Window(s) Shopping

By Stuart Zipper

I was window shopping in the mall the other day, when almost amusingly I found myself Windows – not window – shopping. There, in the middle of Denver’s upscale Cherry Creek Mall was a Microsoft Surface booth, and not far away was an AT&T store with a snazzy new Windows Phone 8-powered phone, running on LTE.

As of today, neither the Surface or the phone support full-featured VoIP service, but that’s just temporary. Once the killer Surface – the one with the full Windows 8, not the so-called “RT” version available right now – hits market in January, there should be no problem running Phone.com’s recently-released Communicator client on the device. After all, I’m already running it on my Window 7 laptop (which I would gladly replace with the new super-Surface, given the chance).

And thus once the super-Surface hits market – You’ll have a $1,500 cellphone/office switchboard extension, assuming the Surface comes with LTE support, which it almost most certainly will. But for that you’ll get a cellphone with a giant screen and the full capabilities of a high-powered PC.

Meanwhile, over at the AT&T store, the salesman told me that he had measured the real bandwidth he was getting on his shiny new LTE phone, and it clocked in at 40 Mb/s. That’s better than three times the speed I’m getting from my Century Link DSL (I could get that speed DSL, but at a price at least three times what I’m now paying). It’s also far more than needed for excellent VoIP communications, and as I’ve written before, the bit of polishing LTE needs to shine with VoIP has been tested and should hit market soon. Software to turn the cellphones in VoIP devices, indeed into extensions of the virtual switchboard offered by Phone.com and other VoIP providers, can’t be far behind.

Can a Phone Replace a Computer if it has a Keyboard, Monitor and Mouse?

Do your employees really need a computer to get their work done? Would a tablet be sufficient if it had a keyboard?  What about a phone only?  Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to just issue a phone to your employees instead of a phone and a laptop. Samsung just announced a $99 docking station for their Note 2 cell phone. The dock will allow users to connect a monitor or TV as well as a keyboard, mouse and external drive.  This could be a huge money saver for small/medium sized companies trying to squeeze every dime out of their budget.

The docked Note 2 should allow users to take care of their email as well as create and edit, documents, spreadsheets and presentations.   Being the Phone.com blog I will of course point out that the Note 2 can fulfill all of your Phone.com needs with out superb Android app.  Web surfing wise the Note 2 has a built in browser and users can download Chrome as well.  If the users feel like they’re missing out on some feature their computer had but the phone does not there’s probably an app to supplement it.

This isn’t a computer replacement but a less expensive way to get your employees connected and working.  I can imagine that employees get issued a Note 2 and each cubicle/office is equipped with a docking station plus monitor, keyboard and mouse.  I’ve written about this in the past on my personal blog and I see it as the future in small businesses to some extent.  I can also picture this getting very popular in a place like South Korea and anywhere that has an internet cafe mentality.

If I get a Note 2 I’ll probably buy the docking station.  Is this something you would consider for you personally or in your business?  Let me know on Facebook or Twitter.

Phone.com Ranked #23 on the 50 Fastest Growing Companies in New Jersey

Last night Alon and I attended the  NJBIZ awards dinner honoring the 50 Fastest Growing Businesses in New Jersey. The award dinner and ceremony took place at the beautiful Palace in Somerset New Jersey.

We were honored to find out we were ranked #23 on this prestigious list which included both private as well as publicly traded companies.

 NJBIZ is a great publication for any business owner big or small in NJ and provides information and resources for all industries.  As a company serving small businesses and with well over 1000 small business customers in NJ we are very proud to share in the success of NJ and especially at such hard economic times and after the devastation of superstorm Sandy. We are also happy to do our small share helping storm small business victims.

This recognition follow our #262 rank in the national INC500 list for fastest growing private companies in America.

We owe our success to all our employees and to our customers. Yes that is perhaps what everyone says but we have an amazing team of first and foremost extremely talented and caring customer service and support managers led by a great management team that will think of anyway to help our customers. That is our company moto. I don’t want to sound like I am just saying this “for protocol”. Read the unsolicited feedback we constantly receive from our customers in email responses, social media and on phone calls and also read about how our customer service is inspired.

