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			    <title>Google Voice News | OhVoice</title> 
				<link>http://ohvoice.com/Google-Voice-News</link> 
				<description></description><item>
			<title>Ooma Reviewed</title>
			<link>http://ohvoice.com/news/Ooma+Reviewed</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Pal Tom Keating over at TMC Net has written a review of the newer Ooma and gives it high marks. What I liked about the review was how Tom intelligently compared and contrasted the services to NetTalk and MagicJack, as well as Vonage.
Related articles 

Get an Ooma Telo home phone system for $139.99 (news.cnet.com)
Taking Google Voice to the extreme with Ooma (zdnet.com)
Ooma&#039;s free VoIP calling system gets sexy new handset option, the HD2 (ces.cnet.com)
Ooma Telo Phone Service $10/Month Deal + Long Term Review (mymoneyblog.com)
Ooma Telo Sounds Like A Great Idea, But I Don&#039;t Know If I&#039;m Ready To Ditch My Landline Phone Service (essayboard.com)


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			<title>New Skype for iPhone, iPad, iPod touch Sports Ability to Move Video Preview</title>
			<link>http://ohvoice.com/news/New+Skype+for+iPhone%2C+iPad%2C+iPod+touch+Sports+Ability+to+Move+Video+Preview</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Some new features in the latest release of Skype for Apple iOS, including the ability to move your own video preview, app auto-restart if it crashes, improved accessibility, improved stability, some UI improvements and more. See full release notes in screenshot.
 
In related news, today gHacks revealed that Skype reveals remote and local IP Address of all online Skype users using a script. Yikes! Privacy zealots have at em&#039;!
Tags: apple, ipad, iphone, mobile, skype, voip, wireless
Related tags: video preview, skype


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			<title>Skype@Home Telephone Products Coming?</title>
			<link>http://ohvoice.com/news/Skype%40Home+Telephone+Products+Coming%3F</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Today, Rich Tehrani wrote about Microsoft &quot;working on Skype Everywhere Initiative&quot; based on another Microsoft-careers.com job listing. Just a few days ago I wrote about a Microsoft job listing was pointing toward Microsoft and Skype building a HTML5 Web version of Skype.Rich believes there are some good synergies with Microsoft and Skype that can result in a whole like of Skype at home phone products (Skype@Home?) including DECT 6.0 phones. The problem with DECT wireless phones over WiFi phones is you need a base unit, which adds to the cost. Wi-Fi phones can just connect to the Wi-Fi access point with no additional hardware necessary.However, what if the next XBox 360 has a built-in DECT transceiver? Or what if Microsoft designs a DECT transceiver on a USB stick that you can install in one of the Xbox 360&#039;s USB ports and then the XBox 360 is now your centralized gaming, video entertainment, and telephone system all-in-one. It can even act as your answering machine and record your voice messages, but even cooler you can be in the middle of a game and screen the inbound caller using your Xbox Live headset or your Xbox 360&#039;s default speakers. I&#039;m sure you could have it set to &quot;whisper mode&quot; so the inbound caller&#039;s voice doesn&#039;t drown out the pleasure of explosions and other video game sound effects. This has serious potential and with the power of the Xbox 360 you could really build a powerful home PBX system. Heck, Microsoft could make it marketable as a SMB IP-PBX. But perhaps we don&#039;t want to go down that road considering what happened to Microsoft Response Point. We&#039;ll stick with the consumer-side... When you consider many people are killing their home landline in favor of using their cell phone, Google Voice, or Skype, Microsoft wouldn&#039;t even have to put a FXO port on the Xbox 360 for phone calls - everything would go over IP using Skype. The Xbox 360 would act as the &quot;smart&quot; gateway and could really enhance the phone experience - and let&#039;s not forget about the Kinect camera which could add Skype video conferencing to the mix. A mobile app could allow you to access your Xbox 360 system to retrieve voicemails or set your call forwarding rules. Perhaps Microsoft might even leverage their cloud for some of the storage.Let&#039;s go over what the Xbox 360 would be capable of: 

Video Games
Video streaming entertainment (Hulu, Netflix, ESPN, Sky TV, etc.)
Music
Skype Telephone phone system with advanced routing and voicemail capabilities.(hypothetical, but very possible)
Kinect integrated with Skype to enable video conferencing (hypothetical, but very likely)

The job listing says &quot;Skype is seeking a motivated Software Engineer with an unrelenting drive for working on and solving customer-based issues. As a member of the Skype Xbox Engineering Team in London, you will have a strong technical background developing client and/or embedded software&quot;.Wow, Microsoft is putting together a Skype Xbox Engineering team? That&#039;s like combining the Navy SEALS team with the Delta Force Team. Combined these teams can either kick ass and make some great products -- or their egos can get in the way, destroying team chemistry and resulting in classic trash talk such as, &quot;I eat Green Berets for breakfast!&quot; 
Tags: kinest, microsoft, skype, skype xbox engineering team, skype@home, telephone, voip, xbox 360
Related tags: video conferencing, inbound caller, microsoft skype, skype, microsoft, video


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			<title>Zingaya Launches Zingaya Enterprise Edition</title>
			<link>http://ohvoice.com/news/Zingaya+Launches+Zingaya+Enterprise+Edition</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Zingaya today announced Zingaya Enterprise, a new platform and API enabling VoIP calls from a browser or a mobile app with a single click. Their platform enables developers to build out Mobile VoIP apps, with applications that include support desk and sales &amp; e-commerce, with the goal of improved conversion  rates.
Zingaya enables VoIP calls without a phone or without requiring a download. E-commerce companies and other customer-focused organizations can embed a widget on their website that allows their customers to simply click a button to start speaking to a live customer agent. Zingaya&#039;s closet competitor is likely Twilio, which offers a similar service, including an SDK.
Zingaya claims, &quot;Zingaya has been chosen by some of the world’s largest organizations as part of their social customer service programs, including a large global airline using Zingaya on its customer service web page as a contact option in addition to the traditional toll-free number.&quot;
Google, Mozilla, and others are behind the WebRTC real-time communications project, which shows promise in VoIP/video land.  Well, Zingaya was the first company in the world which enabled calls  from WebRTC to real phone numbers through their cloud platform.
&quot;Web-browsing is migrating away from the desktop and into mobile devices like smartphones and tablets,” says Esteban Kolsky, a leading authority on Social CRM and founder of ThinkJar, an advisory and think-tank focused on customer strategies. “Companies that depend on their website to drive significant revenues need to assess the impact this migration has on their business and develop new strategies that address the changing medium and venue of web-browsing.”
Enhanced social CRM features around Zingaya’s Enterprise Edition: 
·      Enterprise-Grade Web and Mobile VoIP: Zingaya has responded to large customer demands by offering SIP support and secure call encryption.
·      Enterprise Customization: Zingaya Enterprise allows e-commerce companies and enterprise customers to build widgets that fit into existing customer call center workflows. Zingaya widgets offer customization for: making calls to multiple lines; the hours that the widget is live; matching the branding needs of individual companies.
·      Enterprise-Grade Reporting: Zingaya Enterprise integrates with existing analytic workflows. For example, Zingaya now integrates with major web analytics tools including Google Analytics. Customer service and marketing managers can see exactly how many calls are being made through the Zingaya VoIP system, and can link caller information to their website analytics data.
Enhanced features about Zingaya’s Enterprise Edition for Software Developers: 
·      Mobile SDK for iOS and Android: The new Zingaya SDK allows developers to quickly and easily build mobile and web apps using Zingaya’s tested, deployed and scaled click to call VoIP platform.
Tags: api, click to call, e-commerce, google, sdk, sip, twilio, voip, webrtc, zingaya
Related tags: ingaya enterprise, customer service, enterprise edition, companies enterprise, features ingaya, ingaya


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			<title>NetZero Unveils Free Wireless 4G mobile Internet service</title>
			<link>http://ohvoice.com/news/NetZero+Unveils+Free+Wireless+4G+mobile+Internet+service</link>
			<description><![CDATA[
Remember NetZero, the company best known for offering free dial-up Internet service? Well they&#039;re back! NetZero today launched a free 4G wireless that offers a year of free  mobile Internet and a free data plan through a partnership with Clearwire. With NetZero 4G Mobile Broadband there is no contract, commitment, activation charge and no overage charges.
All data plans, including the free plan, require the purchase of one of two affordable access devices:  the NetZero 4G HotSpot ($99.95) and the NetZero 4G Stick ($49.95).  The NetZero 4G HotSpot simultaneously supports up to eight Wi-Fi-enabled devices within a 150-foot range, while the NetZero 4G Stick supports a single laptop or netbook via a USB port. It is available today in over 80 cities nationwide, including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Washington, D.C. and Miami.
Here&#039;s the price package breakdown.

