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As I predicted on July 3rd, AT&T would soon be dropping its CallVantage broadband VoIP service since they dropped their affiliate marketing channel.

Well, today I learned that AT&T is no longer accepting ANY new orders from ANY source - affiliate or otherwise. The slow death of CallVantage is a bit sad, but it isn’t particularly surprising, not only because they dropped the affiliate channel last month but as I have previously indicated, AT&T is heavily promoting their U-Verse fiber-to-copper hybrid service that combines IPTV, data, and U-Verse Voice (in select areas).

It seems a little early to cut the cord on acquiring new Callvantage customers since neither U-Verse or U-Verse Voice are available in most of the country - including my neighborhood where it was promised for this summer. I would think they would want to acquire these customers on CallVantage and then easily port them over to U-Verse when it becomes available in their area. It is much easier and less expensive to retain an existing customer than acquire a new one. But perhaps CallVantage was burning money and wasn’t profitable? Unlikely since there isn’t a lot of overhead in offering VoIP, especially since AT&T has a vast network they already pay for. My guess is that internal politics played a role more than profitability. It’s too bad. Callvantage has some cool features that other broadband VoIP players didn’t have. Could be good news for Vonage, Packet8 and the rest - one less single-play provider…

Check out the announcement made on their website:

Thank you for your interest in AT&T CallVantage® service. Currently we are not accepting new orders for AT&T CallVantage service. We will continue to evaluate our AT&T CallVantage service and remain committed to providing leading, next generation voice services for today’s consumer and business customers. For information on other AT&T products and service please visit www.att.com

Tags: AT&T, ATT, callvantage, U-Verse, U-Verse Voice, voip

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Copyright VoIP & Gadgets Blog

Original post by nafiz

Vonage today launched their VonagePro service, their premium service offering that features a brand new softphone with single phone number identity, built-in contacts support, custom ringtones, and more.

Mary Grikas, Executive Director of Device Development for Vonage about the launch of Vonage Companion told me, “As far as the VoIP landscape goes, we feel strongly and we believe that the future of VoIP is not going just be based on price and bundling. Price our experience has told us, does not equate to loyal customers. Our customers are loyal if we help them communicate and if we offer them feature-rich offerings that fit into their lifestyles. Our product strategy is that everything we do is customer-centric and customer-focus.”

She added, “VonagePro currently has about 1000 beta testers. Our marketing team went out and did a study of the prosumer, which is basically the professional consumer. Those are folks who are comfortable with technology, they embrace technology, they want to use technology to make their lives easier.”

She continued, “WebEx is an example of that, right? We can have conference calls where we do demos. If you aren’t able to make it to the office to see the demo you can still function and work through WebEx. That’s an example of a prosumer. Somebody who is comfortable with technology, they’re not afraid of it and they want to use it to help make their lives better. VonagePro is a new product offering that includes some new components and some existing components. It includes Vonage DigitalVoice, which is their traditional home landline replacement ($24.99/month unlimited local/long-distance service), Vonage access numbers, SimulRing, and more.” VonagePro also includes 25 visual voicemail minutes per month (text-to-speech transcribing of voicemail) and 25 directory assistance calls per month as part of the VonagePro package. The major new component is a new softphone offering that is attached to your home phone number, called Vonage Companion. Mary commented, “That’s something that our customers have been asking for a very long time.”

Vonage already offered a Vonage softphone called V-Phone, a $9.99/month add-on that includes 500 minutes/month, but it uses a separate phone number from your home number. Vonage Companion is the first softphone offering that allows both your home analog telephony adaptor (ATA) and your softphone to receive phone calls to the same phone number.

The first device to answer the call first grabs the call. Call waiting still works on both the softphone device so on a second inbound call, the one currently on the phone will hear the call waiting tone while the other device rings. Both share the same DID phone number. It also acts as a second line, so for instance if someone is on the phone and you want to order a pizza, you can use Companion to make the outbound call. Further, the CallerID is the same regardless of which device you use to make the call.