We also have a great (and growing)engineering and development team as well as product and marketing experts and we are extremely lucky to have such a group of knowledgeable professionals.Hearing the passionate debates and discussions in meetings and reading the late night and weekend emails about one customer problem or question, or about a new feature, are clearly prove to us that we are on the right path and that our employees are excited and proud.

And although we are a NJ company we  have a large presence in San Diego. We are truly a coast to coast company and so is any award we get.

We need to thank all our employees and our customers and look forward to an even more exciting 2013 (well – we still have more to come in 2012 first).

Good Luck With Sandy

With hurricane Sandy already here in some parts of the country and destined to do damage unfortunately we want to wish everyone a safe and sound next few days.  We’re no experts here but suggest you evacuate if you’re told to and please be prepared.

Here are a few useful links that may help you:
1. Google Crisis Map
2. Governments hurricane information page
3. Follow FEMA on Twitter Twitter.com/FEMA

We have one Phone.com suggestion as well: change your call forwarding settings.  This will allow you to forward your calls to your cell phone, a business partner or employees cell phone or you can forward it to a land-line as well.

How to Forward your calls:

1. Log in to your control panel and go to the Call Handling Rules under Settings
2. Choose your setting for Incoming Call Type then choose Forward in How Calls Should Be Handled
3. Add your chosen number into the cell and click the add telephone button to the right of the cell if you’d like to forward your number to multiple numbers.  Forward it to as many as you like.
4. Lastly scroll to the bottom and press Save Rule Settings

(see image below)

Good luck to all of our readers, customers and every single person being affected by Sandy.

The FTC Takes Aim At Robocallers

By Stuart Zipper

A challenge by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to any and all “innovators” (a nice way to say hackers) to come up with a way to block those annoying – and quite illegal – robocalls pitching everything from debt reduction to new credit cards (I guess to get you into more debt), or perhaps changes your electric provider, went live a few days ago (on Oct. 25, to be precise). The prize for anyone who comes up with a workable scheme is $50,000 for companies with less than 10 employees, or a ‘Federal Trade Commission Technology Achievement Award’ for larger companies.

The real prize, though, is “opportunities for promotion, exposure, and recognition by the FTC” of the winner. That could add up to real cash, since the winner gets to keep all rights to their solution. Factors in the judging, the FTC says on the web site it set up for submissions at http://robocall.challenge.gov/ , are 50% for “Does it work?” and 25 percent each for “Is it easy to use?” and “Can it be rolled out.”

The saddest part of the robocall plague is the fact that it is being made possible by VoIP technology. Con artists have always been with us, but in the olden days of plain old telephone service – olden as in five or ten years ago – it was fairly easy to track the callers down. But now they use layers of VoIP technology, jumping from server to server in the cloud, and spoofed caller IDs that mean the names and/or numbers that show up on caller IDs are meaningless. Setting your VoIP system to block calls from such a spoofed number is futile, because the con artists change the numbers regularly. And since many of the con schemes are launched from overseas, sadly involving American expats in many cases, it’s tough for the long arm of the U.S. law to reach them.

I’m not planning to enter the contest myself, but as I’ve written before about this issue, users of Phone.com and many other business-oriented VoIP providers do have an at least temporary solution. Instead of simply letting your phone ring when someone calls, use menus requiring callers to “press 1,” or whatever number you choose, to reach you. So far, the robocallers haven’t been programmed to respond to such requests. I’ve even gotten voicemail that consists of the last few seconds of such illegal pitches, since the robocallers just blithely keep playing their pitch even if they don’t reach a human.

This won’t, of course, stop live callers. But live calls by the millions would similarly cost the con artists many millions, making their schemes nonviable.

For those who do want to enter the contest, all rules and submission forms are at http://robocall.challenge.gov/ and the entry deadline is January 17 at 5 PM EST. Judging will then begin immediately and is scheduled to be complete on March 31. The winners will be names on April 15 at 2 PM EST.