 Free: $0, 200MB/month (limited to 1 year)
 Basic: $9.95, 500MB/month
 Plus: $19.95, 1GB/month
 Pro: $34.95, 2GB/month
 Platinum: $49.95, 4GB

NetZero 4G Mobile Broadband includes an unique feature that lets customers switch the speed of their service to meet their data needs.  NetZero 4G Mobile Broadband subscribers can set their service at either LightSpeed, which delivers download speeds of up to 1Mbps, or WarpSpeed, which provides download speeds of up to 10Mbps.  Customers in any of the service plans can toggle their speed setting to LightSpeed (to conserve data) or WarpSpeed (to maximize speed) at any time.

With NetZero 4G Mobile Broadband, there are no overage charges.  Customers cannot accidentally exceed monthly data allotments.  An alert lets customers know when they reach their monthly data limit, at which point, they have three options.  Option 1:  If customers are on a pay plan, they can buy extra data “Top Ups” that they can use through the end of their current  billing  cycle.  Option 2:  Customers can upgrade to a higher capacity data plan.  Option 3:  Customers can wait until the next month to utilize the service with a fresh allotment of data according to their existing plan.
It&#039;s an interesting business model to offer free wireless 4G service, even if it is capped at 200MB/month. It might get users hooked on the fast service and come the 1-year renewal if NetZero doesn&#039;t continue the free offering for existing customers, the customers may still stick while their service and pay the lowest-tier pricing or perhaps even upgrade. My guess is that in a year, existing customers will likely pay $9.95/month for the 2nd tier 500MB/month allotment while new sign-ups will continue to get &quot;free&quot; 1 year of 200MB/month 4G Internet usage. This will cause some price pressure on Verizon and AT&amp;T to keep their data plans low. So for that, thank you NetZero!via CNet
Tags: 3g, data, free, internet, lightspeed, mobile, netzero, warpspeed, wireless
Related tags: mobile broadband, option customers, internet service, overage charges, mobile internet, customers


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			<title>Acme Packet University Live Blog</title>
			<link>http://ohvoice.com/news/Acme+Packet+University+Live+Blog</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Acme Packet is hosting their Acme Packet University at Harvard University in Cambridge. I spoke with the company&#039;s CEO before the session kicked off and the topic of Sonus came up. The two companies partnered for many years and eventually Sonus reached out to Acme to purchase them however the company had begin to file to go public and Sonus had taken a hit to their market cap so the deal never happened.According to Andy, the idea today is to explain to the world how complicated the SBC space is - one part switch, security device and softswitch. These are separate disciplines in most companies - making it more complicated to build an SBC.He then briefly outlined the future and what we will learn today - how hosted IMS based solutions will help move the industry forward.9:00 Session kicks offMarianne Budnick kicked things off and set the tone for the day.Patrick MeLampy Co-Founder and CTO began with a history of the markets and Acme.Net2Phone NetMeeting had problems - in part because they wouldn&#039;t work through NAT and this derailed the company.The company started in Andy&#039;s house and the workers were day trading as well as working - this was 2000 after all.Lots of talk of the alphabet soup of standards IP communications had to deal with until around the time of 9/11.The partnership with Sonus Networks helped them a great deal back in the day.People like Henry Sinnreich and Jonathon Rosenberg &quot;hated&quot; Acme because they didn&#039;t want the carriers to be able to control the endpoints. They were fans of a more democratized approach.SIP trunking has a way to go and is driving our business forward.Other opportunities: More and more CODECS, more transcoding, more operating systems, hypervisors, lawful intercept points, etc.Patrick explains how SBCs work - as if they were transactions in a bank.&quot;I wish SIP were simple like IP.&quot; There are 215 RFCs, 80 Internet drafts in last 12 months alone.The reason things are so complicated is because of vested interests and that is the way things work today. In other words, the traffic from your 4G cell phone shouldn&#039;t need to travel back to the US when you are in Europe but that is what is happening because that is how it works today.4G phones use a different CODEC than 3G phones - transcoding gateways are cheaper to buy than adding both CODECs to 4G phones in-part because licensing prices from Qualcomm are high. These gateways make carrier networks far more complicated.Doing nothing not an option - voice is declining in revenue. complexity is increasing. Acme is not just protecting and securing. They went from securing to allowing interoperability as SIP versions proliferated. In the future they see their role as allowing simpler deployment of voice and thereby allowing incumbents to compete with services like Google Voice.
Tags: acme packet, ip communications, sbc, session border control, sonus
Related tags: packet university, because, today, company, sonus, complicated


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			<title>Google Voice Adds Circles - The Apocalypse is Upon Us!</title>
			<link>http://ohvoice.com/news/Google+Voice+Adds+Circles+-+The+Apocalypse+is+Upon+Us%21</link>
			<description><![CDATA[In a terse blog statement, Google announced that Google Voice would add Google+ circles adding a social network management strategy to Google Voice. Now you can organize your contacts into specific circles that actually ring your mobile device (family, mom, dad, friends), while ex-lovers, telemarketers, and stalkers go straight to voicemail jail! You can also add custom greetings to each Circle. From the Google Voice Blog:
To help make it even easier for you to organize your contacts, today  we’re adding Google+ Circles to Google Voice. Circles give you more  control over how you manage your callers; for example, calls from your  “Creepers” circle can be sent straight to Voicemail, only your “College  Buddies” circle will hear you rap your voicemail greeting, or you can  set your “Family” circle to only ring your mobile phone. You can customize your Circles settings by visiting the Groups &amp; Circles tab in your Google Voice settings.Give it a try and let us know what you think.
Wow, Google is really tying together all their products quite nicely. Search, Email, video (YouTube), video conferencing (Google Hangouts), social media (Google+), and even automated driverless vehicles. It&#039;s scary how connected Google is in our lives. Won&#039;t be long now before Skynet (Google) connects to everything, achieves conscious thought, and we have to deal with the Terminator - not to mention a global apocalypse. Via Google Voice Blog
Tags: circles, google, google voice, google+, groups, skynet, social media, terminator
Related tags: google voice, straight voicemail, google circles, organize contacts, google, circles


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			<title>FCC Now Requires VoIP Outage Reporting</title>
			<link>http://ohvoice.com/news/FCC+Now+Requires+VoIP+Outage+Reporting</link>
			<description><![CDATA[The Federal Communications Commission today voted and passed a requirement that interconnected VoIP service providers report significant network outages that meet specific criteria and thresholds. The goal is to ensure 911 system reliability and perhaps customer awareness of fly-by-night VoIP operations that are just trying to make a buck. The FCC will use outage reports to &quot;track and analyze information on interconnected VoIP outages affecting 9-1-1 service and determine if action is needed to prevent future outages.&quot; In other words you might be looking at fines if you don&#039;t have a reliable VoIP network.
According to Chairman Julius Genachowski, &quot;With today’s action, the FCC is helping ensure that our communications infrastructure is more resilient.  We are helping ensure that consumers will have access to reliable phone service, particularly when calling 9-1-1, whether they are using a traditional telephone or one that operates by interconnected VoIP service.&quot;Continue reading FCC Now Requires VoIP Outage Reporting...
Tags: 911, america, fcc, outage, reporting, skype, threshold, united states, voip, vonage
Related tags: helping ensure, service, outages, interconnected, ensure


