Internet and VOIP phones

Boingo Wireless announced on Monday that it was launching a new service, called Boingo Mobile, which will offer mobile phone users unlimited WiFi access across its network for $7.95 per month, including both voice and data usage. The service requires a special Boingo Mobile client to be installed on the mobile device, which is how the company will prevent the service being used by laptops and other more data-oriented devices. Boingo claims to have 60,000 hotspots around the world.

Comment: The announcement is significant because one of the biggest barriers (although there are still others) to the adoption of dual-mode, cellular/WiFi devices has been that public hotspot usage was prohibitively expensive even for voice usage. The same $10/day (or higher) rates that applied for laptops applied also for mobile phones, and this made it totally uneconomical for all but the heaviest power users to consider VoIP over WiFi as a means of saving money on calls.

Having said this, barriers still remain to the usage of both WiFi-only devices such as those designed for Skype and sold by Belkin and others, and for dual-mode devices. So far, the mobile client is only available for Windows-based devices (although no doubt other OSs will follow in time). Finding and then signing on to the nearest hotspot will still take time and effort compared with simply making a cellular call, meaning that the best use case will still be international travel, where roaming charges and/or wireless technology incompatibilities make the alternative less attractive.

Source and more info: ovum

There are plenty of Skype handsets around at the moment – and most of them seem rather overpriced, often coming in at £100-£130.

Philip’s VOIP841 phone is in the same bracket, but it does have another trick up its sleeve to help justify that rather high price tag.

Neatly designed in glossy black, and more solidly constructed than most of the rival Skype phones we’ve seen so far, the VOIP841 works with both Skype and your existing landline.

This means you can make cheap calls using your Skype account, but can also receive incoming calls to your landline number as well.

To install the phone you use an Ethernet cable to connect its base unit to your broadband router, and an ordinary phone cable to connect it to your landline telephone socket.

The phone will then ring when it receives an incoming call on your landline, and for outgoing calls you simply use the menu on the phone’s small LCD screen to switch between Skype and landline calls.

Source and more info: vnunet

The KX-WP1050 Panasonic Wi-Fi Phone lets you make Skype calls without the need for a computer. It comes with a leather travel case which also has room for the portable wifi base station, allowing you to easily set up the phone and make calls where ever you have a broadband connection. It can also connect to wifi hotspots.

The phone displays your Skype contact list on the screen, complete with presence details, and lets you make Skype to Skype calls as well as use the SkypeIn and SkypeOut services. The 730mAh Lithium-ion battery can provide up to a 55 hours standby time, and 4.5 hours talk time, and can be charged with the included travel router, or from a USB connection on a PC.

The $400 price tag seems quite steep considering the KX-WP1050 is not a cellphone as well, so you can only use it to make Skype calls. Sure it comes with a wireless travel router, but you can buy a separate wifi Skype phone and travel router for less. The KX-WP1050 seems to be targeted at home users and business travellers wanting to make Skype calls from hotel rooms, but in both scenarios you’d probably have your desktop or notebook computer at hand. Sure it’s slightly more convenient to make Skype calls without a computer, but $400 more convenient - considering your computer is probably nearby?

Source and more info: itwire

Amex’s upcoming TSP-VS501 isn’t the first phone to combine DECT and Skype in one handset, but it just might be the best looking. Okay, so that’s not exactly an incredible feat given the state of the competition, but glowing touch sensitive controls and an LCD screen are nifty little features.

As well as letting you make basic landline calls, the cordless handset can quickly be flipped into Skype mode, where it works as any other VOIP phone. A USB connection on the base station allows you to update contacts and firmware, and there’s a phonebook with space for 160 entries.

Source and more info: t3

When it comes to voice over Internet Protocol phone calling, or VoIP, many people will have heard of one of the main independent players — Vonage — thanks to their incessant TV ads. Many will also have heard of the PC-based alternative Skype, if only because eBay bought the company for $2.6-billion (U.S.) dollars last year from the founders of the Kazaa file-swapping network.

Both services have their benefits, and are useful in different ways. Vonage makes sense for anyone who wants a VoIP phone that works much like a regular phone — you plug a regular phone into the Vonage box, and the box sends your phone calls over the Internet. Many cable companies offer the same type of services. Skype, meanwhile, is a lot cheaper, (Skype-to-Skype calls are free), but it is a software-based phone that only works when you are at your computer.

