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The snom m3 SIP wireless (DECT) phone is one of my favorite VoIP phones. I’ve been testing and reviewing it for a few months but haven’t had time to write up the review until now. First, let me point out that the problem with IP-PBXs is they typically give you a desk phone or a softphone with no real mobility options to walk around, which is critical in some vertical markets, such as retail and manufacturing. Even sales professionals want the flexibility to take calls while roaming the office. In the past, I have used analog telephony adapters to connect my cordless phone to my SIP-based IP-PBX, but the cordless phone lacks multiple lines, call transfer, call conference, call waiting, or even a message waiting indication (MWI). Enter the snom m3, a SIP wireless phone that like a home cordless phone which not only gives you mobility while on the phone, but full IP-PBX functionality as well, including call hold, call transfer, message waiting indicator, and more. In fact, while the caller is holding, music-on-hold is available from the IP-PBX, giving the same business professional experience from a desktop phone.

I should mention that there are WiFi SIP phones, but the battery life on these phones isn’t great. snom takes advantage of Digital Enhanced Cordless Telecommunications (DECT), a wireless communication standard which can seamlessly hand off calls as a handset moves between multiple base stations in a large office, but also has superior battery life than WiFi SIP phones. The Lithium Ion battery offers a very good eight hours of talk time and 100 hours of standby. Additionally, DECT devices use the 1.9 GHz band while WiFi uses 2.4Ghz so they don’t interfere with one another. DECT also doesn’t suffer the microwave oven interference that often plagues WiFi access points.

             snom m3 Main Menu

The snom m3 supports up to 8 different SIP identities (registrations) allowing you to connect to separate IP-PBXs (or SIP service providers) or the same IP-PBX to support multiple lines. The m3 is 2″ x 5″ and less than an inch thick sporting a nice 1.75″ color LCD (128×128 pixels and 65,536 colors), 2.5mm headset jack, and a speakerphone. The headset jack is a nice feature that I haven’t seen on any cordless DECT phones. The phone also comes with a belt clip so you can easily use the headset for talking while walking. The m3 is surprisingly very lightweight - much lighter than I would have expected. The phone also has volume controls, the basic 12 dialpad keys, five navigation keys, and two function keys. The snom m3 ships with some documentation, but for real technical details, the snom m3 wiki is the place to go.

The m3 communicates with the base station which is connected directly to your network via a standard Ethernet cable. Once connected and booted up, the base station obtains an IP address from the DHCP server. By default (factory setting), snom m3 phones are configured to use HTTP as the transfer protocol for provisioning, but TFTP can also be used. Since I was testing this with an Asterisk-based trixbox system, I changed the gateway to use TFTP. Also, the snom m3 supports Option 66 on the DHCP server to automatically acquire the IP address of the TFTP server. Nice!

The TFTP boot server address can be an IP address, a fully qualified domain name (FQDN), or an URL. I also created a config file (/tftpboot/m3/settings/0004132A10E4.cfg) on the TFTP server for the snom m3 to download. I was able to get access to the firmware, upload the new firmware to /tftpboot/m3/firmware/ and it automatically downloaded the latest firmware. Even better you can have it set to connect directly with snom’s server (http://provisioning.snom.com/m3/firmware/) to download the latest firmware and even set a schedule to automatically grab the latest version.

Features:

• Display: 128 x 128 pixels, 65536 colors, backlit
• Li-Ion battery pack for 20 hours of calls or 100 hours standby
• Range: 50 meters indoors, 100 meters outdoors
• 12 numerical keys, 5 navigation keys, 2 function keys
• Speakerphone on mobile handset
• Polyphonic ringtones
• Automatic registration of handset
• Separate charging cradle for handset
• 8 handsets per base station
• 8 SIP registrations with different servers/registrars
• Up to 3 concurrent calls per base station
• Three-way conference
• Remote setup, password protection
• Open DECT GAP standard

Since the snom m3 supports multiple handsets, this leads to some interesting multi-handset functionality. For instance, the Telephony Settings on the web interface lets you pick which identity (CallerID) each handset will use when making outbound calls. You can also set which handsets will ring on incoming calls for each SIP registration/phone number. Thus, you can have one SIP registration ring your home office m3 handset, another ring your son/daughter’s m3 handset, and another phone number be the shared kitchen m3 phone. In fact, the snom m3 supports three concurrent calls per base station so you can receive 3 simultaneous calls to the handsets.

