From editor@telecom-digest.org Thu Jun 10 17:36:34 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.3) id i5ALaYE11841; Thu, 10 Jun 2004 17:36:34 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 10 Jun 2004 17:36:34 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200406102136.i5ALaYE11841@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V23 #285 TELECOM Digest Thu, 10 Jun 2004 17:35:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 285 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Clearing the Way for Widespread Residential VoIP (VOIP News) Nuvio Corporation Partners with 1TouchTone to Provide Branded (VOIP News) Voice Over WLAN Still a Joke That's Not Funny (VOIP News) End-to-End VOIP (Wolfgang S. Rupprecht) Secret Surfer Broken (Julian Thomas) Panasonic VA-208 Speed Dial Programming (Chip) Re: Public Copy Cost Unchanged (William Robison) Re: Dock N Talk - Anyone Using? (Alex) All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: VOIP News Date: Wed, 09 Jun 2004 17:57:20 -0400 Subject: Clearing the Way for Widespread Residential VoIP Reply-To: VoIPnews@yahoogroups.com Comment: In one respect this article could be seen as a shameless promotional piece for Netrake's session controllers. However, it does provide some insights into the challenges of setting up a residential VoIP service. Just keep in mind as you read this that to some degree, it might be considered a form of advertising. http://www.convergedigest.com/blueprint/ttp04/z3netrake1.asp?ID=137&ctgy=3 Clearing the Way for Widespread Residential VoIP by Micaela Giuhat, AVP Product Management Netrake VoIP will explode into widespread deployment across North American this year, changing the way telephone calls are made and received more radically than any technology that's been put into place in the last 100 years. At the same time, VoIP will bring cost efficiencies for carriers and new services and conveniences for consumers. The new technology will eventually dominate what has been and promises to continue to be for many years to come. This is thanks to the embedded infrastructure of existing telecommunications carriers a lucrative $80 billion annual voice services market. Because RBOCs and ILECs have a vested interest in maintaining existing infrastructure for switched telephony services, it's unlikely that VoIP will transform the way the phone industry runs overnight. It is, however, likely that VoIP's attractiveness for both carriers and consumers will drive large-scale residential deployments starting this year. In fact, it's already happening. Service providers like Vonage, Packet8 and Net2Phone are riding on broadband networks. Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOCs) like Verizon and its brethren all have announced plans for VoIP migration in the near term. Interexchange Carriers (IXCs) like AT&T, Sprint and MCI are eyeing or entering the space. And, of course, cable operators are standing by to bring in their own versions of voice services running on their broadband networks. Even fixed broadband wireless providers and their cousins in the wireless fidelity (Wi-Fi) space are eyeing voice services over IP networks. In short, while small in comparison to the existing telecommunications infrastructure, the residential VoIP audience will be a huge change compared to any competing voice technology that has happened in the last century. Let's first concede that VoIP technology is, to put it in technical terms, 'fully baked.' After some initial start-up kinks, transmitting voice over broadband IP has become commonplace in the transport space, with carriers and service providers packetizing voice into data and carrying it across IP networks internationally to avoid the costs and difficulties of using the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) and to give end users lower charges primarily for long distance calls. Full story at: http://www.convergedigest.com/blueprint/ttp04/z3netrake1.asp?ID=137&ctgy=3 How to Distribute VoIP Throughout a Home: http://michigantelephone.mi.org/distribute.html If you live in Michigan, subscribe to the MI-Telecom group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MI-Telecom/ ------------------------------ From: VOIP News Date: Thu, 10 Jun 2004 11:45:12 -0400 Subject: Nuvio Corporation Partners with 1TouchTone to Provide Branded Reply-To: VoIPnews@yahoogroups.com Comment: The concept of a "virtual VoIP" company is interesting, but perhaps it slices the pie too thin -- this company's rate for its residential Unlimited Local and Long Distance plan is among the highest I've seen (compared to other VoIP companies), and the calling area only seems to be the United States. http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20040610005224&newsLang=en Nuvio Corporation Partners with 1TouchTone to Provide Branded VoIP Offering KANSAS CITY, Mo.