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			<title>Dell Voice Launches in Canada - Will it Fail As Badly As Dell Video Chat?</title>
			<link>http://ohvoice.com/news/Dell+Voice+Launches+in+Canada+-+Will+it+Fail+As+Badly+As+Dell+Video+Chat%3F</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Dell has partnered with Ontario-based Fongo to offer Dell Voice, a VoIP app exclusively available exclusively in Canada that offers a Canadian phone number and free calls to most of Canada. Also, incoming calls and Dell Voice-to-Dell Voice calls are free of charge. This reminds me of how Dell partnered with Sightspeed, now a part of Logitech to offer a multi-party video conferencing service called Dell Video Chat. I reviewed the software and it works well, but with free alternatives like Skype, having the ability to do 9-way (3x3) Brady Bunch video is a very niche application. Practically nobody has ever heard of Dell Video Chat, so here let me share a couple screenshots of it...Screenshot of me testing it:2x2 (4-way video call)I suspect Dell Voice will suffer the same ignominious fate as Dell Video Chat. There&#039;s just too much competition, including superior offerings from Google Voice, Skype, and most recently Vonage. It&#039;s like Dell is getting killed by their core market (PCs &amp; laptops) by the explosion of the tablet and they&#039;re trying anything to diversify. Dell mobile phones - fail; Dell Video Chat - fail, Dell Voice - soon to fail.In any case, the Dell Voice app currently available for Android, iOS and Windows (Desktop), with a Blackberry version coming. You can port your existing number for $25. Although this app is only available on the Canadian iTunes and Android app stores, there are hacks around that.  Google is your friend!
Tags: android, apple, dell video chat, dell voice, google, logitech, ontario, sightspeed, skype, voice
Related tags: video, voice, canada, calls, available


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			<title>Localphone Rings in Chinese New Year with Free Calls</title>
			<link>http://ohvoice.com/news/Localphone+Rings+in+Chinese+New+Year+with+Free+Calls</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Localphone is offering free calls to China to the celebrate the Chinese New Year, which is the Year of the Water Dragon in case you were wondering. They have made calls to China completely free for four days. They offered a similar 4-day free calling promotion for the American Thanksgiving holiday. Now if only they add in Christmas, New Years (Western), U.S. President&#039;s Day, MLK Day, Easter, Columbus Day, Groundhog&#039;s Day, Valentine&#039;s Day, Mother&#039;s Day, Father&#039;s Day, LAbor Day, Fourth of July, Administrative Professional&#039;s Day, etc. etc. then we&#039;d have free calling just about every calendar day!  The promotion will start at 16:00 GMT Saturday 21st January and will end at 16:00 GMT Wednesday 25th January (midnight to midnight in China.) After this time Localphone’s normal cheap rates to call China will apply, which are from just 0.5p or 1¢ per minute.     Localphone customers old or new will be able to call any standard Chinese landline or mobile during the four days for free.  There are no restrictions on the number of calls or the duration of the calls that each customer can make.  “China is one of our most popular calling destinations and we recognize how important it is to keep in touch with friends and family over the festive season,” said Localphone founder and CEO, Paul Cusack.  “We hope our customers enjoy the four days of free calls and we wish them a very prosperous 2012.”  Localphone was founded in 2007 by entrepreneur Paul Cusack and is headquartered in Sheffield, United Kingdom.  Localphone is one of the world’s leading providers of cheap international calling services
Tags: china, chinese new year, free calls, localphone, paul cusack, voip
Related tags: calls china, localphone, calls, china, calling, chinese


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  Packet8 Drops International Calling Phone Rates - May 07, 2008

  GIPS Lands 51.com - Jan 02, 2008

  Celebrate the 4th of July with Free Calls! - Jun 26, 2007

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]]></description> 
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			<title>Should Google Voice Open Up?</title>
			<link>http://ohvoice.com/news/Should+Google+Voice+Open+Up%3F</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Image via CrunchBase
I was around just after Craig Walker and Vincent Paquet created and launched GrandCentral, which became post acquistion by Google, GoogleVoice. We worked with the two and helped make it a known qualtity, and to this day, my GV number is the number that makes me so easily reachable. But in over four years since Google snagged the service, not much has really happened on the services side, while most of the work has been done to keep it scaling and integrating into the Google way of doing things.
Basically, I have no complaints, as the service works. Every once in a while mobile calls sound bad, as latency seems to occur, especially when both parties are using Google Voice, but a lot of that is the carriers capacity issues, not GVs.
But one area they have not moved very quickly is being &quot;open&quot; and working with other services that could make GoogleVoice even more a part of more people&#039;s lives. Over at ZDNet, Jason Perlow has brought up faxing as a service he&#039;d like to see. I know a few more, and if Google Voice did add them, I&#039;d be able to eliminate a few other services. 
Related articles

Google Voice: Free for one more year (saintel.wordpress.com)
The OBI: a VOIP home phone work around (for FREE!) (squisheddiorama.com)


]]></description> 
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			<title>Google to Offer Free Tablets?</title>
			<link>http://ohvoice.com/news/Google+to+Offer+Free+Tablets%3F</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Several media reports are claiming that Google is going to be offering their own tablet soon, including DigiTimes which said, &quot;As Google reportedly may launch an own-brand tablet PC to compete  against Apple&#039;s iPad, sources from Google&#039;s upstream supply chain  believe that Google, instead of Apple, may actually be targeting  Amazon&#039;s 7-inch Kindle Fire as its major competitor.&quot;The Amazon Kindle Fire had torrid sales for the Christmas holiday season, certainly earning its &quot;Fire&quot; moniker. You can&#039;t go wrong with a $199 tablet device that surfs the web, runs apps, and consumes entertainment content using Amazon Prime, which features a Netflix-like streaming service in addition to Amazon&#039;s other paid digital content - e-books, music, etc. Amazon gambled consumers would consume paid content to recoup their losses and it has paid off handsomely.This purported Nexus tablet will come with a 7&quot; display, run Android&#039;s latest Ice Cream Sandwich and  will be priced under $199 to undercut even the mighty Amazon Kindle Fire. What is Google thinking? They&#039;re thinking the same thing Amazon is thinking - take a loss on the hardware and subsidize the cost of the tablet by selling digital content, such as movies, books, and music. The Kindle Fire costs $250 to manufacture, so it&#039;s roughly a $50 loss for Amazon. Amazon could take an even deeper loss if they wanted to, since Amazon Prime users could easily spend $50 in apps, music, and movies the first day they buy the device.That&#039;s why I think Google should just give away their &quot;rumored&quot; Nexus tablet for free and subsidize it with content. They&#039;ve got the cash to do it and could instantly build up the largest tablet userbase overnight. Of course, Google&#039;s foray into digital content has been bumpy. Their music offering, Google Music hasn&#039;t exactly taken off. I know one person that has tried it and wasn&#039;t much of a fan. So if Google were to offer free tablets, they&#039;d have to revamp their digital entertainment content.Right now, the kings of digital media are Netflix and Amazon, with HBO a smaller player in their own right. Amazon Prime is in &#039;prime&#039; position to undercut everybody, including Netflix. Amazon has already inked deals with Hollywood for content. so Amazon is really ramping up their digital media content to complement their popular online store which sells traditional entertainment media such as CDs, DVDs, Blurays, and books - not to mention tools, kitchen appliances, lawnmowers, software - you name it!Google on the other hand is a search engine with some other useful properties that aren&#039;t nearly as profitable, such as Google Voice, Gmail, and Google+. Sure, their Android operating system is kicking butt and giving them a revenue stream, but Google currently can&#039;t compete with Amazon with all the deals Amazon has with suppliers, Hollywood studios, etc.Sure, Google can ink similar deals. In fact, Google has already set aside $100 million to bankroll their video entertainment business, but is it enough? I say no. One big reason is Amazon could offer special deals. For instance, &quot;Buy this Bluray from Amazon for $24.99 and we&#039;ll throw in a free Amazon Prime streaming version of this movie, so you don&#039;t have to wait for your Bluray to arrive!&quot; How is Google going to compete with that?My answer is for Google to offer free tablets and make the Google App Store the centralized place for paid apps, music, streaming TV and movies. My advice to Google is to borrow Amazon&#039;s subsidized model and make it better - make it free. Of course, there&#039;s nothing to stop Amazon from doing the same thing. Competition is good. Someone is going to offer free subsidized tablets - question is who&#039;s going to be first?
Tags: amazon, android, content, entertainment, google, kindle fire, movies, tablets
Related tags: amazon prime, google offer, digital content, amazon kindle, google going, amazon