Phone.com Offers Caller Analytics

Today Phone.com announced that we’re working with VoodooVox to provide you with their analytics services. The data is broken into 6 categories Demographics, Social, Activity, Technology, Behaviour and lastly an Overview.

“Phone.com is a leader in SOHO telephony, and we are pleased to bring the power of VoodooVox Analytics to this new customer base… VoodooVox Analytics enables businesses of all sizes to learn more about their customers without compromising consumer privacy.” Said Mike Durance, CEO of VoodooVox.

“The phone is the most important tool for all of those in business and now, with the Phone.com caller analytics platform, our customers can learn more about their callers, not just listen to them,” said Phone.com CEO and co-founder Ari Rabban. “This service will allow our customers to glean new insight from their call volume the same way that Google Analytics provides valuable insight into web visitors.”

The analytics service is being offered with a 60 day free trial then it’s $2.00/month for the basic offering and  $4.88/month for the full offering.  I suggest at the very least giving it a try and if you like it keep it, if you don’t then cancel before the free trial is up… Though I think you’ll keep it.

Are analytics services useful for your business?  Are you going to give this a try?  Let us know on Facebook or Twitter.

AT&T Disaster Recovery Press Day

By Jeb

AT&T graciously invited me to visit the site of their most recent Disaster Recovery training in Los Angeles, CA and boy was I astounded.  Until yesterday I thought they would arrive in a disaster area with a van and crank up a pole with the cell phone radio equipment on the top and wallah, that was it.  No sir, they have 3 levels of disaster recovery and that is just the very first though it’s more complicated than that.

First is the van with a basic tower and a little bandwidth, then comes a big truck with a great deal more bandwidth.  Bandwidth being the amount of calls/SMS and data that it had handle at one time.  Then comes a giant semi or 2 or even 3 and if it is a big enough disaster they’ll roll up to almost a dozen semi trucks and trailers in and set up a small city.  Yesterday I saw at least 9 semi truck trailers, a few smaller trailers, some off road vehicles with cell antennas built on to them and some medium sized trucks with more satellite dishes then a small cable network.

I’ll get back to the amazing technology in a moment, I want to tell you how this relates to small businesses.  After the attack on 9/11 AT&T lost a major node that was in the basement of one of the towers, this took out much of the communication in the region for it’s customers, business and consumer.  There’s redundancy but this was a high capacity office that was destroyed and it handled a great deal of network traffic.  As the story goes, the AT&T disaster recovery team commandeered (legally) an empty lot across the Hudson and set up shop.  They spliced into an internet hub and within hours they had basic voice service for their teams and within a day or so for the first responders.  Then came the rest of the community a few days later.  As catastrophic and horrific as 9/11 was life had to go on.  Businesses had to reopen, grocery stores HAD to be able to sell food and average small businesses needed to continue to work.  This is where the disaster recovery teams played a role for small businesses and the entire surrounding community.  Twitter didn’t exist and neither did Facebook but many of us still relied on internet access and phone service.  AT&T’s Disaster Recovery team allowed that part of New York and New Jersey to do their best to get back onto their feet.

The technology I saw yesterday was amazing, there were at least 9 giant semi trailers parked with the biggest fibreoptic cables I’ve ever seen coming out of each of them, well except for the shop truck.  This truck had a metal shop with enough equipment to stock a small hardware store.

There was also a hazmat trailer with a full crew.  I watched one guy suit up in the neon green/yellow suit with a respirator.  They told me sometimes they’ll wear a vest with ice packs in it so they can attempt to stay cool.  These guys don’t have easy jobs but when there was a chlorine spill next to a key AT&T node these guys suited up and kept service running until the fire department made the scene safe again.

All in all I had an eye opening day and learned a lot about how AT&T is prepared for disasters.  These folks are all volunteers and they told me they do it for the people and because they love what they do.  They just want to keep your life whether it be your personal life or your business life running smoothly and that’s why they do this.

On behalf of Phone.com I just want to publicly thank the AT&T disaster recovery teams.  They may not be the first responders but they are still helping save lives by keeping us connected.