The snom m3 supports the most common VoIP codecs, including G.711u (PCMU), G.711a (PCMA), G.729ab, and iLBC. G.711 is the standard used by traditional phone systems and it features the best voice quality at the expense of more bandwidth used (80kbs), which isn’t ideal for some DSL connections that only sport 256kbs upstream. Fortunately, the snom m3 supports G.729a which only use 8kbps at a slight loss of voice quality. iLBC (Internet Low Bitrate Codec), although not as widely supported, is designed for narrow band speech and supports two bit rates, 15Kbps (20ms frame rate) and 13.3 Kbps(30ms frame rate), though the m3 only supports 20ms frame rather @15Kbps. iLBC yields slightly better voice quality than G.729a yet also has a higher robustness in dealing with packet loss while using roughly the same amount of bandwidth. It also has a more dynamic range of sound than G.729a. So kudos to snom for including iLBC as a choice.

You can also configure various settings from the phone itself, though it’s more tedious. The VoIP settings is protected by a PIN / password which defaults to 0000. From the phone you can configure the timezone and it even supports NTP time servers for accurate time. Additionally, you can add contacts, however adding contacts via the phone is a bit tedious. I wished the web interface let me add them there and then it would push the contacts down to the multiple handsets.

So how’s the phone’s range? snom claims the phone needs to be within 50 meters indoors or 100 meters outdoors from the base station. I walked around TMC’s offices and didn’t lose a signal. Then I went outside walked about 250 feet and it was crystal clear. Excellent range I have to say. The voice quality of the earpiece was very good and the remote end said I sounded very good during my test calls. I also tested the speakerphone, and although it wasn’t the best voice quality, I didn’t expect a fantastic sounding speakerphone on such a small handset. I should mention that you can also perform intercom calls to either a single m3 handset or you can intercom page all handsets. Useful if you are trying to reach someone and don’t know where they are located.

Ratings Score Installation Documentation Features Usability Performance Overall

All in all, the snom m3 is an excellent wireless VoIP phone with excellent battery life, very good range, and very good features. The multiple simultaneous SIP registrations is a huge plus. I wished the base station supported PoE, but it’s not a big deal for home users since most home users don’t have Power over Ethernet switches. I’ll be interested to compare the snom m3 with the new line of Polycom KIRK wireless DECT SIP phones, but for now the snom m3 is my favorite cordless SIP-based VoIP phone!

Price:
You can buy the snom complete set (with base + handset) Click for Amazon price:
Snom M3 Complete Set
Buy Now‘, STICKY, TIMEOUT, 6000);” onmouseout=”return nd();”>on Amazon for $172
, and an additional Click for Amazon price:
Snom M3 Enhancement Set
Buy Now‘, STICKY, TIMEOUT, 6000);” onmouseout=”return nd();”>handset on Amazon for $142.

Tags: DECT, review, SIP, snom m3, VoIP, wifi

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Copyright VoIP & Gadgets Blog

Original post by nafiz

Adtran recently launched their IP 700 series of IP phones in late April. Adtran sent TMC Labs the IP 706 model, which supports up to 6 lines, but the 700 series also includes the IP 712 which is identical feature-wise but supports up to 12 lines. Each line can be configured to register with unique SIP proxy/registrar servers. This allows a different line for every line key on the phone. A line is called a multiple call appearance (MCA) type if it will be assigned to one or more line keys on the same phone. It is called a shared call appearance (SCA) type if the line is shared across multiple phones. This is not to be confused with SLA (Shared Line Appearance) which maps PSTN lines to buttons on all the phones. Of course you need to assign two lines with the same SIP credentials to two different lines (MCA) for full call handling functionality.

Like most if not all IP phones these days, the IP 706 supports 802.3af Power over Ethernet (PoE) as well as TFTP booting of firmware and configuration from a TFTP Server. The Adtran phone will connect to your TFTP Server (option 66 on DHCP server) and look for a file called adtran_[MAC address of Adran phone].txt. So for instance, for the IP 706 phone I tested, it looked for adtran_00a0c831593c.txt on the TFTP Server when the phone was booted.