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]]></description> 
			</item><item>
			<title>Samsung Google Galaxy Nexus - The Phone for Internationalists</title>
			<link>http://ohvoice.com/news/Samsung+Google+Galaxy+Nexus+-+The+Phone+for+Internationalists</link>
			<description><![CDATA[I won&#039;t go into reviewing in depth the Samsung Google Nexus as enough other reviews are out there, but what I will say is if you&#039;re a Google centric person, where you make extensive use of Google Apps, Mail, Calendar, Picasa and all that Google has to, then this is the Android phone for you. 
First off an unlocked Google Galaxy Nexus is an ideal phone for anyone going international. It&#039;s pentaband so you get 850, 900, 1700, 1900 &amp; 2100 MHZ which means you can use it all over the world. Here in the USA you may want to opt for T-Mobile&#039;s pay as you go, or AT&amp;T&#039;s GoPhone plan or pay monthly plan and use it as little or as much you need to as your &quot;other phone.&quot; Or put it on a subscription plan as your main phone and get blazing fast speeds a managable data plan rates. Another option is TRU from client Truphone, where you get to roam here in the USA on T-Mobile and on Vodafone in the UK. Both have fast networks and both are perfect for this phone as you can have numbers in both places that work so, so well. You can also use local pay as you go SIM&#039;s and manage them with a plethora of APN setting apps that are available in the Market (most times you don&#039;t have too though.)
Hidden inside the phone&#039;s settings is the Android&#039;s ability to place and receive Internet calls. Another feature is the native ability to configure your SIP accounts to place or receive calls over the Internet. This is a huge plus for those who already have SIP based VoIP service. I quickly configured mine and presto the calls were coming in and going out. Unfortunately, it&#039;s not as configurable as client CounterPath&#039;s Bria is but for those who want to SIPley (pun intended) connect, Android offers that feature.
Using Touchdown as my Exchange client solves the issues found with the native mail, calendar and address book.
Tieing in GoogleVoice of course is standard. You simply use that and your calls look like they are coming from your regular number. With this feature it really doesn&#039;t matter which phone I&#039;m calling from, and with conditional call forwarding for when I&#039;m busy, not available or not answering, the calls all ring everywhere. But it&#039;s the native Google/ Google Voice integration that makes the phone so sweet. That and the lightness of being that it is. Superlight in weight, the Galaxy Nexus clearly makes my Verizon HTC Thunderbolt feel like a brick. The way this phone behaves I&#039;ll certainly be thinking about grabbing the Verizon version for coverage here in the U.S.A.
Does the Google Galaxy Nexus with Android 4.0 beat my Apple 4S out as my favorite phone? No. but with all the features packed in the Samsung Google Galaxy Nexus one has to give the GSM version SERIOUS consideration as your other phone if you are locked to an unlockable AT&amp;T iPhone (I&#039;m not) as the benefits in the Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwhich OS make it a serious contender for the Internationalist who needs more than just a phone. 
Related articles 

Android Revolution - Samsung Galaxy Nexus Hands-On, Leaked HTC Ville, LG Dec. 1st Event &amp; More (pocketnow.com)
LTE Samsung Galaxy Nexus Is This Much Thicker Than GSM Variant (pocketnow.com)


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			<title>Republic Wireless Hybrid WiFi / Cell VoIP Service for $19/month</title>
			<link>http://ohvoice.com/news/Republic+Wireless+Hybrid+WiFi+%2F+Cell+VoIP+Service+for+%2419%2Fmonth</link>
			<description><![CDATA[That if you could get a cellular plan for $19/month with unlimited voice? Well, you can (sort of) using republic wireless&#039;s hybrid WiFi/cellular network approach. It includes unlimited WiFi VoIP calling, 550 minutes of cellular voice calling, 150 texts, and 300 megabytes of data. republic wireless is a division of Bandwidth.com, whose network and  solutions power Google, Pinger, Skype, Groupme, RingCentral, Phonebooth, and others.The caveats: There is a $199 startup fee, which gives you a LG Optimus phone running Android 2.3. Phone choices is a bit limited and I wish they allowed you to BYOP - Bring Your Own Phone. They call this &quot;Hybrid Calling&quot; because their service uses Wi-Fi networks by default for voice and falls back to Sprint&#039;s cell network if no Wi-Fi networks are available. If use too much actual cellular data and the company and they&#039;ll ask you to get back on track, but will eventually give you the boot.If you&#039;re in range of Wi-Fi networks on most occasions, this certainly makes for an inexpensive cell phone plan. They claim most people are in range of Wi-Fi networks 60% of the time. This definitely has some niche applications. I can see parents giving this inexpensive offering to teenagers for instance, though this service should simply prevent further cell calling if limits are exceeded instead of booting the customer. Let 911 calls through obviously even if they&#039;ve exceeded their limits.Of course, if Google offered WiFi calling via their Google Voice platform leveraging an Android app, then Google could kill republic wireless. Though Google would tick off their carrier partners in the process.Check out Techcrunch&#039;s take.
Tags: cellular network, cheap, google, phone service, republic wireless, voip, wi-fi
Related tags: republic wireless, google, calling, cellular, wireless, voice


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]]></description> 
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			<title>Nimbuzz launches Video calling for iPhone and PC</title>
			<link>http://ohvoice.com/news/Nimbuzz+launches+Video+calling+for+iPhone+and+PC</link>
			<description><![CDATA[
Nimbuzz today launched video calling for the iPhone and PC. You can download them here:

Download Nimbuzz for iPhone
Download Nimbuzz for PC

The Nimbuzz video calling works over 3G/4G as well as WiFi. Interestingly, they are also offering video chat, which is the same as video calling except no audio. Be sure you&#039;ve got good miming skills if you plan to video chat with no verbal communication! Here&#039;s a few you can use mimic:     
The reason? According to Nimbuzz, &quot;This feature is awesome because it allows you to see  each other on networks that restrict access to VoIP calling services&quot;. Or you can just jailbreak your iPhone, and use 3G Unrestrictor to fake out the iPhone into thinking you&#039;re still on WiFi. Problem solved and no miming skills required!
Nimbuzz added that they are now working on video calls for Symbian and Android mobile phones.
Tags: iphone, nimbuzz, pc, video calls, video chat, voip
Related tags: video calling, miming skills, download nimbuzz, calling iphone, video, nimbuzz