Although Skype is a great service, there are a number of other players out there with additional features and lower prices as well. If you are willing to experiment, you might want to look at one called Gizmo Project. It comes from SIPphone, a company founded by CEO Michael Robertson. Mr. Robertson is also the founder of a company called Linspire, which offers a Linux-based Windows alternative, and an MP3-sharing service called MP3tunes.com.

Source and more info: theglobeandmail

M5 Networks, one of the country’s leading outsourced IP phone system providers, today announced that the New York Health & Racquet Club (NYHRC), a New York fitness institution for thirty-five years, replaced its previous hosted VoIP provider with M5’s outsourced solution after experiencing frequent downtimes and poor client service. As a customer-service oriented company in a competitive retail environment, communications reliability, flexibility and scalability is at the center of NYHRC’s business operations. M5 now supports NYHRC’s 100+ users (800 employees) in 10 locations, including its corporate headquarters.

NYHRC decided to use hosted VoIP because of its ability to consolidate resources, streamline operations, improve customer service, and simplify the sales process. After numerous negative experiences with NYHRC’s last vendor, it was important to CEO Howard Brodsky that the company deal with a service provider that had no hidden agendas and could provide the utmost in service.

“M5 was honest and open from the beginning about their capabilities and worked with our team to personalize a phone system tailored towards our needs,” Brodsky said. “It’s not unusual for businesses in retail to experience employee turnover rates of fifty percent or higher, but M5 allows us to quickly and conveniently perform moves, adds and changes with a simple phone call or email. Everything is performed remotely, without a site visit, and is usually done the same day.”

Source and more info: prweb

Not to be confused with the people that send you a credit card bill every month, AMEX Digital has just revealed a new wireless Skype phone that eschews regular buttons in favor of Chocolate-esque touch-sensitive controls.

The TSP-VS501 VoIP phone appears to be a mish-mash of contradictions, however, because while it rocks that svelte exterior and curvaceous form factor, it also has a monochrome display and a severe lack of features. What’s more, it may be a wireless phone, but from what we can gather, it’s not exactly standalone WiFi, still forcing you to be tethered to a PC in some way or another.

Source and more info: mobilemag

Arcosoft Inc., developer of VoIP call recording software, today announced that the VONaLink product suite, TeamRecord, SoloRecord, and ScreenPop, have been tested on Windows Vista. VONaLink works with any VoIP phone system based on the open SIP standard, such as Asterisk or Vonage, to record phone calls.

Call recording benefits a company by allowing business transactions over the phone to be verified and disputes resolved. With traditional phone systems, calls are recorded with either analog equipment or expensive, proprietary products from the phone company. With the latest VoIP systems built on open, standard protocols, calls can be recorded by monitoring network packets.

The VONaLink suite runs on Windows Vista, XP, 2003, and 2000. Download evaluation from www.vonalink.com

Source and more info: emediawire

Microsoft Corp. sees the shift by business organizations to Web-based phone systems running on its software to generate “billions” of dollars in revenue for the company, a top executive said on Tuesday.

The move to Web-based phone systems will gain momentum during the next three years and Microsoft’s new server software will transform the telecommunication systems industry the way its Windows operating system changed the computer industry, said Jeff Raikes, president of Microsoft’s business division.

“You’re going to see history repeat itself,” said Raikes in an interview ahead of a keynote speech at VoiceCon Spring 2007, an industry conference for Web-based telephony.

Microsoft’s strategy in addressing the Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) business market differs from that of Cisco Systems Inc. which is selling fully-integrated systems incorporating its network equipment with its own software.

On the other hand Microsoft aims to create a distributed business model like the PC industry with its software at the center. Last year Microsoft and Nortel agreed on a broad alliance to address the VoIP market.

Source and more info: washingtonpost

Will a low-cost cordless phone finally convince you to pull the plug on the PSTN? That’s what SunRocket and ATS hope with their scheduled announcement Tuesday of a cordless, multi-handset VoIP phone that will be available for as little as $19.99 after a rebate.

Whether or not such easy-to-use gear — or the convenience of a bundled service — will help lift troubled SunRocket out of the bottom of the VoIP provider pool is another story.

In the latest VoIP market statistics from TeleGeography, SunRocket is barely visible, trailing far behind indy compatriot Vonage and the soaring telephony businesses of the nation’s leading cable companies.

Still, if SunRocket and its $199 yearly service price makes sense to you, the digital, enhanced offering that ATS introduced last year might be the way to go VoIP in cordless style.

Source and more info: gigaom