Never Say No to Networking

By: Jeb

I was reading an interesting article by Kathryn Minshew this morning.  She’s the founder and CEO of The Muse and it sounds like she talks to a lot of start-ups.  She says that she’s asked all the time for advice and her best advice is to network.  Building on that, her best networking advice is “Always say yes to invitations, even if it’s not clear what you’ll get out of the meeting.”.  This sounds like sound advice to me.

I’m guilty of turning down many meetings, especially if I don’t know what I’ll get out of it or if I don’t at least know what they’re about.  After reading Kathryn’s post I decided to travel the 45 minutes to Los Angeles today to attend a Mobile Camp.  I was planning on vising with 1 friend and seeing what kind of networking I could do.  I couldn’t decide if I should make the effort today but I did, now we’ll have to see what comes out of it.

“You could call it making your own luck”  odds are if you don’t get out there and network you won’t meet the people that can help you along on your small business journey.  If you’re an accountant and get the chance to speak at or attend an accountants conference I highly suggest you go.  You may be looking for partners, referrals or to be acquired but if you don’t attend you won’t be able to meet the people there and make those connections.
I met Ari the Phone.com CEO because I was invited to attend a very prestigious wine dinner.  I couldn’t decide if I should go or not because I had to pay but I’m sure glad I did.  I made the commitment (and so did Ari) to attend and it worked out well for both of us it would seem.

Unless you take networking to the extreme I promise no one will engrave on your tombstone “Good guy but networked to much”.  Go for it, go be social.

Analyst Says: Business VoIP Poised For Fast Growth

By: Stuart Zipper

Business VoIP will be one of the top three growth areas in the telecommunications industry, according to a recently-released study by Boston-based research house Atlantic-ACM. (The other two will be machine-to-machine (M2M) communications, and fiber installation.)

It didn’t take Atlantic-ACM’s 300 page study, entitled “Data-Driven Developments: U.S. Telecom Wired and Wireless Sizing and Share 2012-2017,” to convince me of that. But as a long-standing observer of the VoIP market I’m always happy to see people who agree with my prognostications. Frankly, I haven’t read the study itself, but having been involved in such studies myself in the past I’m sure that many of those pages are there to help justify the $9,995 price tag for the study – a fairly typical fee for such work.

“According to our new sizing and share study, Machine-to-Machine (m2m), Business FTTx, and Business VoIP round out the top-three forecast growth products over the next five years,” said ATLANTIC-ACM senior analyst Douglas J. Barnett, as quoted by the research house in its press release. “We expect that strong growth in next-generation business services will help to offset declines from the large embedded base of legacy voice and internet services.”

I find it fascinating that Atlantic-ACM says “help to offset declines,” rather than “will offset declines.” In other words, it’s recognizing that the cost of business VoIP is significantly lower than the cost of traditional business telephony solutions. So although the volume of calls isn’t going to decline, total telecom industry revenue will, even as business VoIP revenue soars.

That’s bad new for traditional phone companies, but great news for the new generation of VoIP providers, such as Phone.com, and for their customers.

Communicator – Phone.com’s Newest Service

By Jeb

As you may already know, Phone.com recently launched our Communicator application.  It’s PC and Mac software that brings a whole new level of interaction to our wonderful customers. Now they can easily make and receive phone calls from their computer, whether it be on a desktop in their home or office or from a hotel room on an island 1,000 miles from the closest desk chair.  In the video below Alon Cohen our CTO and Todd Carothers of Counterpath makers of the Communicator software talk about it during ITExpo in Austin just last week.

The Communicator software is allowing people to continue to make and receive work calls but additionally they can check their voicemail, view faxes, access their address book (way more easily than on a desktop phone) to make phone calls, send SMS and the one big feature I haven’t mentioned yet, conduct face to face video calls, all without a traditional desktop phone.