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]]></description> 
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			<title>Top 50 Technology Blogs</title>
			<link>http://ohvoice.com/news/Top+50+Technology+Blogs</link>
			<description><![CDATA[eCollegeFinder just came out with their list of the Top 50 Technology blogs. Esteemed sites such as All Things Digital, Chip Chick, DVICE, Engadget, Macworld, Network World, and yours truly, my VoIP &amp; Gadget blog made the list. I received an email from an eCollegeFinder representative informing me about this award. Excerpt: &quot;Congratulations! We’ve selected TMCnet’s VoIP &amp; Gadgets Blog as a winner of eCollegeFinder&#039;s Top 50 Technology Blogs Award! Your blog stood out amongst stiff competition and is now featured on our site as a recommended technological resource for our readers.&quot;I am honored to have been nominated by my fans for this award and to have won it along with many websites that are part of my daily reading.On the awards announcement page they invite readers to email them their &quot;favorite&quot; within the list of Top 50 Technology blogs when they state, &quot;we hope that as you browse, you learn as much about new technology  as we did while putting this list together! Click around, get your geek  fix, and let us know which blog was your favorite by emailing awards@ecollegefinder.com.&quot;Hope I get a few email votes, but I&#039;m just happy to share company with these websites - many of which have dozens of writers, while this VoIP &amp; Gadgets blog is written solely by me. Thanks again readers for your loyal support going back to 2004 when I started this whole blogging thing!I should celebrate like a team that just won the Superbowl... What&#039;s next?I&#039;m going to Disney World!
Tags: all things digital, blogs, chip chick, ecollegefinder, engadget, list, macworld, network world, technology, top 50
Related tags: technology blogs, technology, blogs, ecollegefinder, email, readers


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]]></description> 
			</item><item>
			<title>China&#039;s telecom patent boom - Is China Ready to Enforce IP?</title>
			<link>http://ohvoice.com/news/China%27s+telecom+patent+boom+-+Is+China+Ready+to+Enforce+IP%3F</link>
			<description><![CDATA[China has a reputation for not enforcing other countries&#039; patents and copyrights, including bootleg DVDs that can be found in just about any major Chinese city street corner. It was even alleged that China&#039;s telecom giant Huawei stole Cisco&#039;s routing software. According to one article:
Bootleg DVDs in China are very slickly produced and packaged. In fact,  many have extra features that make them better than those found on  legitimate discs. This is a huge business. According to a report issued  by the state-run media, the country’s pirate DVD industry totaled  approximately $6 billion in 2010. China’s box office receipts, on the  other hand, totaled a mere $1.5 billion for last year.
But things are starting to change in China. A Reuters article today talks about how China&#039;s telecom giants are dramatically increasing their patent applications and starting to enforce intellectual property (IP) rights.
Via Reuters:

The influx of patents not only underscores  China&#039;s growing strength in the telecom sector, it also reveals a change  afoot in the country&#039;s attitude toward intellectual property.
While  the change is hardly air-tight, China is moving more toward recognising  ideas and their origins, rather than copying and proliferating.
Intellectual  property civil litigation cases filed in China rose by 37 percent to  41,718 last year according to the country&#039;s Supreme People&#039;s Court.
This  is driven in part by China&#039;s plan to become a high-tech power house, with a target for 2.5 percent of its gross domestic product to come from  research and development by 2020. It&#039;s trying to reach this goal by  subsidising the cost of patents for Chinese companies and stricter  enforcement of intellectual property rights.

They may be increasing their enforcement of &quot;some&quot; intellectual property rights, but bootleg movies, counterfeit software and music is a part of the Chinese culture. It might be easier for China to enforce telecom patents since it&#039;s easy to catch and scold telecom companies than it is for them to stop a street vendor selling bootleg movies. Though truth be told there are even stores in China boldly selling counterfeit materials with little fear of prosecution.
The telecom sector is red-hot, especially the mobile telecom space, and China is on course to surpass Japan and the U.S. in the number of patents. Perhaps soon China will be the world&#039;s greatest &quot;innovator&quot; and it will be the U.S. that &quot;copies&quot; China. So not only will China own a huge chunk of the U.S.&#039;s debt, they&#039;ll also own patents that U.S. companies will have to license or find creative workarounds. My how times have changed.
Tags: china, copyright, huawei, intellectual property, mobile, patent, reuters, telecom, united states, wireless
Related tags: intellectual property, bootleg movies, property rights, telecom sector, enforcement intellectual, china


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]]></description> 
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			<title>Skype (Microsoft) Blows $85 Million on GroupMe</title>
			<link>http://ohvoice.com/news/Skype+%28Microsoft%29+Blows+%2485+Million+on+GroupMe</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Skype was in talks with GroupMe to acquire them before Microsoft&#039;s (pending approval) bought Skype. With Microsoft purchasing Skype you would have thought Microsoft would have squashed any pending purchases by Skype or at least approve them. The fact that Microsoft didn&#039;t stop Skype means Microsoft must agree with the GroupMe acquisition. I&#039;m honestly not sure why though.GroupMe is simply a group SMS platform that enables you to create group messages leveraging SMS. That&#039;s it. That&#039;s the feature. There are plenty of ways of doing group messages. One example is 3jam, though they have a pending acquisition and their website states, &quot;3jam&#039;s web site and service will be shut down in the coming months, with  details on that transition plan to be provided at a later date.  Please  stay tuned&quot;. Rich Tehrani theorized back in May that Skype is buying them. That certainly would make sense if Skype is gobbling up all the group SMS solutions. If Rich is right, I wouldn&#039;t be surprised if 3jam now let the cat out of the bag and announced who purchased them in the next few days.Other competition to GroupMe comes from Google, which has group SMS in the Google Voice web interface, Google&#039;s &#039;Huddle&#039; feature, Facebook with their mobile Facebook Messenger app, and Apple&#039;s iMessage application which has group SMS. Obviously missing from this this group SMS list is Skype and Microsoft.To me GroupMe saw the writing on the wall that fierce competition from the likes of Apple, Google, and Facebook were going to diminish the value of this VC-funded company. Personally, I cannot wait for SMS, which the carriers still have a stranglehold on, to die. With most smart phone plans including unlimited data plans, and with a plethora of IM mobile apps (Skype, Facebook, Nimbuzz, AIM, Twitter, etc.) why pay for SMS text messages?Yes, the convenience of using your phone address book to text message any of your friends is convenient, but it is becoming more and more likely your friends are in one of your social networks, like Facebook. Text messaging is a single mode of communication that doesn&#039;t let you escalate to a voice or a video call. That&#039;s where the future is headed.For instance, you send a friend an IM in the Facebook app, then within this same app you can send a voice message such as &quot;I love you&quot; or even dictate a long voice message that is too long to type. After the one-way voice messaging you can escalate it to a full two-way VoIP call. Finally, you can decide a video call is in order. Get the picture? That&#039;s why I see this $85 million as a wasted investment. Sure Skype can roll these features into the Skype client, but you&#039;re telling me they couldn&#039;t built this themselves from scratch? Both Skype and Microsoft are software development companies. They can&#039;t build such a a simple feature? Maybe GroupMe owns some group SMS patents, otherwise this really doesn&#039;t make a whole lot of sense.I should add that GroupMe leverages Twilio, a cloud-based service that enables developers to add VoIP &amp; text messaging capabilities to any website with just three lines of code. Perhaps Skype should have acquired Twilio instead?More here: Techcrunch Betabeat
Tags: apple, facebook, google, groupme, instant messaging, microsoft, mobile phone, skype, twilio, voip
Related tags: skype microsoft, group messages, voice message, skype, microsoft, group


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]]></description> 
			</item><item>
			<title>BT Kills the Rabbit, err Ribbit</title>
			<link>http://ohvoice.com/news/BT+Kills+the+Rabbit%2C+err+Ribbit</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Ribbit, which was acquired by BT, and which Ribbit claimed was &quot;Silicon Valley&#039;s First Phone Company&quot; has been killed. Ribbit was a cloud-based phone system with APIs to integrate voice communications into business applications such as  Salesforce.com, CRM systems, call center applications, and social  networks. It was a promising concept.So is cloud-based voice dead? That&#039;d be too bad, since Fonality just released a Cloud VoIP for Dummies book just yesterday.  Well, one defunct hosted voice platform doesn&#039;t make for an industry trend. We&#039;ve still got Google Voice, Phono, Twilio, TeleSocial, and others that are going strong.
Tags: api, british telecom, hosted, ribbit, silicon valley, telesocial, twilio, voice, voip
Related tags: cloud based, ribbit, voice, cloud