I asked if Vonage Companion is an OEM’ed softphone from Counterpath and Vonage confirmed that was the case. One nifty feature in CompanionLink is the ability to set custom ringtones based on contacts. Vonage said some customers use their PC’s speakers with custom ringtones as a method of screening callers without having to look at or be near the phone. Another useful feature is the ability to click a single button in Companion to record the call to a .wav file. Companion also lets you drag-and-drop contacts to have an ad-hoc instant conference. On the record, Vonage Companion supports 3 conference participants. Off the record it can support up to 6 conferees, depending on how much your bandwidth allows. Home-based business professionals, especially sales will appreciate the ability to break out one or more callers from within a conference. For example, suppose the customer wants a 20% discount, but you need to talk it over with your manager but not have the customer hear the conversation. You can simply separate all the callers and then using your mouse, simply click on each tab to speak privately to each of the callers. You can then conference them all back in via the Conference All button. Another nice feature of Companion is that contacts go with you based on your logon, so you can take your contacts with you wherever you logon.

I asked, “What sort of technical challenges did you have having the same CallerID and the same phone number? Obviously, you are leveraging SIP and the ATA that sits at the home residence logs on with one set of SIP credentials and Vonage Companion logs on with different SIP credentials, but it’s mapped on your back-end to the same phone number.”

Mary responded, “That’s really a great question because we actually had to put almost a whole new infrastructure in place with a lot of new equipment. And we actually have proxies that are just dedicated to Companion to handle those calls. We do differentiate between the home TA DID credential and we do have flag for Companion. That way we know, as you said on the back-end it’s all mapped and then we know where the call originates. We know if a call originates from Companion versus originating from the TA.” Mary continued, “That was a lot of work for our call processing team. They had to do a lot of work configuring that system and all the redundancy and mapping. It was a pretty big effort, but it’s something we were committed to doing because we had such an overwhelming request from our customers to implement a feature like that.

Companion also supports a mini-skinned mode as seen here:

I asked Vonage, “What were some of the challenges in developing Vonage Companion?”

Mary answered, “One of the challenges was making sure that all the back-end scenarios work seamlessly. For example, if you logon from another location. If you logon and the other instance is NOT on a call, it would automatically logout the other instance, but if the other instance is on a call, we want to present the user with the option - the other user is on a call. Are you sure you want to login at this time? We want to be sure that we cover all the use scenarios properly.”

When asked to compare the existing Vonage V-phone offering for $9.99/month versus the new VonagePro for $10/month, Vonage responded, that if they′re paying $9.99/month for the softphone service, it’s a natural upgrade to VonagePro for an additional penny which adds the 25 TTS visual voicemail, the 25 directory assistance calls, the single phone number, and additional outbound phone line when the phone or Companion is in use.

Check out the spec sheet & the press release after the jump…

Continue reading VonagePro Launches…

Tags: prosumer, voip, Vonage, VonagePro

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Original post by nafiz

Comcast is about to be punished for messing with its customers Internet traffic, including messing with P2P traffic and reportedly even VoIP traffic. Apparently, Comcast making nice nice with Vonage wasn’t enough to appease the FCC. This news wire reports that “A majority of members of the Federal Communications Commission have cast votes in favor of punishing Comcast Corp. for blocking subscribers’ Internet traffic, an agency official said”.

Ouch! Looks like Comcast has finally got their comeuppance!

Tags: blocking, Comcast, FCC, internet, Ѣp, VoIP, Vonage

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Original post by nafiz

Filed under: Household

VOIP provider Vonage is doing a bit of reshuffling at the top, while putting the finishing touches on a $215 million infusion of cash from Silver Point Finance LLC. Dry enough? Perhaps, but we’re sure Jeffery Citron, CEO and current interim chief executive of the recently embattled company will be pleased to get the helping hand. Citron is currently preparing for a swap of duties as well, taking a step back from the day-to-day — which will probably provide a welcome respite from the flurry of legal hits the provider has taken. Enjoy your vacation, Jeff.

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Original post by Joshua Topolsky

Vonage today announced two new low cost call plans for their Vonage UK subsidiary. According to Vonage UK, “Following customer research and reacting directly to consumer concern about increasing household costs and spiraling business overheads, Vonage has created two new fixed rate call plans.”