Todd points out that 40% of Bria’s user base make video calls on top of the regular voice only calls.  This is revolutionizing meetings, in my case I had video call with a friend in France a few weeks back as well as with Ari our CEO in New York.  These 2 separate but necessary face to face meetings would have meant long flights, hotels stays and lost work hours plus thousands of dollars spent.  We conducted our meetings in our respective cities and never took 1 step into an airport.  Beyond the obvious time and money savings it keeps us at home at night with our families and able to work instead of taking red eye flights.  We’re not the first company to do this but we’re the one merging your work phone to your computer.

Have you started using our new Communicator on your computer

Room With A View And VoIP

By Stuart Zipper

Anybody who travels frequently, for either business or pleasure, has probably been burned more than once by outrageous charges for the use of the innocent-looking phone in their room. I’ve been nicked by mandatory charges for phone service even if you don’t use the phone, and absurd charges such as $1 for local phone calls.

Put another way, the phone has become a profit center for many hotels. These days, with the availability of virtual switchboards, many hotels have converted to VoIP – but their charges haven’t been lowered to reflect the radically lower cost of VoIP service. In other words, hotels are simply adding the cost savings represented by VoIP to their profit margin.

The same can be said of many hotels’ broadband services, both wired and wireless. A Wi-Fi fee of $10 a night isn’t unusual, nor is twice that. I’ve even been charged $10 nightly for service that I’ve measured at less than 1 Mb/s. And I’m quite sure that the hotel isn’t paying $300 a month (i.e. $10 daily for 30 days), for that service.

Curiously, the way the hotel business works, the more expensive the hotel room, the more likely the hotel is to levy those high phone and broadband charges. Indeed free Wi-Fi is most common in moderately priced hotels. Free VoIP calls, particularly long distance and international calls, remain virtually unheard of in the hotel business.

Thus I was more than slightly pleased to come across a press release from Hong Kong’s Peninsula hotel, reputed to be one of the finest hostelries in the world (and at room rates that start at $565 one of the priciest), saying that guests would receive free VoIP and broadband, as part of a massive new package of guest room technology. And guests won’t be nickelled and dimed with charges for every call, every data bit, or even for HD movies.

“Complimentary high-speed wired and wireless Internet access also means that international VOIP calls are free, both in-room and when travelling in the hotel’s Rolls-Royce fleet,” the hotel says.

Perhaps I’m being naïve to think that many hotels will imitate the Peninsula, but it would be nice.

One Outgoing Number Is More Unified And Identifiable

Last week my daughter was running a minor fever at school so the secretary decided to call and ask us to pick her up.  My wife was away on a trip and didn’t hear the call.  I got a call from some random number and almost didn’t answer.  I had taken my younger daughter to gymnastics that morning and we were winding down.  Typically I would have ignored a call from an unknown number during gymnastics, the parents participate because it’s a 2 year old class but luckily this time I answered.

The secretary told me what was going on and I went to pick her up.  That would typically be the end of the story but not with me.  I started talking to the principal that day about getting the outgoing number changed to the schools number that I have saved in my cell phone.  There is no reason that when calling from the front office of the school that I don’t see the main school number.  I know more than a few people that don’t take calls from unknown numbers.  I’m not one of those people but I feel like the school should fix this.

That said, does your company have 1 single outgoing number to identify itself when calling.  If you’re a doctors office confirming an appointment with a call or a text don’t you want to use the 1 number your clients most likely have in their cell phone?  To me this just makes sense so when I got the call from my daughters school I was very surprised and more than just a little annoyed.  unified communication is more than just your video conferencing and phone calls using the same program, you need to be able to set this up and forget it and it just work.  That’s what

Discussing our new Phone.com Communicator

Last week, during the ITEXPOConference in Austin, Phone.com announced the launch of our new Phone.com Communicator.

Below is a video interview by our EVP & CTO Alon Cohen discussing the Phone.com Communicator

What Price VoIP Over Wireless?

By Stuart Zipper

I’ve been carefully watching the emerging pricing patterns for wireless broadband when used to carry VoIP, particularly as more and more such applications trickle onto the market. The issue really boils down to whether VoIP is considered a data service, i.e. an application, whose data stream is billed just as any other data use of broadband. That’s the current rule in the U.S., mandated by the FCC, but not necessarily one that will last forever, and also not the rule everywhere in the world.