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 10, 2004--Nuvio Corporation, a leading provider of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), today announced a private label agreement with 1TouchTone. Under the agreement, 1TouchTone's VoIP offering will be "Powered by Nuvio" with a branded Web site, private-label billing, referrals coordination, technology support and marketing materials for providing VoIP services to their customers. Nuvio's partner program gives broadband providers the ability to capitalize on the exploding VoIP market, offering services to the residential and small to medium-sized business spaces, without having to incur the delays and costs for development and maintenance of the technology. "1TouchTone was looking for a quick, easy way into the VoIP market," stated David Thiery, president of 1TouchTone. "Nuvio provided a complete package of service, marketing, and billing support that removed the need for us to develop our own network while providing a new revenue stream for our business." "Nuvio has a unique offering that is perfect for broadband providers," said Jason Talley, president and CEO of Nuvio Corporation. "Our service gives broadband companies the chance to quickly join the VoIP revolution and provide their customers complete Internet and telephony services from one source. Nuvio partners can literally begin offering VoIP overnight." About 1TouchTone Headquartered just outside of Detroit, Mi., 1TouchTone has been in the telecommunications and technology business since 1986. 1TouchTone initially offered IT hardware solutions. In 1992, communication services were first offered. By 1995, 1TouchTone was one of the largest paging wholesalers in the Midwest, and the company began offering cellular and wireless services. In 2001, 1TouchTone achieved Competitive Local Exchange Carrier status and was licensed to provide local dial tone services. In 2003, 1TouchTone entered the broadband communications market. About Nuvio Headquartered in Kansas City, Mo., Nuvio develops, licenses, and markets VoIP services to businesses, education, consumer and government customers through a growing network of private-label partners. In addition to consumer NuvioVoice products, Nuvio also has NuvioCentrex, a complete IP based Centrex application for businesses that replaces existing telephony infrastructure. For additional information about Nuvio Corporation, visit www.nuvio.com or call Toll Free 866-887-3479. Nuvio, NuvioVoice, NuvioCentrex and the Nuvio logo are trademarks of Nuvio Corporation. All other names and trademarks mentioned above are held by their respective owners and are hereby respectively acknowledged. Contacts Keating & Co. Jennifer Kamienski, 973-400-5403 jkamienski@keatingco.com ------------------------------ From: VOIP News Date: Thu, 10 Jun 2004 11:09:02 -0400 Subject: Voice Over WLAN Still a Joke That's Not Funny Reply-To: VoIPnews@yahoogroups.com http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1609526,00.asp By Guy Kewney At the VON Europe show in London, columnist Guy Kewney finds that when it comes to real-time voice service, the technology has a long way to go. Voice over wireless LAN? Not this year. Or so was my experience this week at Jeff Pulver's VON Europe show here in London. It just so happened that before the show opened, I was on an assignment to test voice-over-IP (VOIP) telephony. So, I was pretty glad of the expertise I'd find at the event. Boy, was I disappointed! The technology for doing VOIP is established, pretty stable and in use. According to Sonus, roughly 10 percent of the world's wired phone networks are switched by IP switches—and a lot of those are owned by Sonus, of course. But watching people trying to do voice over WLAN in London, you'd never have guessed. Full story at: http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1609526,00.asp ------------------------------ Subject: End-to-End VOIP From: Organization: W S Rupprecht Computer Consulting, Fremont CA Date: Thu, 10 Jun 2004 18:12:17 GMT I just bought a pair of Grandstreams Budgettone 100's for $65 from Pulver for a cross-country test. Boy am I impressed. The test was between the SF, CA area to Northampton, MA. The most striking thing was how quiet the connection was. (Sort of like going from phonographs to well-recorded CD's.) The fact that the phone doesn't need any 2-wire to 4-wire hybrid can't hurt either. Lets hear it for true uni-directional talk paths without any transformers in the way to saturate and add other distortions and coloration. The raw ping times between the