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]]></description> 
			</item><item>
			<title>Commentary-So What Happens to Clearwire</title>
			<link>http://ohvoice.com/news/Commentary-So+What+Happens+to+Clearwire</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Image via CrunchBase
Late yesterday (Wednesday August 3) Om Malik at GigaOm wrote a post entitled &quot;So What Happens to ClearWire&#039;s WiMax Network?&quot; Well over a lovely pasta dinner tonight (see my Nosh of it on my page over on Google Voice founder Craig Walker&#039;s new venture Nosh.me) i got to chomp on Om&#039;s post as I read it on my iPad.
While Om talks about if, when and comes up with a very strong maybe, I&#039;m willing to go out on a limb and deal with the why..and Intel&#039;s lock up period is only the tip of the iceberg.
Let&#039;s look at who else is involved in Clearwire and what happens when LTE comes along and who pays for it:
1. Sprint-they have committed to WiMax, and to be perfectly clear-Mobile WiMax. They in effect will inherit the Mobile Wimax technology and have Intel as a development partner. Sprint gets the Mobile WiMax network to replace what was the soon to be mothballed iDen network to do things with. They also have this deep relationship with the cable guys and have for years. It doesn&#039;t go away, it becomes the other network because it happens to work very well. It&#039;s just not built out yet and the cable guys are ready to sell it..
2. Comcast-they are already into WiFi as is fellow Clearwire investor Time-Warner. Bright House has dabbled with WiFi in parts of Florida so the concept of Wireless is not foriegn to the cable guys, but for the most part they all have been using Verizon and Sprint as partners. All of the cable guys are just waiting to be in mobile and Clearwire as an LTE player will provide them the opportunity. The mobile WiMax is simply the cream on top.
3. There&#039;s this little thing brewing called the AT&amp;T-T-Mobile merger. That will create a need to toss off some territory and some spectrum. T-Mobile has this AWS spectrum in the 1700 Megahertz range but it&#039;s the bastard stepchild for wireless in North America. The cable guys are used to playing with what&#039;s left in general, and know how to make the leftovers become profitable. Between that and some other spectrum in the 800, 850 and 1900 megahertz range AT&amp;T/T-Mobile will be forced to cast off make merger happen, meaning the locations for towers and cell cites (microcells, pico cells and even femto type cells) will be more than ready for a a take over of Clearwire.
4. The cable guys have the cash-and the longstanding Sprint relationship. The cash will fuel the expansion into LTE. Sprint will be the technology behind it, along with their outsourcing deal to Ericsson which just happens to make and build what? That&#039;s right LTE network hardware. So there the cable guys get vendor financing, and their partner for network and past mobile deals Sprint.
5. Google--The search giant has been looking for a play in mobile for years. But just like they don&#039;t want applications that get installed, they want to be the services for the mobile network and of course sell ads. Now add in the fact that they have devices called Android and can subsize handsets, services, etc. and then be the ad sales giant, they have multiple ways of to make money on this deal, and oh yes, did I also say, they have the cash.
So--what does this mean..well $660 million between Ericsson, Google, Time Warner, Comcast and BrightHouse is a rounding error at the end of the day, espcially if you amortize that over seven years. 
In the case of Ericsson, they are also making money from what Verizon Wireless, AT&amp;T and likely T-Mobile today through services, equipment or management of something or other. Plus many other operators around the world. Google via Android has Verizon Wireless, AT&amp;T and T-Mobile selling their phones now.  
Talk about a trojan horse strategy, they know and touch everyone of the other MNO&#039;s customers. It&#039;s called GMail and everyone using an Android has a GMail account, and many likely are getting Google Voice numbers. A long time ago someone wiser than me once shared with then Yahoo VP Brad Garlinghouse the fact that a Yahoo ID was more important than your phone number. Garlinghouse told me that was the one thing they never wanted to push and my sources said it was what scared the mobile operators the most. Well GMail + Google Voice better scare them because if you move your Google Voice number over to you mobile operator which Sprint now does....get the picture. 
Oh-and where exactly did Google choose to build their first fiber network? Kansas City, where Sprint is based. 
Google + Sprint + The cable companies vs. the Mobile Operators.
Doesn&#039;t it get Clear now?
 
Related articles

Clearwire Going LTE; What Does This Mean for Sprint WiMAX? (pocketnow.com)
Clearwire to Deploy LTE -- If It Can Get Additional Funding (fool.com)
Clearwire posts wider loss as it curbs expansion (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
Clearwire announces LTE shift as losses mount (news.cnet.com)
Sprint to sell WiMax service wholesale (infoworld.com)


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			<title>Number Portability Still Sucking After All these Years...</title>
			<link>http://ohvoice.com/news/Number+Portability+Still+Sucking+After+All+these+Years...</link>
			<description><![CDATA[I decided to drop Charter&#039;s triple play package because they raised the monthly bill from $166 to $222 per month  -- only to find out that the curse of number portability still exists in 2011. Flashback: Back in 2006 I griped that my phone number I owned for 10 years couldn&#039;t be ported from Vonage to Charter.
Recently, I decided I would drop Vonage in favor of a triple play offering from Charter, which would give me  cable TV, high-speed Internet, and &quot;voice over cable&quot; - all at a very  reasonable price. My wife and I encountered too many network or Vonage  QoS issues which affected our phone service. It was time to port the  number to Charter, which advertised that they could port customer&#039;s  numbers in a mailer we received. When I called to order, they said they  could not port my Vonage number since &quot;That Norwalk number  (203-854-XXXX) is not in your rate area&quot; I was told.
Also check out my Number Portability Redux article. Well, I thought for sure, 5 years later that it would be no problem porting my number from Charter to magicJack, a VoIP service provider. After all, even Google Voice offers number porting. Alas, magicJack wasn&#039;t able to port my number explaining, &quot;The problem is we don’t have service in that specific LATA.&quot;  Same ole&#039; same ole&#039;. [sigh]Next, I tried a workaround. I tried porting my home number to my Google Voice account and then was planning on forwarding calls to Google Voice to my new magicJack phone number. But Google Voice is even more limited, only supporting the porting of wireless / mobile phone numbers. I&#039;d even be willing to pay a few bucks each month to keep my existing number, but it is just not to be. The good news is that I cut my cable TV &amp; phone bill by $1,331 per year! Before:Charter TV: $105.99Charter Phone: $39.99Charter Internet: $44.99Taxes: $27.62Total: $223.58/monthAfter:DirecTV: $85.99Phone-MagicJack Plus VoIP : $19.95/year or $1.66/monthAT&amp;T Naked DSL: $24.95Taxes: (not sure yet since no bills)Total: $112.60/month.Yearly savings: $1331!Mind you the DirecTV service comes with more regular channels and more HD channels. So it&#039;s a win-win financially. Just wish the FCC would step in and make number porting universal, even if it has a nominal fee so the carriers or service providers don&#039;t lose money for any number porting infrastructure.The preceding article was brought to you by Journey&#039;s After All These Years and Paul Simon&#039;s Still Crazy After All These Years:
Tags: cable, charter, fcc, journey, magicjack, number porting, paul simon, voip, vonage
Related tags: google voice, number portability, number porting, phone number, number charter, number


