Internet and VOIP phones

April 2007 Telecom Products 45 The popularity of Skype among VoIP users worldwide is fueling makers’ adoption of the application for DECT VoIP phones. Makers in Hong Kong, which emphasize peer-topeer (P2P) application support, are centering their R&D and production plans on building Skype into their products.

This, however, does not preclude any growth in the USBbased phone segment. Many makers in mainland China and Hong Kong produce an ample supply of DECT VoIP phones with USB interface. In fact, makers see continuous growth in this sector, as many users worldwide still depend on the PC to place and receive VoIP calls.

Most models currently available support conventional and VoIP phone calls. Makers piggyback on DECT’s capability to enable wireless communication to add value to VoIP phones. Some companies also integrate Bluetooth, and others are considering adding Wi-Fi support.

Source and more info: telecom

Lingo (http://www.lingo.com), a leading U.S. broadband phone service provider, today announced an annual calling plan – Talk 365. Talk 365 allows Lingo customers to pay only $195 for an entire year of phone service, which averages to just over $16 per month.

“We are pleased to provide Lingo customers with an additional calling plan that will further reduce their home phone service and long distance calling costs,” said Srinath Narayan, Vice President of Lingo, Inc. “The creation of Talk 365 for Lingo broadband phone service responds to our customers’ desire for a low-cost, annual calling plan.”

Lingo customers on the new Talk 365 plan will be able to make calls to anywhere in the US, to Canada, and to Puerto Rico, plus enjoy over 20 calling features such as caller ID with name, voicemail to email, and call waiting at no extra cost. Customers can learn more about the service and sign up online at www.lingo.com, or by calling 1-866-546-4603.

About Lingo

Lingo is one of the most affordable U.S. broadband phone services, offering local and long distance calls (subject to restrictions described in the terms and conditions of service) anywhere in the U.S., to Canada and to many other countries through several calling plan options. Lingo users can save up to 50 percent over what traditional phone companies charge U.S. consumers for local and long distance calling services. To place and receive calls customers only need a broadband Internet connection, a regular phone, and a “Lingo Box,” which is provided free of charge when they subscribe.

With more domestic and international coverage than any of the other major VoIP phone providers in the U.S. today, Lingo consumer and small business subscribers can select U.S. phone numbers from over 300 major markets, and international phone numbers from cities in 14 foreign countries. Lingo’s VoIP service is sold directly through the web site at http://www.lingo.com.

Source and more info: businesswire

Hi-Mobile sent us in the very popular Nokia N80 smartphone. While the phone was released about 10 months ago, just last month there was a brand new and free firmware upgrade that upgrades it to version 4.x which adds VoIP functionality. The upgrade is available for all N80 models, even the ones that were not released under the “Internet Edition” brand. Read more for our test.

The N80 is a quad-band GSM/EDGE and European UMTS smartphone running the Symbian 9.0 OS with the S60 3.x front-end. It features an impressive 2.2″ TFT screen with the 352×416 resolution, it supports miniSDs and has 40 MBs of internal memory free. It features Bluetooth 1.2, an IrDA port, WiFi, FM Radio, PTT, a CIF video call front camera and a 3.2 MP camera with flash.

The device does not weigh much and it feels pretty good in the hand, although it could have been thinner. The slider mechanism is not very good, I kept pressing keys by mistake while trying to slide the phone up. One other thing is that the camera is more exposed than usual and so if you leave your phone in a rough place you can seriously scratch the lense. Having said that, the overall construction of the device is very good and pleasant. In the box there was a charger, a handsfree stereo headset, a 512 MBs miniSD and a USB cable.

Source and more info: osnews

Cable operators and Vonage Holdings Corp. continue to drive VoIP adoption among residents in the United States, according to a new report from research firm In-Stat.

More than 10.6 million households now have at least one active VoIP user, up from approximately 9 million households at the end of the third quarter of 2006, the firm found.

The emergence of the cable operators as a dominant market force seems to have slowed the growth of the client-based VoIP market, with only Skype showing gains in this segment during the fourth quarter, analysts noted.

Source and more info: newtelephony

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