The configuration files are pretty easy to figure out and sample files are available. For instance, one of the first things you’ll want to do to configure any IP phone is to setup the dialplan. I was able to easily figure out how to setup the syntax for the Adtran dialplan, as seen here:

# DialPlanExternal is for realm GE line types and DialPlanPBX is for realm GP line types
DialPlanExternal |911|2-9]xxxxxx+T3|2-9]xx[2-9]xxxxxx|[0-1][2-9]xx[2-9]xxxxxx|011xxx+T3|xx+#
DialPlanPBX |911|9911|1-8]xxx|9[2-9]xxxxxx+T3|9[2-9]xx[2-9]xxxxxx|9[0-1][2-9]xx[2-9]xxxxxx|9011xxx+T3|*2-9]0123456789*]+T3|*1xx|#xx+#|xx+#|**xxxx

The web admin was pretty intuitive and can be used instead of a config file on a TFTP server. Here’s a screenshot of a the web interface:

Want to specify a corporate directory? No problem. Just export a comma separated file containing your corporate directory, upload it to the TFTP server and then add this line to the Adtran config file:

SystemPhonebook adtran_phonebook.csv

I exported my Outlook Contacts to a CSV file, including first name, last name, company name, title, email, street, street2, street3, city, state, ZIP, country, mobile phone, home phone, FAX, with column/field headings in the first row. The IP 706 will read the first row to automatically map the contact data into the system phonebook. Once imported, you can scroll through the system directory using the 4-way navigation button. Holding the up/down arrow doesn’t cause it to auto-repeat. Fortunately, you can press the left or right arrow to page up/down through the contacts. The 4-way navigation button also acts a shortcut buttons. When on the home screen you can press one of the four directions to access Incoming calls, Missed Calls, Placed calls, and the Personal address book. The detailed contact details is pretty cool, especially since most phones only store name and/or company and the phone number.

Defining buttons is pretty easy. Here’s some examples from my config file:

Button.1.Label Line 1
Button.1.Type line
Button.1.Line 0

Button.6.Label vm
Button.6.Type speed
Button.6.Number 8555

Although the Adtran IP700 series was probably designed initially to work with the Adtran NetVanta 7060 and 7100, the Adtran IP700 series are SIP-based so the phones work with any SIP-based IP-PBX. I was able to register the phones on the Asterisk-based trixbox platform very easily. Once registered, I was able to make calls to Aastra and Polycom IP phones. The voice quality on both ends seemed very good. Usually the sound quality when using a handset is not an issue for any IP phone - it’s when you try and use the speakerphone that sound quality issues arise. You need good echo cancellation to make sure the remote speaker’s audio isn’t fed back into the speakerphone. Polycom is renowned for their superior sounding voice quality in speakerphones, however, I was pretty impressed with the sound quality on the Adtran IP 706 when in speakerphone mode. The speakerphone volume when set to maximum is extremely loud and without any distortion. I doubt even in the largest of conference rooms that the loudest volume setting be required, but it’s good to know it has the capability.

Overall, I like the button feel. not too hard, not too soft. Navigating the menus and options was very intuitive, though there is no key auto-repeat, which would be handy when scrolling quickly through the built-in directory book. Though, as I previously stated, you can use the left or right arrow to page up/down. The LCD was excellent - it’s very bright and uses icons to indicate various features. For instance, a bell indicates your phone will ring, while an ‘X’ through the bell indicates DND mode. Similarly, a phone icon displays next to each line with or without an ‘X’ depending on if the line was registered with the SIP registrar or not. A U-turn arrow indicates a line is being forwarded. An envelope displays at the top of the phone if you have voicemail, along with the number of new messages. The phone has a slightly slow boot-up time taking 83s to fully boot. Comparatively, an Aastra 57iCT took 53s and a Polycom IP650 took 65s. Not a big deal, since you don’t typically reboot your IP phone.

The Adtran IP phone supports busy lamp fields (BLF) using the Broadsoft method not the Sylantro method. This may be important if you are deploying Asterisk, since Asterisk only supports the Sylantro method. Personally, I have no need for BLF on our Asterisk-based IP-PBX, and no one in our office uses BLF, but certainly receptionists might find BLF useful. Other than the BLF feature, all other features worked on the trixbox system I was testing it with.