They added, “Vonage subscribers report enormous savings on their monthly bills and comment on the speed and ease of swapping providers as well as installing Vonage. The new call plans fly in the face of increasing utility prices and the new £6.99 plan has been designed for the high percentage of Vonage consumers requesting more cost efficient plans for North America.”

Vonage’s £7.99, £14.99 and £18.99 plans incorporating up to 45 countries remain unchanged. The two new call plans offer Vonage’s lowest ever rates and are called V-Plan UK and V-Plan US.

• £5.99 per month - unlimited calls to the UK (V-Plan UK)
- Premium features such as call waiting, caller ID, call diversion, voicemail, three way calling (normally billed as extras with other providers), are included as standard.

• £6.99 per month - unlimited calls to the UK, United States and Canada (V-Plan US)
- As above plus, for only £1 extra per month, unlimited calls to the US and Canada to include calls to US and Canadian mobile phones.

Here’s a screenshot of the various V-Plan calling options. Click image to see the plans:

Vonage to Vonage calls are free. Also, there are no hidden costs with Vonage - prices are always quoted including VAT.

Vincent Potier, Managing Director of Vonage, said; “We recognise how important it is for customers to keep costs low and as predictable as possible - especially in light of the current economy. Our new plans enable customers to make worry free calls for as long as they want and show our long term commitment to listening and responding to our customers as well as offering the highest level of customer service and value for money”.

Tags: calling plans, United Kingdom, V-Plan, VoIP, Vonage UK

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Original post by Rico

I missed the 8×8/PackeҐ news on July 16th about its new hosted small office “key” system and plug-and-play IP phones. Joan Citelli, Director of Corporate Communications emailed me asking for a briefing, but apparently I never replied since her email was still marked as unread and nothing in my Sent Items. Email overload I guess. The news was about 8×8, working with handset maker Aastra Telecom to provide a key system to the SMB market,which is part of the new PackeҐ 675xi series.

I happened to come across Carolyn Schuk’s article while surfing the web and came across her post about some 8Ҹ news that I missed. She writes, “8Ҹ is VoIP’s Rodney Dangerfield. It just gets no respect.” She has an excellent point and one which I wholeheartedly agree with.

Carolyn then lays out her case: “Consider how it stacks up against its far better-known pure-play VoIP competitor, Vonage: In the last five years, 8×8 revenues grew 460.3 percent while Vonage’s grew 0.0 percent. 8×8 made $700,000 during the first quarter of this year. Vonage lost $8.9 million and is shopping for a $215 million refinancing deal to stay out of bankruptcy. 8×8 holds 73 patents. Vonage just got its first. Despite this, Vonage’s stock price is $1.58 while 8×8’s is $1.03.”

She goes on to explain that the news coverage of the new PackeҐ 675xi series was sorely lacking, which sparked the Rodney Dangerfield comment. I’m guilty as charged, since I didn’t cover the news. Though it wasn’t for a lack of respect that I didn’t cover the Packet8 news. Sometimes it’s just impossible to cover all the daily VoIP news in addition to my testing of VoIP products, managing the MIS department as CTO, etc.

Well, better late than never. Today, I thought I′d give an overview of the new Packet8 675xi series.

First off, the Packet8 675xi IP phone series consists of three models — the 6753i entry level phone, 6755i intermediate phone and 6757i CT advanced phone. Essentially these are OEM’ed versions of the Aastra 53i, 55i, and 57i CT but with a special firmware load. Each model offers full duplex speakerphone functionality, programmable softkey appearances, LCD display screens, embedded XML browsers and up to nine call appearance lines. All models support Power over Ethernet and come equipped with dual auto-sensing switched Ethernet ports.

Here’s pictures of all 3 models:

The PackeҐ 675xi series include intercom paging and direct dial from a searchable corporate directory. Prices for the PackeҐ 675xi series range from $129.99 for the 6753i to $349.99 for the high end 6757i CT model which includes a DECT cordless phone as part of the bundled offer. The 6757i CT model’s built in DECT antenna allows the user to roam up to a 300 foot radius from the 6757i CT base telephone. The PackeҐ 675xi IP phones also feature corporate directory display and lookup, intercom paging, and shared line appearance.