In the U.S. we’ve now seen both Verizon and AT&T recast their subscription rates to reflect the expectation that eventually VoIP over wireless will supplant traditional voice telephony technology. My best bet is that the initial rate changes we’ve seen won’t be the last, as VoIP over wireless emerges into the mainstream and the carriers gain some experience with real life usage.

Indeed, as LTE (Long Term Evolution) matures, I’m even expecting that wireless technology to supplant landline-based DSL and DOCSIS as the last-mile delivery technology for much of the broadband in the world. In other words, even a business or home VoIP system will actually be using the same wireless technology as mobile phones. Indeed LTE has the potential to deliver in excess of 100 Mb/s broadband, and that’s just the start, with yet another generation of wireless broadband beyond LTE already in the process of being crafted. It’s also a heck of a lot cheaper to run a fiber to an LTE micro-cell that serves a small business or residential area than it is to have to pull fiber, copper, or coaxial cable to each and every location that wants broadband.

For end users of services such as Phone.com, the transition from wired to wireless delivery of broadband will probably be transparent, involving nothing other than changing out the current DSL or DOCSIS modem for an LTE modem (and perhaps plastering over the obsoleted phone jacks in the wall). Users would then simply plug their ATA or VoIP phone into the new modem, and continue with business as usual.

Outside of the U.S., carriers around the world are also struggling to figure out how to price the emerging service. The latest move comes from Telia, which had raised subscribers’ hackles back in March when it said it was going to put a surcharge on VoIP traffic for its wireless broadband users. Now, Telia has backed down from that position, but not without exacting a pound of flesh from consumers. Instead of charging extra for VoIP over wireless, it’s simply doubled its maximum charge for wireless data, from 9 SEK (US$1.40) to 19 SEK (US2.90). To be fair, it has quadrupled the amount of data that maximum pays for, from 0,5 MB to 2 MB.

Put another way, it looks like Telia is expecting to soon see a flood of movement from traditional wireless, and landline, telephony to wireless-based VoIP.

Traveling With An iPad… or Laptop

By: Jeb

Do you travel exclusively with an iPad?  No laptop no problem, right?  I’m not sure.  I’ve tried traveling with only my iPad a few times and it was alright for the most part but it wasn’t great.  I was reading an article about some apps and services that help and it was all pretty basic but pertinent info like save your files in DropBox or Google Drive (used to be Google Docs).  Use an Apple adapter if you’re transferring large media or multiple files.  The best suggestions I read were to use CloudOn if you’re a Microsoft user and utilize Evernote.  Evernote is one of my new favorite apps.  It’s very versatile and the search engine in it is fantastic.  I uploaded a camera phone picture of a menu to Evernote and then was able to search for items on the menu.  That blows my mind, it’s the simple things that do it for me.

Back to the real question, can you travel without a laptop but with an iPad.  If it’s a work related trip or during work days you’ll probably have to answer emails at the very least.  I suggest getting a bluetooth keyboard.  I use a Zagg BT keyboard that’s integrated into a hard case to protect my iPad, front and back.  I’m able to crank through emails as if I’m on my computer.  The issue is what about other work, editing documents, viewing spreadsheets and so on.  Since my last business trip Google has added it’s Google Drive apps ability to edit documents and view spreadsheets natively which is a big deal for me.  Plus I sometimes use QuickOffice Pro for more heavy lifting as a friend likes to put it because it connects with my Google Drive and Dropbox and allows me more flexibility with spreadsheets, it works well with documents as well.

I’m as much posing this laptop or no laptop question to you as I am to me.  I’ll be in San Diego in 2 weeks for business and I’m going laptop free, I’ll have my iPad and bluetooth keyboard.  Let’s hope this goes well.  What is your preference laptop or iPad or both?  What apps help you work on your iPad at home or when you travel?  Let me know on Facebook or Twitter.