I was able to make outbound hands-free auto-answer intercom calls from the IP 706 to an Aastra phone. First I had to define the star code (*74) for initiating hands-free intercom calls. From the IP 706 I simply pressed the HFAAI (hands-free auto answer intercom) button on the LCD display under the More menu and dialed an extension which will immediately cause the remote phone to ring off-hook into hands-free speakerphone mode. You can also setup a speed dial for HFAAI so you don’t have to go into the More submenu - a two step process.

Although outbound HFAAI calls from the IP 706 work, I wasn’t able to get the Adtran phone to receive hands-free intercom calls from an Aastra phone. For instance, I made a from x149 Aastra phone to the IP 706, and although the IP 706 LCD displayed “Intercom - 149″ it rang normally and did not go off-hook into speakerphone. I have to lift the receiver or press the speakerphone button to answer the call. I contacted Adtran technical support and they were quickly able to determine the issue. The phone responds to “alert-autoanswer” or “autoanswer” in the SIP header, so it’s possible to tweak Asterisk to get it to work.

For speed dials, the Adtran IP phone supports 100 Personal and 300 System entries, no matter how many fields are in each record. You can even enter in pauses for speed dials with a “P” for a 2 second pause, useful for dialing through auto-attendants to an extension (i.e. 98005551234PP100).

In addition, you can export Outlook Contacts into a CSV file and put the CSV file on the TFTP server, which will be the global (not personal) system phonebook. You can also import a .CSV file directly to the phone via the phone’s Web interface for your own personal phonebook and speed dials. The personal contact directory can be imported from the personal web GUI. You log into http://x.x.x.x/admin for the admin GUI, but just log into http://x.x.x.x for the user GUI.  It allows for the upload (append or replace), and backup of the personal directory.  The format is the same as the System Directory csv file.

Users can even enable call forwarding from the phone’s web configuration. This is useful for when the IP-PBX doesn’t support call forwarding. It even supports forwarding to an outside number.

From the phone itself you can test the audio of the handset speaker and the phone speakerphone. You can set the input to the handset microphone and have the output directed to the handset speaker or the speakerphone. Further you can test the button LEDs by turning them all on and you can test the LCD on the phone. Adtran claims that the IP700 series draws less than 6.49 watts of power under normal operating conditions. I was going to test it with my Kill a Watt electric meter, but I seemed to have misplaced it.

One nicety is you can modify the splash screen simply by downloading a 216×336 pixel 16-bit bitmap file to the parameter IconPixmap. This might be useful for OEMs or even IP-PBX vendors that want to do branding.

On inbound calls, the blue Messages light flashes, which is the button used to check your voicemail. You can’t press the flashing Messages button to answer the call on speakerphone mode. I would prefer that it flash the speakerphone button instead. The reason is that when I first hooked it up and called it for the first time, I instinctively pressed the Messages button since it was flashing and I wanted to answer it via speakerphone mode. A minor complaint for sure.

Another test I performed was redirecting an inbound call to voicemail. You have a couple options. First, you can simply click ‘Ignore’ on the LCD and that will simply mute the ringing, but the caller has to wait until the ring duration setting has been met before going to voicemail. The proper way is to press the ‘Vmail’ icon on the LCD which will redirect the caller to the voicemail system. When I first attempted this, it sent the caller into the voicemail logon asking the caller for their extension and password. After perusing through the Admin Guide, it seemed like I had the voicemail settings correct. But then I realized I needed to do a call transfer direct to voicemail (*86 code) to the phone’s extension (135). So I needed the *86 code. I simply needed these two lines in the Adtran config file:

MessagesCallback 8555   # For 1-button access to check voicemail
Reg.0.Voicemail  *86135 # For redirecting callers to voicemail.

The phones include an adjustable desk stand or can be wall mounted. An integrated headset jack with electronic hook-switch eliminates the need for a mechanical handset lifter. The electronic hook switch is compatible with GN Netcom and Plantronics headsets.

