Internet and VOIP phones

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

Semiconductor manufacturer Broadcom introduced on Friday the Broadcom BCM4325 WiFi (News – Alert)/Bluetooth/FM transceiver, a single-chip connectivity product which bundles WiFi, Bluetooth and FM receiver technologies onto a single silicon die.

Broadcom’s new product features radio capabilities in a new ultra-low power 65 nanometer CMOS system-on-a-chip (SoC). This makes it possible to address the growing demand for a single product that powers devices with multiple applications such as Web-browsing, instant messaging (IM), e-mail, VoIP phone calls and photo sharing, by eliminating the need to use multiple chips, since these were needed to prevent “same band” interference.

Source and more info: tmcnet

It’s a safe bet that as technological miniaturization continues, cellphone makers will stuff anything they can into their handsets.

Pairing some features, such as music, with cellphone calling is understandable. Others, however, are mystifying. (What’s the appeal of micro-TV when Hollywood is making films for high-definition screens?)

One cellphone that represents considerable advances in “cool” technology is the Belkin WiFi phone for the Skype Internet phone service. Retailing at $269.95, the phone makes calls using the voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) service without a computer.

It’s about the size of a “candy bar” style phone, with a glossy front, and works without the need for installation — well, after three hours of charging time — as long as the user has access to a WiFi network and a Skype identification.

Source and more info: theglobeandmai

I see that one of my analyst peers has released a report on WiFi phone shipments. Always tricky to interpret actual data from a press release, as it never has the full set of definitions / assumptions, but I’m scratching my head about a couple of things.

“Samsung leads in dual-mode WiFi/cellular handset revenue market share, followed by Nokia (NOK)”

This seems unlikely, unless it specifically excludes smartphones from the definition of “handset.” Nokia announced in its results last week that “The Eseries sold almost two million units since its introduction in the second quarter 2006.” – presumably accounting for a fairly large chunk of the total €1bn sales of its Enterprise business unit.

Source and more info: seekingalpha

Nokia released a few new phones at the 3GSM World Congress, but the one that really caught my eye was the Nokia E90 Communicator. At first glance, it almost looks like an oversized version of the budget Nokia phones available from most service providers–full number pad, QVGA screen, and 3MP camera on the outer shell–but that’s just where the fun begins.

The E90 opens up lengthwise to reveal a full QWERTY keyboard beneath a wide 800×352 pixel screen in 24-bit color. I think the coolest part about this feature is that I could talk on the phone without looking like a complete dork yelling into a “mini-laptop” device, but then if I decide to browse the web I could simply pop up the top and surf away. The phone runs on the S60 platform and has an integrated GPS reciever which can be used with the included Nokia Maps (with service subscription). In terms of connectivity, the E90 is 3G/EDGE/GPRS compatible and supports Quad-band, HSDPA, WiFi, mini USB 2.0, Bluetooth 2.0, and IrDA. The E90 is also touted as having multimedia capabilities, which leaves me wondering what sort of video and audio formats the device supports.

Source and more info: arstechnica

Mobile VoIP is really starting to take off, as evidenced by mobile VoIP provider Truphone’s announcement today at the 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, that its mobile VoIP service is supported on three new, WiFi-enabled Nokia (News – Alert) handsets: the Nokia E61i, Nokia E65 and Nokia E90.

Subscribers to Truphone’s mobile VoIP service can now use these dual mode, GSM/WiFi phones to make VoIP calls – for either free or dirt cheap – over WiFi (News – Alert) connections.

“The new Nokia E61i, Nokia E65 and Nokia E90 phones will be very popular and Truphone works on them from day one,” said James Tagg, CEO of Truphone, ina press release. “With other manufacturers also starting to put WiFi on handsets, 2007 is the year that mobile meets the Internet – and that means Truphone VoIP.”

The Truphone client software has reportedly completed the Symbian “signing process” and is available for all new and existing Nokia WiFi VoIP handsets.

Source and more info: tmcnet

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.

Source and more info: ovum