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			<title>Nosh from Google a P2P Foursquare Meets Zagats</title>
			<link>http://ohvoice.com/news/Nosh+from+Google+a+P2P+Foursquare+Meets+Zagats</link>
			<description><![CDATA[I just met with Craig Walker the Founder &amp; CEO of Firespotter Labs and he went over where his Google-backed companies will be innovating in the future. As you may recall, Walker founded Dialpad and Grandcentral which eventually got acquired by and became the foundation of Google Voice. Walker explained his new company will be looking to disrupt markets where there is an opportunity to disrupt.We can for example expect more disruption in telephony and the hospitality market was referenced by him as a space worth $600 billion/year and yet there has been little innovation beyond the buzzing pagers they give you when there is a line to get a seat.His company&#039;s new app, Nosh available on iOS and Android aims to merge the best of Foursquare and Zagat with the p2p elements of having reviews done by users who could be your friends. You can rate food at the restaurant where you eat and you can share the rating with others - the scale is 1 to 5 stars. He did a demo of the app for me which you can see in the video below.Eventually when enough data is collected they will allow search functionality showing you what others think of the grilled octopus or seafood bisque at your favorite restaurant.To me this is a great idea because so much of this information is already being shared on Facebook and Twitter but it is uncategorized meaning if someone finds a roach in local diner and tweets about it - how on earth will a potential customer know about it?At some point in the future, this app can add other categories allowing it to rate doctors, retail stores or anything else.If it catches on it will force restaurants and other establishments to have even better levels of quality as potential customers will be able to instantly find negative reviews and consider them before purchasing.
Tags: craig walker, dialpad, firespotter labs, foursquare, google, google ventures, grandcentral, ip communications, nosh, tmcnet, voip, zagats
Related tags: google, walker


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			<title>TMCnet Reviews magicJack Plus</title>
			<link>http://ohvoice.com/news/TMCnet+Reviews+magicJack+Plus</link>
			<description><![CDATA[TMCnet&#039;s Tom Keating reviews magicJack Plus which I first discussed last December and he is impressed - specifically with its ability to utilize both Ethernet and USB - meaning a hotel room for example where only a WiFi connection exists you are able to use your laptop as a bridge to the device which allows you to speak using VoIP over WiFi.Other exciting news - expect iPhone and iPad apps soon. Tom has more on his blog.
Tags: dan borislow, facebook, google, internet telephony, ip communications, magicjack, magictalk, skype, social networking, vocaltec, voip, ymax
Related tags: reviews magicjack


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			<title>Verbalizer: Bringing the Power of Google and Voice to Hackers</title>
			<link>http://ohvoice.com/news/Verbalizer%3A+Bringing+the+Power+of+Google+and+Voice+to+Hackers</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Google Voice Search for Desktop is good but it can be improved and that&#039;s the idea behind The Verbalizer from Breakfast which is an open-source development board designed to help even those who aren&#039;t extremely technical to build their own voice powered features into Google&#039;s new service.The video below will give you a good idea of how it works and the project reminds me a great deal of the early eighties when I first witnessed a TI PC which had TTS built-in.
Tags: breakfast, google, pc, speech recognition, speech technology, ti, tts, verbalizer
Related tags: google voice, google, voice


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			<title>FTC Lets Intel into the Nortel Patent Sweepstakes</title>
			<link>http://ohvoice.com/news/FTC+Lets+Intel+into+the+Nortel+Patent+Sweepstakes</link>
			<description><![CDATA[

The FTC has given Intel permission to bid on assets being sold by  bankrupt Nortel Networks Corp, joining Apple, Google, Ericsson, and others in the high-stakes patent sweepstakes that can have a dramatic impact on the mobile and telecom space.

The  patents cover wireless (including 4G, LTE), data and optical networking, voice, Internet,  semiconductors and other technologies. Whoever wins the patent sweepstakes, lets just hope they don&#039;t become patent trolls.

Tags: 4g, apple, ericsson, ftc, google, intel, lte, networks, nortel, patent, wireless
Related tags: patent sweepstakes, patent, sweepstakes


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			<title>Home Automation Could Be Next Tech Bright Spot</title>
			<link>http://ohvoice.com/news/Home+Automation+Could+Be+Next+Tech+Bright+Spot</link>
			<description><![CDATA[The future looks bring for home automation and energy management vendors

Hold onto your hat tech investors – we already have some hot sectors like consumer electronics, wireless, the cloud, VoIP, collaboration, healthcare automation and security to name a few. Now, home automation is looking like it could be the next big thing as evidenced by this great article by TMCnet’s Peter Bernstein who goes through seven reasons why we are at a home automation/energy management tipping point. What got him started down this path is the fact that iControl Networks just received a $50M cash infusion and has impressive investors and partners.
I don’t want to steal any of his thunder but my personal thoughts are we are getting to a point where disparate products need to start working better with one another. For example, I can watch Netflix on my TV directly via the Samsung widget or via Xbox – but each has a different interface and neither is really pleasant to use. Moreover, consumers have music, photos and videos strewn throughout their devices and bringing them together to accessible by all devices is what consumers want. Apple will give you an iCloud but what happens when you want to tap into it with an Android device?
Earlier today I wrote about how Facebook is integrating deeply into smartphones – if the companies who play in the space aren’t careful they may watch the leading social network becoming the digital hub for all their rich media as well.
Tags: android, collaboration, facebook, icontrol, iphone, media, Microsoft, Netflix, peter bernstein, Samsung, tmc, tmcnet, voip
Related tags: automation energy, energy management, automation


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			<title>Google Promotes $.0007 VoIP Access Rate to FCC</title>
			<link>http://ohvoice.com/news/Google+Promotes+%24.0007+VoIP+Access+Rate+to+FCC</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Google recently weighed in on the Universal  Service Fund (USF) and carrier access charges, which will affect the future of both broadband and VoIP. Over the past few years, there have been past court skirmishes over whether VoIP service providers must contribute to the FCC. VoIP has changed the landscape of telecom regulation and the FCC is scrambling to keep up, while not killing innovation or slowing the fast growing VoIP industry in the process.With Google offering the popular Google Voice offering, which technically isn&#039;t VoIP, but could head in that direction, Google is leery over having to pay into the USF or pay carrier access charges. After all, if Google carries the voice call over IP, why should they have to pay into the USF, which was designed to help rural areas have subsidized access to the PSTN network? However earlier this year the FCC recently proposed expanding the USF, converting the $8 billion fund that subsidizes rural telephone service into one that also helps pay for broadband Internet in underserved areas.More Americans are using alternative communications, including Facebook and Skype, or using a cell phone exclusively and dropping their home landline, which is cutting into the USF budget. To make up for any budget shortfall, Google and others are concerned that the FCC may apply the USF tax to VoIP offerings even if the call is 100% IP-to-IP -- or more likely the call is IP all the way until the last mile where it hops onto the PSTN. Additionally, Skype, Vonage, and other VoIP providers have been exempt from paying the same exchange rates that traditional carriers pay to carry swap calls on the PSTN, which the FCC is also looking to address.Google recently met with the FCC and sent a  letter to the FCC pointing out Google&#039;s views on USF reform. In part, Google stated, &quot;Noting the genesis of the “information services” definition in the Telecommunications Act of 1996, and the FCC’s earlier decisions to promote enhanced services by treating their providers as local end-users, we reiterated that the FCC should hew closely to the statute in classification decisions and continue to encourage services that provide end users with the capability to store, access, transform, process, and utilize data. Regarding carrier compensation and traffic exchange, we explained that reform must be responsive to evolving traffic flows. Voice traffic is decreasing relative to other forms of communications traffic, and based on Cisco estimates, is projected to be just 0.3% of all network traffic in just a few years.&quot;With voice becoming just 0.3% of traffic, it&#039;s no wonder the FCC wants to re-evaluate current regulations. Further, Google and VoIP providers are standing behind the landmark Telecommunications Act of 1996, which say they are an information service rather than a  telecommunications service and therefore should be exempt from paying interconnection fees. Google is hoping this exemption remain should they start offering direct  SIP calling via their Google Voice platform or any other voice-based  black project they&#039;re working on. But they also see the writing on the wall and that the FCC is moving to include VoIP services in intercarrier compensation.In the letter, Google stated, &quot;At the same time, market-based arrangements for transport of IP-based traffic typically focus on capacity or port size, and are not based on per-minute fees. Thus, imposing today’s ICC regime on all forms of IP traffic exchange in order to retain per-minute access charges for voice minutes would be allowing “a very small tail to wag a very large dog.” We also noted that a rate of $0.0007 per-minute has been agreed upon by some parties (e.g., Bandwidth.com and Verizon), underscoring that market-based commercial terms typically reflect rates far lower than interstate access charges. Further, we suggested that such a rate could represent a sensible starting point in a transition to a bill-and-keep regime. Bill-and-keep, as an endstate for ICC reform, better reflects current market-based arrangements and future network and traffic realities, and maximizes carriers’ network upgrade incentives.&quot;
Google doesn&#039;t like the idea of paying access charges, but they certainly prefer the idea of a low flat-rate .0007 cent per-minute ICC (Inter-Carrier Compensation) instead of paying interstate/intrastate access charges, which have complex federal and state regulations and rates that are much higher.Continue reading Google Promotes $.0007 VoIP Access Rate to FCC...
Tags: fcc, google, google voice, icc, intercarrier compensation, pstn, usf, voip
Related tags: access charges, market based, based arrangements, google voice, traffic exchange, google