The PackeҐ 675xi series of IP phones incorporates 8×8’s advanced NAT traversal technologies. This allows users to simply plug the phone into any Internet connection and immediately make or receive calls without performing any network or firewall configuration.

The high-end PackeҐ 6757i CT includes an integrated cordless handset with coverage up to 300,000 sq ft. It has a large 144 x 128 pixel graphical backlit LCD display and 6 dynamic context-sensitive softkeys, and with its large screen it can take full advantage of XML based programs.

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, the Packet8 675xi series use SIP trunking to Packet8’s network infrastructure. All of the telephony functions such as transfer, conferencing, voicemail, etc. reside on the Packet8 network. Thus, you don’t need any costly IP-PBX hardware at the customer premise - you just need IP phones. This can be a huge cost savings for SMBs looking for an inexpensive VoIP solution, especially as the costs and margins for IP-PBXs continue to shrink with growing price pressure from more competition and open source solutions like Digium’s Asterisk.

Packet8/8Ҹ certainly has earned my admiration with some great products and services, a cool videophone, and more VoIP patents than you can shake a stick at! My ‘respect’ has been duly given.

Tags: 8×8, Aastra, Asterisk, Carolyn Schuk, Digium, IP phones, Packet8, Packet8 6757i, Packet8 6757i CT, Packet8 675xi, smb

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Original post by Rico

Filed under: Transportation

Never heard of Fresno-Yosemite International? Thanks to this low-key airport now housing the largest solar installation of any airport in the entire United States, you have now. Arriving passengers will notice the panels a half-mile out, as they cover about seven football fields worth of land and will eventually result in taxpayer savings of $11 million. The 2-megawatt farm has been churning out clean energy for the past month, and electricity from the installation helps to run “everything from airport lighting to tower communications.” FYI’s aviation director even noted that it would “produce about 40% of its annual electrical requirement.” If you’re worried that other locales won′t follow suit, don′t be — a similar, albeit smaller system is already in the works at DEN.

[Via Gadling, thanks Trowa]

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Original post by Darren Murph

Filed under: Transportation

Never heard of Fresno-Yosemite International? Thanks to this low-key airport now housing the largest solar installation of any airport in the entire United States, you have now. Arriving passengers will notice the panels a half-mile out, as they cover about seven football fields worth of land and will eventually result in taxpayer savings of $11 million. The 2-megawatt farm has been churning out clean energy for the past month, and electricity from the installation helps to run “everything from airport lighting to tower communications.” FYI’s aviation director even noted that it would “produce about 40% of its annual electrical requirement.” If you′re worried that other locales won’t follow suit, don’t be — a similar, albeit smaller system is already in the works at DEN.

[Via Gadling, thanks Trowa]

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Original post by Darren Murph

Hop-on earlier today launched a no-frills, $10.00 USD phone that the company says is ideal as a backup phone, when traveling abroad, or for people interested in only making calls.

The Hop 1800 is a prepaid cellular phone with no display. The device works with more than 40 U.S. wireless carriers, including AT&T, Cingular, and T-Mobile. Hop-on also offers wireless service.

The concept behind the new device is to offer a phone to people who need it only to talk. U.S. travelers in Europe or Asia, for example, could buy a local SIM card to avoid expensive roaming fees, or people who can’t afford subscription cellular service can use the device with a prepaid plan.

The device comes in two dual-band models, one 850/1,900 MHz and the other 900/1,900 MHz for Europe and Asia. The phone weighs less than 3 ounces and offers four hours of talk time, according to Hop-on. While the low price makes the phone disposable, to encourage recycling Hop-on offers a $5 rebate for returning the phone.

The Hop 1800 is sold through retailers, such as drug and convenience stores, and to businesses looking for a “unique branding opportunity,” Hop-on said. The company can imprint sports team or corporate logos on the device.

“Instead of another coffee mug, offering a branded cell phone is a memorable branding opportunity that will literally keep you in touch with your customers”

-Peter Michaels, chief executive of Hop-on.

Hop-on develops and markets mobile phones and accessories for emerging markets.

