring their prices down.

As the story says, it’ll be a while before the VoIP companies will have phone companies cowering in fear, but they are offering more services to keep their customers instead of seeing them walk away without a fight. The arrogance of the big phone companies is beginning to wear off, and true competition will emerge for voice services and eventually the consumer will win out.

Of course, if you think you’re going to get all of these services for next to nothing, you would be wrong. However, if things keep progressing as they are now, you should be able to get more for your money, which is not a bad goal to have.

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It looks like Vonage is getting into the portable VoIP phone marketplace with the introduction of their new V-Phone. According to the company, the phone can be activated by being plugged into any PC with a broadband intenet connection

The V-Phone is being aimed mostly at business users since it can potentially reduce voice communication costs including cellphone roaming charges. The phone comes loaded with Vonage Talk software and includes 250MB of memory that can be used to store files such as MP3s and digital photos. The device is priced at $39.99.

cording to Skype’s PR people, a new beta version has been posted today that adds ALSA driver support to the Linux version of the program. This is important for users of outboard audio gear like USB microphones, which utilize the ALSA framework.  In addition, Skype has added mood icons and a new getting started wizard (just what Linux users need).

n’t look now; Vonage stock was up a quarter today at nine bucks. Could this be the beginning of the big turnaround? Methinks not.   But then again, a year ago at this time I was saying why NOT buy Vonage?  Perhaps that’s why I trust my stock portfolio to other, more informed people.

And speaking of a quarter, that’s about how much the sales channel’s support is worth when it comes to the F3000 phone from UT Starcom. There is NO documentation for this puppy, and despite my constant nagging of my distirbutor to put me in touch with somebody who actually CARES what I’m doing with their products, instead I’ve been getting a lot of useless sympathy.

OK, we see that you’ve identified problems with the phone, and we’d really like to help you. REALLY we would.  

Remind me to add “crap QA support” as the ELEVENTH challenge to the VoIP revolution.

Weblogs Inc. buddy Michael wrote the words “with good reason” in a post about the Universal Service Fund, and I just wanted to take a brief but opposing position on the USF. This fee, which was originally designed to tax the access lines of the cities in order to provide access for the rural areas, is supposed to apply to the LINES in service, not to the voice application itself.  Otherwise, USF would have to be assessed on Yahoo Voice, Skype, Gizmo, and every other player that offers voice service–and for that matter, on long distance carriers, distributed PBX providers, and all kinds of the other firms that offer voice services without owning delivery lines. Still, it’s being laid at the feet of Vonage and other phone replacement services because these are the services that MOST CLOSELY RESEMBLE the old-fashioned phone company.  Still, the infrastructure isn’t Vonage’s; the delivery lines don’t belong to Vonage. So why does Vonage get stuck with the bill?

Answer: Big Telecom has found a way to strongarm Vonage using the guise of good intentions, a la the USF.

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OK, VoIP customers, the $24.99 a month party is just about over. A new FCC ruling is requiring that VoIP service providers, among others, will have to contribute to the $7 billion Universal Service Fund, which subsidizes phone service in low-income and high-cost areas and also helps schools and libraries get access to the internet. Usually these costs are passed on to customers as a line item on a monthly phone bill. (How many of us actually go through each and every charge on our phone bills anyway?) According to the FCC, the funs is about to experience a shortfall and, frankly, the VoIP customer base is increasing and it appears that they have to make up the slack.

In any event, if you’re currently paying $24.99 (or any other amount) for your VoIP service, expect your monthly bill to go up about a dollar or two. This truly is not a big deal, but the TV and radio ads that feature the “magic” $24.99 a month slogan will have to be slightly modified.

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Before I became a Vonage customer, I was very concerned about the E911 service issue. I had read all the stories about how some people had switched from a traditional landline service to VoIP and they couldn’t get in touch with emergency services because E911 was not enabled. The issue definitely kept me from switching to a VoIP service for over a year because I kept thinking about the worst case scenario whereby I needed to call the police or an ambulance and my call wouldn’t go through and something terrible would happen.

Of course, as time has gone on, VoIP users have been directed to register their name and address with their service providers. In addition, the FCC is requiring that all VoIP providers give location and callback number information to emergency personnel. In addition, if you’re using VoIP services while away from home, then you are at another risk because there is no guarantee that your location can be tracked by emergency services. Who knows when this situation will be rectified, so it may be a good idea to have local police, fire, and ambulance numbers programmed into your phone, just in case.

It really is up to the user to make sure that their emergency contact information is correct and up-to-date. Some people, like myself, have kept one of their old traditional phone lines intact in case their broadband connection goes down and outgoing calls can’t be placed from home. It’s another way to insure that all your bases are covered, just in case.