Features:

• Adaptive jitter buffers and packet loss concealment algorithms
• Six programmable buttons
• Large backlit display, with 6 rows by 35 characters (IP 706), 9 rows by 35 characters (IP 712)
• Message waiting indicator
• Four-way navigation
• 802.3af Power over Ethernet (PoE)
• Integrated headset jack
• Distinctive ring tones by number
• Multiple call appearances
• Three-way conferencing
• Busy Lamp Field (BLF)
• Shared Line Appearance (SLA)
• Hands-free auto-answer intercom
• Distinctive incoming call treatment/call waiting
• Visual ringing alert/message waiting indicator
• Voice activity detection and comfort noise fill
• Full-duplex speaker phone
• Three-way conferencing
• G.711u, G.711a, G.729A (Annex

Ratings Score Installation Documentation Features Usability Performance Overall

Pricing: The Adtran IP 706 is $249 and the Adtran IP 712 is $299.

Conclusion
I like the aesthetics of the IP 706. It’s a nice clean design with a bright LCD and it has a very intuitive navigation menu on the phone. Similarly, the web interface was easy enough to navigate and figure out. The adaptive jitter buffers and packet loss concealment algorithms are a nice addition to ensure voice quality. A way of importing personal contacts into the phone itself via the web interface would be nice, but I do like that the Adtran speed dials support pauses - not all IP phones do, which makes them less useful when dialing auto-attendants with extensions. Overall, I was pretty pleased with the Adtran IP 706’s style, performance, and features. Customers have yet another choice when choosing a SIP-based IP phone. Watch out Aastra, Grandstream, Linksys, Polycom, and Snom - there’s a new IP phone in town!

Tags: adtran, asterisk, IP 700, IP 706, IP 712, IP phone, IP-PBX, SIP, trixbox, voip

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Copyright VoIP & Gadgets Blog

Original post by nafiz

Filed under: Cellphones, Desktops, Displays, Wireless

After personally trying out Sprint’s AIRAVE, we’re confident that femtocells have a place in this world. Thankfully, Motorola’s already trying to make them less of an eyesore by integrating a CDMA femtocell into something we wouldn’t mind showing off in the den: an inconspicuous digital photo frame. The “3-in-1″ concept also includes a VoIP soft phone that would theoretically enable calls to be made right from the frame. Of course, Moto’s not handing out any sort of release time frame, but let us be the first to say that this thing needs to hit store shelves on the double — just make sure it’s not carrier specific, and toss in a GSM version while you’re at it, okay Moto? Check out the demonstration vid after the break.

[Thanks, Dave]

Continue reading Motorola shows off femtocell-in-a-digiframe concept

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Original post by Darren Murph

According to a report released last week by Nielsen, nearly one in five American households will not have a home phone line by the end of the year.

To many, I have a feeling that this is a surprising finding, but it shouldn’t be.

Landline home telephones are quickly becoming an unnecessary expense. What can one do on a landline phone that they can’t do with their cell phone?

It’s a little bit like that essential tool of the horse-drawn carriage age — the buggy whip. It used to be a big business, but don’t think you will find too many of them today.

Now what is going to happen to all of those telephone poles and wires some day when everything goes wireless? It will be good that we won’t be foresting new trees to turn into new poles, but what will become of all of the ones left standing? Will they become a ghost town-like image — although one seeming to have no beginning and no end — of a time gone by?

Good food for thought inspired by and article in Insurance & Technology.

Tags: cell phone, landline, nielsen

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Copyright VoIP & Gadgets Blog

Original post by nafiz

Can’t get to the ringing cell phone fast enough ladies because it’s hidden inside your briefcase, purse, bag or pocket?

Well, does Sony have a product for you!

The new Bluetooth MBW-200 range of Bluetooth watches is an expansion of the highly successful Bluetooth MBW-150 range, which enables you to control your phone with your watch.

Missed an important call or SMS because you couldn’t hear or find your phone at the bottom of your handbag? With the MBW-200 this is now a thing of the past. Using innovative Bluetooth technology, the watch displays the caller ID and vibrates as your phone is ringing or when you receive an SMS.

Reject or mute the call with a button on the watch or use the Bluetooth headset or mobile phone to answer the call and start chatting.

Designed in partnership with watch industry leader Fossil and the knowhow of Sony Ericsson, the MBW-200 series comes in three distinct designs; Sparkling Allure, Contemporary Elegance and Evening Classic.

The collection features scratch-resistant mineral crystal glass with an anti-glare coating for optimum readability and glow. The discreet, yet stylish and clear monochrome OLED display is invisible when not in use and clearly visible on a bright day so that you can easily see who is calling or which track is playing.

