Developages - Development and Technology Blog

Keynote Systems released their latest VoIP quality report with some interesting findings. For one, Comcast, a cable company dominated the voice quality rankings beating the closest competitor by nearly 300 points. As for reliability, to no surprise AT&T won this category, no doubt to their decades of experience in building reliable voice and data networks.

Keynote Systems measures VoIP quality (MOS scores), call completion, etc. by automatically placing calls from corporate apartments using residential VoIP services and network services just like a typical residential customer would.  Service Reliability scores are based on the key performance metrics of Service Availability, Average Answer Time and Number of Dropped Calls. Additionally,  Audio Quality is an aggregate of Audio Clarity and Audio Delay (latency, jitter) performance factors. The study compares the relative performance of PSTN (regular analog) service, Broadband VoIP providers (e.g. Vonage, Verizon VoiceWing, EarthLink trueVoice, AT&T CallVantage etc), and cable voice services (e.g. Time Warner Digital Phone, Comcast Digital Voice). Test calls were placed from residential locations in New York and San Francisco.

Keynote ranked VoIP Service Providers in two categories: Reliability and Audio Quality. The Service Availability, Call Completion, Average Answer Time, and Dropped Audio performance factors all contribute to the Reliability ranking.

In the summary report they only list the top 3 VoIP provider names and then have Provider D - I as anonymous. You have to purchase the full report to see the names. I′m guessing Packet8 and Vonage are somewhere in this anonymous list.

Provider                   Reliability Points    Rank 
AT&T Landline                    996                1
Time Warner Digital Phone        925                2
Verizon VoiceWing                872                3
Provider D                       859                4
Provider E                       793                5
Provider F                       687                6
Provider G                       643                7
Provider H                       408                8
Provider I                       374                9

Audio Quality
Provider                   Reliability Points     Rank 
Comcast Digital Voice            901                1
Verizon VoiceWing                609                2
AT&T Landline                    506                3
Provider D                       500                4
Provider E                       487                5
Provider F                       480                6
Provider G                       462                7
Provider H                       252                8
Provider I                       0                  9

General Observations
• The best providers always deliver dial tine and connect the call to the number dialed in a timely fashion.
• Only one of the providers in the study failed to provide dial tone 99.9% of the time or better.
• All providers had very small percentages of calls with dropped audio, but only two providers had zero calls with dropped audio.
• One VoIP provider required two seconds more than any other voice provider to connect calls after dialing.
• Most providers had slightly more audio delay and slightly lower MOS in Wave 6 as compared to Wave 5.
• Eight of the nine providers in the study had a better call completion rate in Wave 6 than was evidenced in the Wave 5 results.

What’s amazing is that Comcast has been adding a ton of new VoIP customers each quarter. In fact, Comcast has become the nation’s fourth largest phone company. The cable company has signed up four million VoIP customers in just the last two years. Relatedly, Forrester Research analysts have projected that Cable VoIP providers will claim up to 80% of the 28.4 million residential VoIP users by 2013. This forecast includes an expected growth from the approximately 19 million installed lines in 2008.

Check out the summary report.

Tags: AT&T, Comcast, Comcast Digital Voice, jitter, Keynote Systems, latency, MOS, Packet8, PSTN, Verizon VoiceWing, voip, Vonage

Related Entries
• Cisco AutoQoS Enables Easy VoIP QoS -
  Sep 11, 2008
• AT&ampT CallVantage One Step Closer to Oblivion -
  Aug 15, 2008
• FCC to punish Comcast over Internet blocking -
  Jul 26, 2008
• ACN IRIS 3000 Videophone & The State of the Videophone -
  Jul 15, 2008
• Comcast - We won’t block Vonage or any other VoIP provider -
  Jul 10, 2008
• AT&T Dropping CallVantage? -
  Jul 03, 2008
• 8×8, Inc. Awarded New VoIP Patent -
  Jul 02, 2008
• AT&T Finally Bundles VoIP & Wireless Cell Phone Service -
  May 01, 2007
• V-Global Communications Dialer uses PSTN-to-VoIP-to-PSTN -
  Jan 29, 2007
• Mobile VoIP Challenges -
  Oct 20, 2008

TrackBacks
| Comments | Tag with del.icio.us | VoIP & Gadgets Blog Home | Permalink: Comcast Best in VoIP Quality, AT&T Best in VoIP Reliability

Copyright VoIP & Gadgets Blog

Original post by nafiz

Nintendo has launched Wii Music, letting up to four players mimic the real-life motions of playing instruments with the Wii Remote and Nunchuck controllers.

Players will be able to mimic the motions of more than 60 real-life instruments using the motion-sensitive Wii Remote and Nunchuck controllers to learn to play along with more than 50 songs — and the game encourages players to improvise, making their own music, mixes and arrangements.

