VOIP News

What’s a government to do when it shuts down all the illegal VoIP shops–but discovers that the legacy telco can’t handle the added traffic? That’s what happening in Bangladesh. Regulators have been going through the country over the last couple of weeks shutting down all the call centers it could find. But legacy telco BTTB can handle 12.26 million minutes of overseas calls a day; when the call shops were running, international traffic hit 16 million minutes per day. Oops. A technical committee is supposed to submit findings by the end of this week about how to both protect the telco’s network and revenue stream while allowing enough VoIP traffic to satisfy demand. Separately, a Bangladeshi court lifted a ban on licensing new VoIP carriers.

For more information on VoIP in Bangaldesh:

- read this article in The Daily Star

- check out this report

Related Article:

Bangladesh cracks down on illegal VoIP. Report

At last year’s 3GSM World Congress, Skype announce plans to put its service on mobile phones. A month ago, the company essentially said, “Well, maybe not so much.” GSM is not the friendliest environment for wireless VoIP; EDGE networks are really too slow to support VoIP, and true 3G GSM networks won’t be available for another year or so. But at this year’s 3GSM, Microsoft announced the latest version of its mobile operating system, Windows Mobile 6. So what? Although WM6 doesn’t have software to allow VoIP calls, the OS includes the plumbing to allow carriers and gadget makers to turn that function on. The rough analogy may be what happened to the Internet when Microsoft included an IP stack in Windows 95. In 1994, not a lot of people (relatively) were online. In 1996, the whole world was. Microsoft doesn’t have the impact in the mobile world that it did in the desktop world, but VoIP code in widely deployed PDA software will be, as The Donald says, “yoooge.”

For more information about 3GSM:

- read this article from InformationWeek and

- read this article from ComputerWorld

Ericsson has introduced a “femtocell” hotspot for residential use. The press release (and therefore much of the coverage) about it is pretty obtuse, but it looks like it’s a small box with GSM and WCDMA radios, along with a WiFi radio. The idea is that cellular customer would come home and get handed off to the femtocell’s cellular radio, which would then hand the call off to the WiFi radio and backhaul the traffic over an ADSL line. It’s a carrier product, not a consumer product, but only a quadruple-play carrier would care at all to redistribute traffic that way–and only in indoor areas where cell coverage blanks out. The product (the price of which was not mentioned) will be available for some reason in the middle of this year.

For more information about the Ericsson Femto Cell Solution:

- read this press release from Ericsson

Related Articles:

Femtocells make GSM signal your responsibility, not theirs. Report

Carrier obstacles for femtocell launch. Report

Spirent Communications, a network performance testing company, has announced a security testing product, ThreatEx 2.50. By using what it calls “fuzzing technology,” ThreatEx makes sure that networks can repel attacks using intentionally flawed traffic. Article

Tomorrow, Arcosoft will release VONaLink SoloRecord, a new VoIP call recording software program for Mac OS X. VONaLink SoloRecord for Mac OS X works with any VoIP phone system utilizing the SIP standard to record calls and to provide screen pops. SIP-based IP-PBXs, such as Cisco Call Manager, or pbxnSIP or even home broadband VoIP services such as Vonage or Packet8 that utilize the SIP standard will work with this call recording software.

Also available is a separate ScreenPop product, if recording is not required. SoloRecord and ScreenPop were previously available only for Windows. The call is recorded as a stereo WAV or MP3. An inaudible watermark can be added to the recording for later verification that the file has not been changed.

 

Using the CallerID of the incoming call, SoloRecord searches for the caller in Address Book, or launches custom applications to search the web or company database. If the caller is found, the information is popped on the screen, thereby increasing the productivity of the user.

 

Unwanted callers can be added to the reject list. Integration with Vonage Click2Call allows outbound calls to be placed by clicking in the call log within the VONaLink application.

 

SoloRecord and ScreenPop are universal binaries that run on Mac OS X 10.3 and later. Prices are $99 USD for SoloRecord, and $29 USD for ScreenPop. Evaluation downloads are available from
www.vonalink.com

SanDisk today introduced a 4 gigabyte (GB) microSD High Capacity (SDHC) card, which is now the largest capacity of the world’s smallest removable flash memory card format. A 4GB microSDHC card can store more than 1,000 digital songs or more than 2,000 high-resolution pictures or up to 8 hours of MPEG 4 video. Can’t wait to review one of these - I be in need of some serious storage. SanDisk made the announcement at 3GSM World Congress 2007, where it is demonstrating it’s latest products.