The company also makes mobile-gambling software that allows users to stream live interactive feeds from legal jurisdictions to play poker, blackjack, roulette, and baccarat.

Source: Hop-On Press Release.

Tags: mobile phone, Travel, Wireless

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Original post by Sean R.

It’s happened to be best of us - we misplaced our cell phone and after frantically looking for it we turn to our spouse/significant other and humbly ask, "Have you seen my cell phone?" or accusingly "What have you done with my cell phone? I had it right here!".

Now if your cell phone is on you can simply call it from your landline and hope you can track down the ringing (assuming you didn’t leave it on vibrate). But what if you are like a number of people who have gone 100% wireless with no landline service? Well, you could use Skype if you have SkypeOut credits, but not everyone does.

So what to do? Well, head on over to www.wheresmycellphone.com and enter in your cell phone number and it will dial it for you for free. No doubt you’ll hear your lost cell phone ringing in your pocket or the sofa seat cushions.

Now of course there is potential for abuse. You can enter in the cell number of a person you want to prank call and it will dial their number while protecting your anonymity. You could even write a script that hits this page multiple times to barrage your victim with countless calls. Perhaps even schedule the script to run at 3am. Ahh the fun to be had…

Tags: cell phone, com, lost, mobile phone, wheresmycellphone

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Original post by nafiz

Filed under: CES, Home Entertainment, Household

Seeking to “change the way people manage their household electronics,” Actiontec is getting set to unleash an outpouring of zControl products. We’d briefly heard about the firm’s standalone unit that connects to the home router a few months back, but here at CES even more details are starting to flow. Apparently, Actiontec will be pushing out an entire series of Z-Wave-based wares “designed to centrally manage household electronics such as lights, security cameras, thermostats, motion detectors, garage door openers, motorized shades and automatic sprinklers through the home network.” Furthermore, zControl will give owners the ability to dictate connected items remotely, and while we’ve no room to mention every piece of the forthcoming lineup, you should know that the zControl Starter Kit — which includes a zControl unit, one indoor camera with motion detector, one lighting control module, and a remote control — will be available next month for $399. Hit the read link for lots, lots more.

[Via eHomeUpgrade]

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Original post by Darren Murph

Filed under: CES, Features, Home Entertainment, Household, Wireless

One day we’ll all be taking home automation for granted when every new house on the market includes built-in support for controlling our fireplaces via our watch phones, but until that glorious future arrives the home automation noob has a dizzying array of choices to contend with. We checked out what Control4 has to offer in the way of centralized command over your media, home theater, lights, security system and temperature and found fairly clean, easy to use interfaces coupled with an array of choices for central control and storage depending on the scope of your needs, all compliant with the lovably-named ZigBee wireless standard. Hit the gallery for an overview of Control4 devices and configurations including their Home Controller HC-300 we heard about earlier this year.

 

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Original post by Barb Dybwad

Filed under: Robots

It’s not as if we haven′t seen weapon-wielding robots before, but Robotex is aiming to create a new breed of mechanical soldier that’s quick to build and cost effective. The Silicon Valley startup has garnered quite a bit of funding from angel investors, and apparently, it has already created a two-foot tall, motorized robot that can travel ten miles per hour, spin around “on a dime,” be controlled remotely and most importantly, “blow a ten-inch hole through a steel door with deadly accuracy from 400 meters.” Reportedly, such a critter can be crafted for under $50,000, which is said to be “six times” cheaper than similar alternatives already being tested in Iraq. Of course, there’s no telling how soon (or not) these things will actually be called into duty, but we can bet there’s already a list forming to be the one behind the remote when it is.

[Via InventorSpot]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Original post by Darren Murph

Filed under: Robots

Ok we get it Dr. Trung, you’re trying to show off Canada’s supposed “first android.” But did you really have to go for the jiggly bits to prove your point. If she hadn’t taken a swat at your jaw, we might have. Can we get somebody to send one of those robot ethics charters up to Canada, pronto? Thanks. Video assault after the break.

[Via The Raw Feed]

Continue reading Aiko: world’s first sexually harassed, disabled Fembot

 

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Original post by Thomas Ricker