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]]></description> 
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			<title>CounterPath Hosted Service Delivers Over-the-Top Fixed Mobile Services</title>
			<link>http://ohvoice.com/news/CounterPath+Hosted+Service+Delivers+Over-the-Top+Fixed+Mobile+Services</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Today, Counterpath launched a hosted service that enables wireline operators to deliver voice and SMS to any mobile phone on any mobile network. Their NCG Exchange product gives telcos, cable operators, hosted VoIP providers, Internet Telephony service providers, CLECs and other Wireline Operators with a cost-effective solution for enabling Over-the-Top, Fixed-Mobile Services. One of the features includes Voice Call Continuity (VCC), which Counterpath&#039;s Todd Carothers demonstrated to me at ITEXPO. 
With NCG Exchange, wireline operators can immediately provide their enterprise, SMB and SOHO customers with mobile VoIP and messaging services that are delivered over-the-top (OTT) of mobile networks, regardless of which carrier the customer uses.
Hosted and provisioned by CounterPath, NCG Exchange services work with any mobile handset – including smartphones and feature phones – without the requirement to install any software on the mobile handset. To further enhance the NCG Exchange service, operators can choose to deploy CounterPath’s Bria iPhone Edition or Bria Android Edition softphones, giving their customers the additional options of communicating over Wi-Fi and 3G/4G IP alongside the standard mobile voice and SMS channels. Operators can also leverage CounterPath’s Bria desktop/laptop PC or Mac softphones, allowing their customers to use their communications services seamlessly across both desktop softphones and mobile phones.
According to Counterpath, &quot;NCG Exchange’s highly flexible, network- and device-agnostic architecture means a wireline operator’s customers now can put a single phone number on their business cards with the confidence that they can always communicate with a single number by voice, IM and SMS – an ability that goes beyond rudimentary find-me/follow-me services. The technology behind NCG Exchange is unique to CounterPath and leverages the company’s intellectual property portfolio, which includes patents that enable single-number identities and seamless service delivery across disparate fixed, mobile, legacy and IMS networks.&quot;
Other benefits to wireline operators include: 

New revenue sources. Wireline operators now can offer SMS-to-VoIP and VoIP-to-SMS messaging services to their customers. SMS is a premium service for end users and promotes greater adoption of VoIP softphones.


Expedite service launch. NCG Exchange is fast and easy for operators to implement within weeks instead of months. Operators can refine and take NCG services in-house as they ramp traffic on the NCG Exchange platform.


CapEx-free implementation. NCG Exchange requires no additional network infrastructure and no new customer devices because its OTT design leverages existing investments. 

“NCG Exchange gives wireline operators a fast, cost-effective way to remain relevant in a communications environment that is moving beyond voice and fixed-location communications,” said Todd Carothers, Senior Vice President of Marketing and Products, CounterPath. “Sprint’s recent integration of Google Voice, including offering unlimited calls to mobile users and a single voicemail box, highlights a new trend in mobile VoIP. CounterPath’s NCG Exchange provides mobile, cable telephony and wireline operators with powerful new options for capitalizing on that trend while going beyond rudimentary find-me/follow-me services, such as Google Voice, to provide a suite of enterprise-grade single-number services. NCG Exchange puts operators in complete control of services creation so they can maximize revenue opportunities, protect their margins and fend off Skype, Rebtel and other companies that are encroaching on their markets.”
NCG Exchange for wireline operators is available from CounterPath now.
Tags: counterpath, fmc, mobile phone, ncg exchange, sip, sms, voice call continuity, voip
Related tags: wireline operators, fixed mobile, single number, google voice, messaging services, mobile


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			<title>Feel the Nostalgia! Turn Rotary Phone into a VoIP Handset!</title>
			<link>http://ohvoice.com/news/Feel+the+Nostalgia%21+Turn+Rotary+Phone+into+a+VoIP+Handset%21</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Now normally you wouldn&#039;t want to use a corded phone to make VoIP calls and be chained to a 6 foot corded talk distance. That is unless of course you want to feel the nostalgia of the early 1980s (and earlier) by using a rotary corded phone to make VoIP calls. Tyler Brainerd found an old Model 500 rotary phone at Goodwill, which he then turned into a handset for his computer.He explained, &quot;I am a rather heavy google voice user, and I was thrilled when google  implemented calling through gmail, except for one thing. I use a  desktop, which has only a token crap webcam, and not a decent microphone  at all. Thus, I could rarely make use of a fantastic feature of being  able to call without using my phone at all, and simply using a browser  window in my regular work flow. I toyed around with using a headset, but it just didn’t do it for me.&quot; The Model 500 rotary phone he modded was just what he needed to feel the nostalgic love. Old tech meets new tech and is reborn! Now he can use the rotary phone as a standard audio and microphone device which will work with any standard VoIP app, including Skype, Google Voice, etc.It&#039;s still a work in progress. He still have to find a way to set up the hookflash button to kill the connection of the speaker and microphone. Currently, he has to deactivate it on the computer manually or unplug it manually.Now, if he can revive this humongous 1980s cellphone (play video), I&#039;ll be really impressed!Via LifeHacker
Tags: google voice, lifehacker, nostalgia, rotary, rotary phone, skype
Related tags: rotary phone, corded phone, google voice, model rotary, phone, rotary


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			<title>Is Google Voice The Bride or the Bride&#039;s Maid?</title>
			<link>http://ohvoice.com/news/Is+Google+Voice+The+Bride+or+the+Bride%27s+Maid%3F</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Image via CrunchBase
Google left GoogleVoice off the list of presentations from Google I/O last week and Skype Journal&#039;s Phil Wolff is all upset and cranky. In a short terse post today the all things IP and Skype pundit and friend goes off on a semi rant asking:
&quot;Where’s the platform, folks? Will Skype’s platform come to market first and better? Or is Google ceding the field?&quot;
First, if they were to be on the agenda, given the sale of Skype to Microsoft being announced just before the start of the event, Google did the right thing in not trying to make news about anything GoogleVoice last week. Talk about getting drowned out by bigger, but necessarily better. Secondly, GoogleVoice is what it is. Can it do more? Sure, but I would bet that each week more and more users come on board, and as more and more people shift to the best pre-paid deals around, the platform is second to keeping your phone number. Remember, the premise of GoogleVoice from it&#039;s GrandCentral days was &quot;one number. For life.&quot; No one at Google on the GoogleVoice team has forgotten that premise. Third, Google is not a phone company, and they have steered clear of regulatory hurdles that impacted Skype for years. Google gives you a number. They then send you a text, or email you your voice mail. Some smart folks have figured out how to do some parlor tricks using GoogleVoice but for the most part, for people other than who are at the level of Phil and his cohorts, GoogleVoice makes being called or texted via one number easy. And you don&#039;t hear many complaints from users. The service works and it&#039;s free.
In my view before GV rolls out an expanded platform, they should move into the international arena with DID&#039;s in more countries, the ability to terminate, for a fee, to numbers in those countries and more, not simply be able to call or text to those nations. Then, and only then, will there be the need to start adding more. For now, if you want more features, and other tricks. check out services like FONYOU or YOUMAIL. They are in the platform business, and they will be open to Phil&#039;s business.
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