“Content is driving the demand for higher capacity flash memory cards in mobile phones,” said Jeff Kost, vice president and general manager of the Mobile Consumer Solutions division at SanDisk. “The new 4GB SanDisk microSDHC card will allow handset manufacturers and mobile network operators to plan rich media services for their customers who increasingly see their phone as their camera, video player, gaming system and music player.”

SanDisk is now sampling the new 4GB microSDHC card to OEMs such as major phone manufacturers and mobile network operators (MNOs). Engineering samples are now available for evaluation, as mobile phone makers will need to upgrade the firmware in their handsets so that memory slots can support the new card.

SDHC is the new designation for any SD or SD-based card that is larger than 2GB and adheres to the new SD 2.00 specification that is required for cards and hosts to support 4GB to 32GB capacities. The specification was developed by the SD Association, an industry standards board, which also defined three speed classes for speed and performance capabilities. These cards adhere to the SD Speed Class 2 Rating specification which defines a minimum sustained transfer speed for SDHC cards.

Retail release of the card is planned for later in 2007. OEM pricing has not been determined yet.

In line with the announcement of the 4GB microSDHC card, SanDisk is offering various capacities of microSD cards in a Mobile Memory Kit. Each package contains both miniSD and SD adapters, so that consumers can select the appropriate card for their use without being influenced by card size. With SanDisk adapters, microSD and microSDHC cards can be “stepped up” to fit into a variety of other electronics devices that have miniSDHC and SDHC slots.

Apart from handsets, microSDHC cards also can be used in some digital audio players, such as SanDisk’s Sansa c200 and e200 series MP3 players.

For additional information on the SDHC format, check these out:

• What is SDHC: http://www.sandisk.com/sdhc/SDHC.pdf

• SDHC product information: http://www.sandisk.com/sdhc

And if you’re looking to buy a SanDisk 4GB microSDHC card, Click for Amazon price:

Sandisk MicroSD (Secure Digital) Memory Cards-2 GB

Buy Now’, STICKY, TIMEOUT, 6000);” onmouseout=”return nd();”>keep your eye out for it here.

Long-time fans of the VoIP & Gadgets blog, may recalled my 2005 post titled, Mysterious QoS Device, where I discovered with some help from a tipster that Linksys and D-Link were using Ubicom’s StreamEngine Net Accelerator to perform Qos techniques such as automatic traffic classification, rate matching, priority queueing (with 255 priority levels), dynamic fragmentation of packets to reduce delay for high-priority traffic and adaptive fragmentation where fragmentation is determined by the uplink speed. The StreamEngine helps to ensure excellent voice quality, lag-free online gaming, and jitter-free videoconferencing.

One of the biggest problems with home broadband VoIP (Vonage, Packet8, SunRocket, etc.) is that the upstream bandwidth is limited - often 256Kbps or less. At Vonage’s highest-quality codec setting, you use about 90Kbps. Now if you start FTPing or downloading a large file, or worse - use P2P software such as Bittorrent or eMule, and you can easily chew up your available upstream bandwidth. This results in “choppy” voice quality.

In fact, when I used to have Vonage, my fiancee (future wife) would be on the phone and just as I started using a P2P client to download some “legal” files, the voice quality would degrade and she would yell downstairs, “Are you downloading something on the Internet?”. Like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar, I would quickly close the P2P client and sheeplishly reply, “Nope, not me! Vonage must be having issues again.”

My WiFi Access Point/router I was using at the time didn’t have any QoS capabilities, so I was at the mercy of whatever data I was uploading or downloading, which affected the voice over IP quality drastically. I eventually upgraded to a QoS-capable router and the problems went away (for the most part). When I did have QoS issues, it had more to do with the public Internet itself being congested or Vonage’s network.

In any event, I recently came across a little known product from D-Link called the DI-102 Broadband Internet/VoIP Accelerator, which prioritizes VoIP packets. The DI-102 Broadband Internet/VoIP Accelerator uses the same StreamEngine Net Accelerator I previously mentioned to detect and prioritize bandwidth-sensitive packets. This results in faster processing of real-time based packets, less latency, and a better user experience.