Features include:

• Reject or mute call through the watch
• Vibrates on new SMS/MMS — and an out of range warning — when 30 feet away from your phone
• Discreet yet clear caller ID — OLED display
• Play, pause, stop or skip a track on your phone’s music player
• Quartz movements for exact time keeping — both digital and analog
• Auto pairing — easier to connect the watch to your phone
• Water resistant up to 3 ATM
• Allergy safe stainless steel
• Mineral crystal scratch resistant face with antiglare coating 

Availability in early Q4 2008. 

Tags: bluetooth, cell phone, fossil, mbw-200, sony, sony ericsson, wrist watch

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Copyright VoIP & Gadgets Blog

Original post by nafiz

Filed under: Peripherals

At first glance, we figured this heap was a dead-ringer for the next episode of Crapgadget, but after a few delicate moments of gazing at this amazing piece of retro-styled kit, we just had to let it pass. The $15 USB Telephone 4-Port Hub explains itself pretty well — it’s a non-functioning phone that doubles as a 4-port USB 2.0 hub. And it’s really cute. And awesome.

[Via Pocket-lint]

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Original post by Darren Murph

At ITEXPO I met with John Nahm, CEO and co-founder of Phonevite, an intriguing VoIP-enabled one-to-many broadcasting service that takes the concept of the popular Evite email-centric invitations service and extends it to the phone world.

Calvin Kim is the other co-founder and he actually founded Dialpad, one of the pioneers of VoIP with their Java-based click-to-call application. Dialpad was later sold to Yahoo. Calvin is now the CTO of Phonevite.

John explained he wants Phonevite to be like Evite but for the phone. Phonevite was incorporated in January of last year and has reached profitability with their premium customers. They offer a free service with the only limitation that you can only blast a maximum of 25 phone numbers/contacts.

John explained that the largest users of his service includes lots of schools, Boy Scouts, soccer / little leagues, emergency rescue teams, and emergency management teams. The most important feature of Phonevite is that it trumps email when it is a time-critical matter and users don’t check email regularly. Or even if they do check email, John explained what if each of the soccer team’s parents are on the way to practice, it starts raining and the coach wants to cancel. They will most likely not be email accessible while driving. Using Phonevite you can blast the entire team’s mobile phone list announcing that practice has been canceled.

John pointed out that SMS is an alternative, but it has a limit to how many people you can SMS and it is difficult to describe situation in the 150 character SMS limit. The premium service offers a tiered bonus structure for tiered VoIP calling rates. Also, schools and non-profits get a discount.

At ITEXPO Phonevite is announcing their API. This will enable websites such as
freeconferencing.com, Evite,  socializr, pinger, etc. to directly tie into Phonevite’s service.

Interestingly, the back-end doesn’t use Asterisk, the open-source PBX platform. John told me they developer the back-end VoIP calling interface themselves. They do leverage other open source software though, such as MySQL.

Tags: API, Asterisk, Calvin Kim, ITEXPO, John Nahm, mobile phone, Phonevite, SMS, VoIP

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Copyright VoIP & Gadgets Blog

Original post by nafiz

According to the Seminole Chronicle, police were befuddled when they responded to a 911 call with a crying baby on the open phone line, only to discover they were at the wrong house. Apparently, the owner is a Vonage customer and moved without notifying Vonage of the change of address to update the E911 records.

The article explains:

Kelly informed Sanford police of the situation. Upon arrival at the family’s home, officers confronted a rather confused and embarrassed father who admitted his son had been playing with his cell phone.

They had moved, the father said, and had not bothered to update their phone carrier, Vonage, with their new address.

What I don’t get is how the baby dialed 911 using a cell phone that is tied to Vonage’s service. Since when did Vonage start offering cell phone service? If 911 was dialed from a cell phone, the tracing of the call should be performed from the wireless carrier not Vonage.

The only thing I can think of is that the father installed some sort of Vonage software on his mobile phone that enables outbound calling through the Vonage service. But if such a piece of software exists, I’m unaware of its existence. The closest thing is Vonage Companion, and that is designed to run on PCs not a mobile phone. I’m more confused over this than the mainstream media was over the Governor Sarah Palin VP pick.