endpoints was noisy with delays bouncing around 125ms and a few outliers at twice that. round-trip min/avg/max/std-dev = 95.729/124.716/302.405/60.522 ms The talk delay wasn't much of an impediment once one got used to pausing a bit longer to allow the other side to get their packets in. The one feature of the phone that isn't usable at all over such a long delay is the speaker phone. Well, not unless you want to drive the other party totally stark-raving bonkers. The room acoustics will bounce their conversation back to them with what appears to be roughly 2x the above delays. I assume the speakerphone is meant for the times one is put on hold or something like that and one only needs to know when the other party returned to the phone. The fact that VOIP phone calls can be done without any middle-man and the fact that they don't cost anything above and beyond what one pays for an internet connection is going to be a strong driver for acceptance of this technology from the budget-minded crowd. I find the "save a few cents per minute" come-on of VOIP to PSTN companies uninteresting. I can pick up my POTS line if I want "telco quality" communication. What I find tantalizing about end-to-end VOIP is that the quality can be much higher. I'm already spoiled by the Grandstream's ulaw/8khz end to end. Even though this is still standard telco encoding, not sending a low-level microphone signal 15kft through 4 different 4/2-wire hybrids makes a big difference. I'm seriously thinking of sending all my relatives a Budgettone 100 for the holidays. This is one of those things like the fax machine, it is only useful to you if other folks have one too. Once critical mass is reached I expect to see an avalanche effect. I just wonder how long it will take for the sharp part of the curve to hit. Wolfgang S. Rupprecht http://www.wsrcc.com/wolfgang/ VOIP: sip:429102@voip.wsrcc.com (or FWD-429102) ------------------------------ From: Julian Thomas Date: Thu, 10 Jun 2004 16:02:00 -0400 Subject: Secret Surfer Broken Throws up a cuss box that anon.cotse.com could not be found ... Julian Thomas: jt@jt-mj.net http://jt-mj.net In the beautiful Finger Lakes Wine Country of New York State! Boardmember of POSSI.org - Phoenix OS/2 Society, Inc http://www.possi.org -- -- Advanced design: Upper management doesn't understand it. ------------------------------ From: Chip Subject: Panasonic VA-208 speed dial programming Date: Thu, 10 Jun 2004 02:48:47 -0700 Organization: Wood Chipper Wannabe Anyone remember how to program speed dial in the old Panasonic va-208 phone system? I bought a system with 8 phones for $1 and it works great, but I can't figure out how to program the speed dial buttons. Thanks, Chip ------------------------------ From: William Robison Subject: Re: Public Copy Cost Unchanged Organization: Universitry of Iowa Date: Thu, 10 Jun 2004 13:56:25 GMT On Tue, 8 Jun 2004 20:12:23 EDT, wrote: > In a message dated Mon, 07 Jun 2004 17:56:13 -0400, Barry Margolin < > barmar@alum.mit.edu> writes: >> Pat suggested that the towns may be subsidizing this, but lots of >> convenience stores, as well as chains like Staples and UPS Store, >> offer self-serve copying. I don't think they're still a dime, but >> they're not much more expensive either. >> Barry Margolin, barmar@alum.mit.edu >> Arlington, MA > Oklahoma County Public Libraries have been charging 15 cents as > long as I can remember. > UPS Stores still charge a dime, unless they've gone up in the > last few weeks. So does the self-service copying machine in > Albertson's. > Kinko's, I believe, has gone up to 7 or 8 cents. > Wes Leatherock > wesrock@aol.com Pat: Remember the Xerox 914 copier? This beast is the first Xerox I can remember here at where I now work. It showed up in the early 60's (grade school, for me). It was the size of a LARGE L shaped desk. I don't know what it cost, but couldn't have been at all cheap. (I did see the Xerox'd hand, but no other body parts) Now, I can go out and buy an ink-jet copier/priunter for $100 at Staples, Best Buy, Wal Mart, Office Max (and on and on). Granted supplies cost a small fortune (in the form of ink cartridges), but for a few hundred I can get a low duty cycle laser copier. It should be to the point that the major cost is the paper going into the machine, which is around a penny/page if you don't buy in bulk. Thinking back to the size and cost of the earlier machines, it's almost amazing that we could get copies for a dime back then. I don't know what paper cost in those days, but I'd wager that with the volume of "A" size paper that is produced these days drives, the price is below that of 35 years ago... (Isn't computer technology wonderful? Well, unless you need to get your car fixed