Installing the DI-102 is a breeze and it’ll work with your existing router. Simply connect your cable or DSL modem to the WAN port and then your existing router’s WAN port to the LAN port. The DI-102 dynamically configures itself by automatically detecting your Internet upload speed and is ready for use once it’s plugged into your existing network infrastructure. It truly is a pure plug and play QoS solution, which is great for home users with little or no networking experience. D-Link claims that With the Internet/VoIP Accelerator you can experience choppy-free VoIP calls, jitter-free video conferencing, and lag-free online gaming. I personally would prefer QoS integrated into my router rather than having a separate device, but if you already spent money on your existing home networking infrastructure, what’s nice about this product is that you can keep your existing network setup. You can Click for Amazon price:

Broadband VoiP Accelerator

Buy Now’, STICKY, TIMEOUT, 6000);” onmouseout=”return nd();”>pick up a D-Link DI-102 on Amazon pretty cheaply.

Forget the flowers, forget the chocolates (well, maybe not), but why not give your special someone a gadget for Valentine’s Day?

Forget the flowers, forget the chocolates (well, maybe not), but why not give your special someone a gadget for Valentine’s Day?

I know it may be a thought that’s considered “outside the box” — now I’m thinking of those chocolates again …

It doesn’t have to be a gadget that’s the color red — although there are plenty of companies are pushing red mobile phones (red Razr anyone?), red MP3 players (the iPod looks surprisingly good in red, don’t you think) and so on and on …

(And some of these red products have a charity donation tie-in to end AIDS in Africa.)

So why not make it red or a least a gadget on this special day …

Most USB flash drives are highly unreliable and can break down easily due to inferior plastic. It is unfortunate that most of us have our precious digital photos and other important files on USB Flash drives, but we don’t consider the reliability or durability of our USB flash devices. Many USB Flash devices are suspended from our keychains and therefore are often tossed onto the coffee table with our keys, dropped, or used as a rattle toy for your 10 month old daughter. Ok, at least my 10 month old daughter.

We wouldn’t subject a hard disk to this abuse, but we don’t think twice about doing it to our Flash memory devices.

So I was pleasantly surprised to learn about an entrepreneur who has decided to build his own USB flash drive to be Waterproof, Anti-Shock, Anti-Vibration and Anti-Static.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Titan, from http://www.tyukalov.com

Each USB flash drive is constructed from graphite/aluminum composite metal matrix (which is light but durable), traditionally been used by NASA and other space agencies. Coated with Titanium (which is corrosion, chemical and acid resistant proof in all naturally occurring environments).

1GB - US $197

2GB - US $247

Free Airmail Shipping Worldwide.

USB Interface

High-speed USB 2.0 certified, backwards compatible with USB 1.1

Power supply

USB Bus-Powered, No external power required

Operating Systems Supported

Windows 98/98SE/ME/XP/2000, Mac OS 8.6 and Linux 2,4,0 or above

Check out these video tests below. The first is a static electricity test, which demonstrates how the USB device keeps on ticking even after being tortured with several jolts of electricity. I half expected 24’s Jack Bauer’s voice to scream at the Flash memory, “Tell me what you know, now!”

The second video is of a car running over the USB memory device. Jack Bauer sure could have used this indestructible Flash memory device in several episodes of 24 where the evidence was destroyed due to weak casing on memory devices.

This Valentine’s Day, Vonage is enabling their customers the ability to surprise their loved ones with a poem and personalized “Vonage-gram” message. Vonage-grams give customers the ability to send a special recorded message (powered by Audible.com) as a memorable and fun way to say “I love you” on Valentine’s Day.

You simply dial 1-700-Valentine, Vonage customers will be prompted to choose from a variety of love poems along with the option to add their own 30 second personalized message, which will then be sent on February 14. Vonage customers can send this voicemail greeting to any phone number in the US or Canada or have it emailed to their own account, where they can save it, download it or forward it to a loved one.

This Vonage-gram service launches on February 10 for US and Canadian customers.

Gee, this great enhanced (Voice 2.0?) feature is almost enough to make me want to un-cancel my Vonage service. Nah… Kinda lame. Reminds me of Packet8’s Christmas promotion that lets you call Santa Claus. Are “gimmicks” the best VoIP service providers can come up with in order to retain or acquire customers?