Phone.com Is Sponsoring Startup Camp In October

By Jeb

Once again StartupCamp is being held in Austin, Texas and is collocated with the ITExpo.

StartupCamp is a fast-paced “ready, set, pitch” event that offers early-stage entrepreneurs the opportunity to pitch communications innovations of all kinds to an audience of industry leaders, media and investors.

This year 4 companies will each get 5 minutes to “pitch” to the audience.  One of these companies will win but more importantly is the fact that now hundreds of the most important people in the industry will have just seen the future.  Deals will be done, money invested and jobs offered at this event (typically).  It is a great place to rub elbows and network with movers and shakers.

This year Phone.com is proud to once again be a sponsor of StuartupCamp and in that supporting the next generation of superstar companies. John Frankel of ff Venture Capital (a Phone.com investor) will be one of the judges at this event

If you’d like to meet us there or think there’s a company we should check out don’t hesitate to let us know.  Feel free to talk to us on Facebook or Twitter.  If it’s more of a private suggestion I’ll be happy to pass along a message or make an introduction to Ari our CEO, Alon our CTO or Joel our VP of Channel Sales who will be there and happy to meet.

–

Jeb Brilliant

Phone.com

Community Manager

Are Tablet Computers Ready For ‘Real’ VoIP?

By Stuart Zipper

I’m now the proud owner of a shiny new tablet computer – an Android-based Samsung Tab 2 7.0. Given my journalistic interest in VoIP evolution, or some would say the VoIP revolution, one of the first things I did with my new toy was explore its VoIP capabilities.

So far, my results have been mixed. I think I have seen the future, but through a still-cloudy crystal ball.

For starters I loaded a tablet version of Skype, allegedly the most heavily used VoIP application in the world. I can report that it worked, but the video part was sometimes flakey, and it didn’t work most of the time when I was connected to “free” Wi-Fi hotspots. I suspect they have it blocked because video is, after all, a bandwidth hog. And while Skype does use IP to transmit voice and video, so it can legitimately be called VoIP, it’s not the VoIP that replaces traditional landline and cellular service, since it’s not truly a two-way calling service that can reach or be reached by any phone in the world.

Hmm, I thought, let’s see what Samsung has to say about this.

Well Samsung, on its web site, says that the Tab 2 7.0 can’t be used for VoIP because it’s lacking some unspecified internal circuitry. Instead, Samsung suggests, users should spend a few hundred dollars more to get their Note tablet (which I didn’t do because it wasn’t in the family budget), which apparently can handle phone duties according to Samsung. I’ll have to ask my kids about that – two of them have bought Notes within the past two weeks.

But why am I not surprised that, right after Samsung said NO to VoIP, a visitor to the Samsung Web site posted the instructions of how to use the Tab 2 7.0 to make VoIP calls, (no, you don’t hold it up to your head silly – you use Bluetooth or use it as a speakerphone). But again, the suggestion did not lead to a full function solution that one would consider a replacement for their current cellphone.

Actually, what I see the current generation of tablets replacing in cellphones isn’t the voice function at all. I have a smartphone … a very smart phone … but it’s got a tiny screen and keys. I can play movies on my smartphone. I can send text messages. I can read my eMail. I can even write this blog. But my new tab does all of that, is half the price of my current smartphone, and does it all a lot more conveniently and on a much bigger but still very portable screen. I’m finding that the 7 inch form factor is just dandy to carry around continually – relegating my smart phone to primary duty as, well, a phone.

The bottom line is that the tab is not quite ready for prime-time VoIP, especially business VoIP. But it’s getting there, and it’s awfully close to the day when I can see my next tab becoming an extension on my Phone.com virtual switchboard.

In-Car Computer… Bad Idea

By Jeb
While watching a TV commercial last night my wife said to me “Who would have ever thought there’d be computers in cars?” I responded that I’ve had a computer in my car since 1997, then explained I’m talking about a cell phone.