Tags: 911, e911, voip, Vonage

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Copyright VoIP & Gadgets Blog

Original post by nafiz

In late July, 3CX launched a new SIP-based VoIP client called 3CX VoIP Phone, with a fully-featured dialpad, and it allows for easy call transfers. It also features history of calls, the ability to put calls on hold, and the ability to accept, reject or ignore calls. Best of all 3CX VoIP phone is completely free and works with most popular IP PBXs and VoIP providers. It even sports multiple SIP profiles support for registering with multiple SIP accounts.

As I wrote back in July, 3CX VoIP Phone features strong Microsoft Outlook integration. Users can launch calls directly from their contacts’ list within Outlook by just right-clicking on the name of the person they wish to call.

Other features of 3CX VoIP Phone

• Supports several SIP profiles
• Shows personal call log/history - ideal for salespeople
• Message Waiting Indication (MWI)
• Supports G.711 (A-Law and u-Law), GSM, iLBC and Speex codecs
• STUN support for NAT/firewall traversal
• Installation provided as MSI for easy deployment

The new 3CX VoIP Phone can be downloaded here: http://www.3cx.com/VOIP/voip-phone.html

Tags: 3CX, 3CX VoIP Phone, G.711, phone, SIP, Speex, VoIP

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Copyright VoIP & Gadgets Blog

Original post by nafiz

Motorola, the world’s third-largest handset maker, has just unveiled two new low-end phones on that allow users to listen to songs and surf the Web.

Facing stiff competition from handsets such as Apple’s iPhone and the Nokia line, Motorola has said it would launch 50 new devices this year, including advanced phones, trying to come up with a strong follow-up to its once-lauded Razr phone.

One new handset is a music-enabled camera phone — the W388 – that sells for under $100.

The second device is a low-end third-generation (3G) mobile phone — the VE538 — which goes for less than $250 and offers one-click mobile social networking, photo uploading and blogging at various websites.

The two new products will be shipped to Asia-Pacific markets first — before being rolled out globally — by September. 

More at Reuters.

Tags: apple, iphone, mobile, motorola, nokia, razr, reuters

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Copyright VoIP & Gadgets Blog

Original post by nafiz

Filed under: Household

We first saw OpenPeak’s OpenFrame home phone at CES, where it was sporting various FreeScale and ARM chips under the hood, but it looks like things have changed in development — the company has been showing off production-ready units built on Atom chips at IDF. OpenPeak says that the ease of building for IA32 sped up development completely, and that only a fraction of the CPU is being used, giving the product room to grow — probably a good thing, seeing as it supports open application development, rich services, and syncs with your PC and cell phone contacts and calendars. Of course, that still doesn’t change the fact that it’s a landline phone, and we’re just not certain consumers are really clamoring for a $200 to $300 landline phone — even it does rock a distinctly familiar touch interface. Anyone going to take the plunge when this thing hits in the first quarter of next year?

Read - Wired article
Read - Video shown at IDF

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Original post by Nilay Patel

Filed under: Cellphones

Samsung’s P960 handset has a built-in DVR, while Lenovo’s P960 includes a fingerprint scanner. Pointless trivia aside, the latter is also Lenovo’s first commercial mobile phone to incorporate fingerprint biometrics. Atrua Technologies has provided a fingerprint scanner that resides on the handset’s edge in order to provide additional security for folks (read: cheaters, FBI agents and Segway users) who simply cannot afford to let their contact list be known. Even dodgier, the phone has a VIP recording feature which “automatically records calls from designated numbers” — something that’s sure to provide hours upon hours of merriment. We’d bemoan the fact that pricing information isn’t readily available, but we just can’t get over that whole automatic recording thing.

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Original post by Darren Murph

Getting your great candid pictures off your camera phone is no easy matter — it should be so simple!

CNET gives us a couple of ways to do it. One of them has got to work!

The least labor-intensive way to rescue your pictures from being trapped on your phone is to send them to an e-mail address in a multimedia message. But as you know, this costs money, so you’ll be pleased to hear there are alternatives.

If your phone accepts a memory card, you can save your pictures to the card, then use the card to transfer the images. Most cell phones use smaller memory cards in a Micro SD or Mini SD card format, so if you don’t have an adapter, the cards won’t fit in most readers.