Unlike games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band, which are very competitive, the goal of Wii Music apparently is simply to be creative and have fun experimenting with instruments, styles and musical elements.

Songs available in Wii Music include familiar melodies like “Ode to Joy” and pop tunes like “Every Breath You Take” – along with tunes Nintendo fans know and love. 

Time for more singalongs with Mario! 

More at Digital Trends.

Tags: guitar hero, mario, nintendo, rock bank, wii

Related Entries
• Nintendo Goes Holographic! Wow Wii! -
  Aug 05, 2008
• Shaun White for Nintendo Wii (Wee!!!!) -
  Jul 16, 2008
• Animal Crossing: City Folk adds VoIP & SMS -
  Jul 15, 2008
• Nintendo Wii Outsells Them All! -
  May 16, 2008
• Is the Wii the Center of the Media Universe? -
  Jan 18, 2007
• Is This a Surprise? Xbox 360 Tops the Xmas Charts -
  Jan 02, 2007
• Can’t Anybody Get a Gadget Right? -
  Dec 15, 2006
• 4 Million: That’s a Lot of Wii -
  Nov 02, 2006
• Nintendo Says “Wii” to the Senior Set -
  Oct 31, 2006
• Can’t Wait for the Wii? -
  Oct 11, 2006

TrackBacks
| Comments | Tag with del.icio.us | VoIP &amp Gadgets Blog Home | Permalink: Wii Takes It to the Music

Copyright VoIP & Gadgets Blog

Original post by nafiz

Filed under: Storage

Nothing too special about Tosh’s latest USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive — just a good lookin′ 400GB unit that should slide into most average sized cargo pockets on the market today. The 6-ounce drive is available in “Electric Blue and Black” (pictured) as well as Carbon Grey, Hot Rod Red and Gecko Green, and while pricing has yet to be revealed, those looking to size it up can chew on these dimensions: 0.65- x 3.19- x 5.0-inches. Not too shabby, huh?

[Via Electronista]

Read&nbsp|&nbspPermalink&nbsp|&nbspEmail this | Comments

Original post by Darren Murph

Filed under: Gaming

Japan’s Nikkan is reporting that Sony and Toshiba will begin mass production of the 45nm Cell processor in 2009 — not this autumn as previously rumored. The smaller chip which cost less than the current 65nm Cell to manufacture also require 40% less power to run. This opens the door to possible price drops on existing Ṕ consoles in 2009 as well as slimmer, cooler running rigs should Sony decide to refresh the industrial design.

Read | Permalink&nbsp|&nbspEmail this&nbsp|&nbspComments

Original post by Thomas Ricker

Filed under: Home Entertainment

Toshiba’s going to have to eventually wake up and realize that consumers want to watch actual HD content on their HD displays instead of just upscaled SD, but until that happens we’d better get used to seeing a lot more devices featuring the company’s Super Resolution Technology / XDE upscaling tech — we’ve already got REGZA HDTVs and the XD-E500 DVD player, and now it’s three new Vardia DVRs. The &yen140,000 ($1,339) RD-X8 (pictured) is the top of the line unit with Deep Color HDMI output, a 1TB drive, dual-layer burner, and MPEG-4 / H.264 support, while the &yen100,000 ($956) RD-S503 and &yen80,000 ($765) RD-S303 are 500GB / 320GB models that drop the Deep Color outputs. No word on whether these will make the jump to the States, but without CableCARD slots we doubt they’ll be in huge demand.

[Via Electronista]

Read | Permalink&nbsp|&nbspEmail this | Comments

Original post by Nilay Patel

Filed under: Laptops

That Toshiba netbook we′ve seen in grainy video and semi-official fashion has gone and gotten all really-official today — at least in the UK. The minuscule laptop — dubbed the NB100 — will feature an 8.9-inch, 1024 x 600 display, a 1.6GHz Atom CPU, 1GB of RAM, a 120GB hard drive, WiFi, and will be available in either Ubuntu or Windows XP flavors (you’re surprised, right?). The NB100 will be offered in three colors, Cosmic Black, Champagne Gold, and Bright Silver, thus making its casing the only difference between this and every other middling, mediocre netbook on the market. Prices are set to start at £260 (or about $472), and the laptops will be on shelves this October.

[Via Engadget Spanish; Thanks, Joe]

Read&nbsp|&nbspPermalink&nbsp|&nbspEmail this | Comments

Original post by Joshua Topolsky

Filed under: Laptops

It’s being called the Satellite Arizona 10X for some reason, but here’s the Toshiba NB105 we spotted the other day getting the video treatment. Still no word on pricing or availability, but unless you’re a crazy Tosh fanboy or super into the portable DVD player-looking design, we’re certain you can find another netbook with a 1.6GHz Atom to keep you warm in the meantime. Video after the break.