There’s no reason we should have full blown computers in cars.  It doesn’t know us, it’s not robust and part of our everyday life.  It really only gets us from point A to point B.  Now our cell phones are with us nearly everywhere we go.  From the minute most people wake up in the morning to the time they go to sleep their cell phone is most likely within 3 feet of them, I know mine is.  I believe our cell phones should be the computers in our car and the hardware in the car should just be a medium or a go between for us to view the zeros and ones on our phones.

My cell phone has all the navigation I need and let’s say I get a new Toyota SUV and use an iPhone, if I don’t already have the navigation that Toyota (or Ford, Chevy, Nissan, etc.) may want me to use they can just publish their own app for me to download and use when I’m in my car.  I don’t mind downloading an app like that, it’s better than being stuck with the same interface in my car for the next 3 years of my lease, at least the app is easily updatable.

Most people store their music on their phones or have the ability to stream it from the cloud and by using your phone versus your car to stream music you can keep from having to pay for another device on your mobile plan.

Even my work number is always with me in my cell phone with Phone.com.  All my calls are just forwarded to my cell and now with cars having hands free I can talk while driving.  In the old days you’d just have another number for your car phone, now it’s so much easier.

In my mind, there’s NO reason to have a full blown computer in my car that I interface with, I like my phone and that’s what I want to use in my car.  Apple, Google, MS (Nokia) and BlackBerry have all spent millions if not billions of dollars on mobile operating systems and millions of man hours, Chevy or Ford don’t need to compete with that, just build on it with an app for my car.

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Jeb Brilliant

Phone.com

Community Manager

Sending a fax with Phone.com

Steps To Send A Fax

Sending and receiving faxes may be an old form of communication but it’s still relevant.  To this day, if you want to buy a house or do real estate transactions you most likely will need to fax paperwork.  Some banks still use faxes and even the IRS in some cases will only accept or send faxes.  It’s beyond me why a scanned copy of a document can’t be emailed but I don’t make these rules.  That’s why I wanted to share with you the few steps it takes to send a fax from your Phone.com control panel.

• First off what you’ll want to do is log into your Phone.com control panel
• Then on the left side of your screen click Send a Fax (last item in the column)
• Then fill out the form, you may choose not to use a cover page if you prefer, most importantly don’t forget to include the outgoing Fax Number
• You will need to Choose File and select what file it is you want to send
• Finally hit Preview Fax and if it’s acceptable press the Send Fax button

Your fax should be sent and if you left the box ticked you will get an email confirmation.

Do you still use fax machines in your workplace?  I can’t remember the last time I needed one but I do know it comes up every so often and when it does you’ll be glad to have the ability to send a fax from Phone.com.  Let us know if you have a fax machine in your office, we’re listening on Facebook and Twitter.

Are The New Lumias Destined For Greatness?

By: Jeb

Nokia and Microsoft sitting in a tree… Yes they’re collaborating and making sweet sweet music in the form of phones. Nokia has always been known to make rock solid phones though their Symbian platform had been on a decline over the last 5 years or so and Microsoft has been known to make some of the most popular software in the world. Now imagine putting these 2 companies together and walla you could either have one of the most beautiful and well built mobile phones or a pathetic sad looking brick of a device. Lucky for both companies (mostly Nokia) they’ve made a beautiful device, this being their second successful go around at it.

So is this collaboration a good choice, I don’t know just yet, only time will tell, but it seems like it is at this point. Microsoft Office being the most commonly used software bundle in business and beyond is loaded right onto the Nokia Lumia I was given to review earlier this year. It’s amazing to me that I can edit a Microsoft Word document or Excel spreadsheet on my phone. It’s been possible for years but not to this extent.

I believe this will be a powerful union but I’m concerned about it’s long term lifespan. I think the Lumia devices Nokia announced yesterday the 820 and it’s big brother the 920 have so much potential. It seems like Windows Phone devices are perfect business tools from my perspective. You can update a PowerPoint presentation on the way to a meeting in the elevator and never have to take out your laptop. Anything that can make my life that much easier must be destined for greatness.

These are just my opinions, what are yours? Do you or anyone you know use a Windows Phone device? What do you think of them? Let us know on Facebook or Twitter.