If you don’t have a memory card slot, you can use Bluetooth or an infrared port to send shots to another capable device. But be wary, because some carriers block some Bluetooth transfers on its phones.

Still another method is to use a USB cable that connects your cell phone with your computer. Not all phones have USB capability, so check to see if yours does. Also, USB transfers on some phones require software from the carrier or the manufacturer.

If your phone doesn’t come with any of the features, don’t despair, as you’re not out of luck. A final method is to invest in cell phone-syncing software. Although these products require an initial investment, it’s not an ongoing one, and you’ll be able to not only transfer photos but also sync your calendar, your contacts list, and your messages.

Tags: bluetooth, camera phone, cnet, memory card, micro sd, mini sd

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Copyright VoIP & Gadgets Blog

Original post by nafiz

3CX has announced the release of a totally free new VoIP softphone called 3CX VoIP Phone that allows users to make and receive calls from their computer using SIP-based VoIP providers or SIP-based IP-PBXs. This free SIP softphone client isn’t the first “free” softphone on the market. That distinction belongs to Counterpath’s popular X-lite SIP softphone. However, I’m glad to see more free SIP softphones on the market.

In fact, I’d like to see free SIP softphone clients for Windows Mobile and the iPhone. Counterpath, had one for the PocketPC but they discontinued it. Of course, you can install fring, which includes a SIP client, and you can IM or call Skype, MSN Messenger, ICQ, and Google Talk. fring is compatible with Symbian 8, 9.1, 9.2, Windows Mobile 5 & 6 and UIQ handsets. GizmoProject and SJPhone are two other options that work on several mobile handset models. I’d also like to see more standardized video softphone clients so you can have videoconference calls from your mobile phone to someone running a softphone client on their PC or Mac.

In any event, one of the key features of 3CX VoIP Phone is its integration with Microsoft Outlook. Users can launch calls directly from their contacts’ list within Outlook by just right-clicking on the name of the person they wish to call.

Nick Galea, CEO at 3CX said: “3CX VoIP Phone is great for businesses that wish to have an easy to deploy, business-level VoIP soft phone. Because it is free, the usual hassle of administration of client licenses is avoided. The free editions of other VOIP phones do not have key features such as call transfer or the ability to put a call on hold.

Nick put a “green” spin on using softphones over hardphones when he said, “VoIP Phones are an interesting option for businesses - they are easy to administer and environmentally friendly. Hardware phones require additional electricity, administration and desk space.“

3CX VoIP Phone of course somes with a dial pad, buttons for transferring or forwarding calls, put calls on hold,  accept, reject or ignore calls, and more. You can also review your history of calls.

Features of 3CX VoIP Phone

• Supports several SIP profiles
• Shows personal call log/history - ideal for salespeople
• Message Waiting Indication (MWI)
• Supports G.711 (A-Law and u-Law), GSM, iLBC and Speex codecs
• STUN support for NAT/firewall traversal
• Installation provided as MSI for easy deployment

The new 3CX VoIP Phone can be downloaded here.

Tags: 3CX, 3CX VoIP Phone, counterpath, Nick Galea, SIP, softphone, video, VoIP, X-Lite

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Copyright VoIP & Gadgets Blog

Original post by nafiz

Apparently the CIA wants to get into the VoIP biz. Oh wait, not that CIA, this CIA.

Basically it’s cia.gov vs. cia.com. Relatedly, fbi.com (not fbi.gov) is a blank page - cybersquatter? Anyway, Cybersurf Internet Access (CIA) is a trade name of 3web Corp. 3web Corp. is a subsidiary of Cybersurf Corp. (”Cybersurf”). It’s a Canadian-based company offering high-speed Internet and VoIP services.

Their site states, “CIA Home Phone is a fantastic new residential phone service that saves you a bundle on all your local and long distance calls. Keep your existing phone number and make calls just like you’ve always done, with the added benefit of 3¢/min anytime calling across Canada and the US, and unheard of international rates!”

I don’t know about you, but the thought of “CIA Home Phone” gives me the creeps. What’s next - “KGB Home Phone”? I don’t want either in my home. Sorry Cybersurf Internet Access, no offense.

Tags: canada, CIA, Cybersurf Internet Access, voip

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Copyright VoIP & Gadgets Blog

Original post by nafiz