[Via Eee PC News]

Continue reading Toshiba’s NB105 netbook shows up on video

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Original post by Nilay Patel

Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment

We’ll apologize on our tipster’s behalf for the quality of this shot, but evidently, he wasn’t able to pass it through Toshiba’s completely mind-boggling XDE upscaling technology before forwarding it onto us. Anyway, we reckon you can get the point — the XD-E500 upconverting DVD player is filtering into stores, so those looking to make their current DVD collection look its best should probably take notice. Or not, whatever.

[Thanks, Philip]

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Original post by Darren Murph

Filed under: Home Entertainment, Portable Audio, Portable Video

We’ve heard this about this dream so many times before, DRM that will make digital media as easy to use and as consumer friendly as a physcial medium like DVD. We’d normally be quick to disregard this as yet another DRM “ecosystem” for digital media, but the list of players backing the Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem (or DECE) has us taking notice. As impossible as this seems, if anyone could make it happen, it’d be a group composed of: Best Buy, Cisco, Comcast, Fox, HP, Intel, Lions Gate, Microsoft, NBC Universal, Paramount Pictures, Philips, Sony, Toshiba, VeriSign, and Warner Bros — yes, we also find it hard to believe that all these companies are working together. We’ll have to wait until January at CES for the ins and outs of how this would actually work, but we do know it’ll be based around a “rights locker” which will amount to a website where digital purchases will be stored — we assume this is where VeriSign fits in. Oh, and Apple is noticeably absent from the list

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Original post by Ben Drawbaugh

Filed under: Displays, Portable Video

We’ve waited ages for a real-deal pico projector from Toshiba (or anyone reputable, quite frankly), and it’s looking all the more likely that we′ll be absolutely bombarded with them come CES 2009. At any rate, Toshiba is apparently close to putting the finishing touches on its LED Pico Projector, which weighs in at 100-grams and measures 10- x 4.5- x 1.7-centimeters in size. Outside of that, specifications are few and far between, but you can catch a video of its powers in the link below.

[Thanks, Jan]
Read - Toshiba′s LED Pico Projector
Read - In-action video

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Original post by Darren Murph

Filed under: Laptops

Apparently the temptation to crank out low-margin, impossible to differentiate Atom netbooks is even greater than we thought — here’s Toshiba’s new entry, the NB105. You might remember that back in July Tosh was showing off a nifty touchscreen UMPC and talking about how the “six or seven” netbook market segments it had identified meant that it wasn’t going to compete directly with the Eee PC, but hey, it was summer, you know? We all say things we don’t mean and then spit out the same 8.9-inch machine with a 1.6GHz Atom, 1GB of RAM and Windows XP as everyone else. No pricing details yet, but the N𐈹 should be out in Mexico in November.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Original post by Nilay Patel

Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video

digg_url = ‘http://digg.com/apple/iPod_touch_2G_first_hands_on′; We just got some hands-on time with the new iPod touch, and we’re really feeling this one. Jury’s still out on the new nano, but the second-gen touch is a marked improvement over the first gen model. The WiFi antenna looks much better integrated, the speaker doesn’t sound like complete trash despite not even having any speaker holes, and the thing is crazy thin. Like, really, really thin.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Original post by Ryan Block

Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video

digg_url = ‘http://digg.com/apple/iPod_Nano_4G_hands_on’; Yep, it’s pretty much what you expected. Still, this thing is like a sliver in your hands. Check the gallery below and see for yourself!

Gallery: iPod nano 4G hands-on

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Original post by Joshua Topolsky

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

digg_url = ‘http://digg.com/apple/Live_from_Apple_s_Let_s_Rock_event_in_San_Francisco_Enga’; We’re at Apple’s Let’s Rock iPod event at the Yerba Buena Center, check after the break for all our updates.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Original post by Joshua Topolsky

Filed under: Announcements

Yes, it seems like some kind of crazy dream, but Apple’s big Fall event is descending upon us at a merciless speed. Join us tomorrow when we’ll be liveblogging the whole thing from its destructive, brain-shattering start, straight through to the thirilling (yet inevitable) universe-collapsing finish. Will we see those heavily rumored iPod nano 4Gs? Will Apple finally release a fresh Newton? Will Steve Jobs float magically over the crowd like a figure from a Chagall? Find out tomorrow.

Where you’ll need to be:

Live from Apple’s ‘Let’s Rock’ event in San Francisco

Time zones:

07:00AM - Hawaii
10:00AM - Pacific
11:00AM - Mountain
12:00PM - Central
01:00PM - Eastern
06:00PM - London
07:00PM - Paris
09:00PM - Moscow
02:00AM - Tokyo (September 10th)

Permalink&nbsp|&nbspEmail this&nbsp|&nbspComments

Original post by Joshua Topolsky