these days :-) -Willy ------------------------------ From: alex@totallynerd.com (Alex) Subject: Re: Dock-N-Talk -- Anyone Use This??? Date: 10 Jun 2004 13:29:00 -0700 alex@totallynerd.com (Alex) wrote in message news: > Hi all, > I've been with SBC for my home phone since moving 18 months ago, and > it seems to go down for some reason every 2-3 months due to problems > on the phone company's end. Anyway, I'm seriously considering > dropping my land line and moving to only cell phone, but I hate > talking on my little Motorola V60 while at home. > I ran across the Dock N Talk device, and I was wondering if anyone's > using it? ANy problems or issues?? What about capabilities with the > Motorola V60i? It looks like an awesome product if it does all they > say it can - http://www.phonelabs.com/prd05.asp - but I often wonder > if it CAN do all this, why isn't it at Best Buy, Circuit City, or the > major electronic vendors. I've only found it at smaller web stores ... > which sometimes makes me leery of a product's quality. > Anyway, I'd love some comments on this product before spending $150 > for it. > Thanks and take care, > Alex > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I think they make the same thing in a > different model for the Nokia 5100/6100 series phones which is the > cellular phone I use. They work okay, and allow me to use any 'regular' > style phone if that's more convenient. The $150 price tag sounds about > right. The trouble with all those devices is there are such a huge > variety of cellular phones out there, and new ones coming out all the > time. If a company was going to make them for every style of handset > on the market, they would go broke, since each style of handset has > slightly different software and logic in it. I've suggested that the > manufacturer make one standard 'Dock and Talk' device then use short > little ribbon connectors to accomodate different style phones, etc, > but I was told then they would also need different pin outs on the > ribbon connectors. > I would suggest if you are considering dropping SBC (as I have done) > that you consider VOIP instead since it can also be wired around > your entire house if you follow Jack Decker's instructions for same. > Most folks these days cannot really afford to keep SBC, but they can > use Vonage or some other VOIP easily enough. Use VOIP your main phone > service around your house and then your cellphone as backup. PAT] Hi Pat, The Dock and Talk unit supposedly comes with different cables for various phones, but the unit itself is the same. It has an impressive list of features, and I'm wondering if they all work with the Motorola V60i. If it works as I hope, then this'll be perfect for my needs. Pay for one phone and best of both worlds :) You and I have actually msged in the past about Vonage, but they're not in my area yet. I check weekly, but thus far the closest town is about 40 miles away -- and long distance from here. Time Warner is also getting a VoIP service starting soon, but I'm not sure what their rates will be like. I'll probably switch to it or Vonage if either get in my area soon. Thanks for the feedback, and take care, Alex [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The Dock/Talk thing I have is expressly configured for Nokia 5100/6100 series phones; that is, the cradle in which the phone sits is just that wide, no more. The pin out on the bottom of the cradle matches with the pin out of the 5100/6100 series, and it appears to be 'idiot-proof' in the sense that you cannot mix up things by sitting the phone in wrong and frying something via the pins. Other phones just won't fit in the cradle. I took mine downtown the other day and stopped in to see the three cellular agent/dealers in town to ask about other units, etc. The Cingular Wireless agent has one that works on very new Nokia units as did US Cellular. The Cell One place had not even seen one of them. Regards Vonage, they have some odd policies it seems regarding placement of their services. The two service areas they have for the 620 area (which is the southern half of Kansas except for Wichita (316) are in a *tiny* little wide spot in the road called Winfield. KS which 'just happens to be' directly south of Wichita (but outside of 316 and barely into 620 by a few miles.)'620-402' is the exchange and DID numbers Southwestern Bell gave them although I understand the equipment is in Wichita (316) that Vonage uses for it. Winfield is about 60 miles west of here, on Highway 160, but straight south of Wichita. PAT] ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, Yahoo Groups, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. 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