Grandstream today announced the release of the GXV3006. The Grandstream GXV3006 is identical in appearance and functionality to the popular GXV3000, but adds a built-in FXS port, allowing the user to connect a traditional analog phone, cordless analog phone, fax machine or other analog telephone device to the IP Videophone. (more…)
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All of you VoIP engineers, installers and end users have heard it, “Keep your faxing off of your VoIP system”
And for good reasons. Fax over IP historically works about 50% of the time, leaving most users scratching their heads as to why.
Let’s put it this way, when someone sends an email and the packets are interrupted, say one or two drop out, the email recipient simply sends a request to the sender, asking for the lost packets, the sender sends those packets again, the recipient re-arranges them and you have your email.
With VoIP on a SIP call, if packet loss occurs, the users may hear a bit of broken silence on the line for short periods of time, simply because voice traffic is considered “real time”. With faxing, if packet loss occurs, since fax machines are considered “dumb terminals” in the VoIP world, many times the fax never even makes it to the fax machine with no alert or notification, or the fax machine displays an error instead of the fax.
For companies conducting their main portion of their business over faxing, this is unacceptable. For health care applications where faxes may be considered “mission critical”, this may be detrimental to a patient’s health.
Late last night VoIP service pioneer Vonage announced a new unlimited calling plan that smells like their answer to Skype’s ever growing foothold in the international calling space.
Named “Vonage World”, this new service offering from Vonage offers unlimited flat rate ($24.99 per month) calling to more than 60 countries, including India, Mexico and China. Previously Vonage offered unlimited calling plans for the U.S. and Canada, with international calling billed on a per minute basis.
At $24.99 the Vonage World plan is solid option for those in need of unlimited international calling.
For example, the current SkypeOut rate for calls from the U.S. to Mexico is $0.114 per minute. Under the Vonage World plan one would need to use over 220 minute before the plan made more final sense than a per minute Skype plan.
But if you’ve got a mother like mine, an obsessive girlfriend or a large network of friends, spending three and a half to four hours a month on the phone is nothing.
If you’re like most people just getting started with VoIP you’re probably finding the enormous amount of choice in desktop VoIP phones a bit overwhemling.
Sure choice is great. But with over 300 different options currently available making a decision isn’t always easy.
Heck, I’ve been using and reviewing desktop VoIP phones for the last six years and often find my own brain spinning from all of the different options.
Yes that’s right.
Unidata, the makers of the popular SIP WiFI phone WPU-7700 have introduced their latest SIP based WiFI phone, but with a big twist…..it supports video!!! May I introduce to you the Unidata SQ-3000…
One of our readers recently shared some issues they were having getting the Linksys / Cisco WIP310 WiFi VoIP Phone up and running on Trixbox Pro. Trixbox PRO is the “hybrid hosted” version of Trixbox, quite a bit different from normal Trixbox CE, and SIP setup is much different than a normal Trixbox CE system. In short, you will perform the following steps through the Trixbox PRO web GUI:
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Aastra’s recent announcement of the 312W 802.11 b/g wireless VoIP phone last week is the latest in a growing number of mobility solutions for VoIP users.
As Cory Andrews pointed out in his 2009 WiFi VoIP phone round-up, as soon as some manufacturers pulled out of the wireless VoIP game, new ones have entered. And the new offerings in this space aren’t just of the 802.11 b/g variety – DECT is also growing in popularity.
Manufacturers don’t usually release new products unless there is a need and demand. So who are those in need driving the growth of these mobility solutions?
Not surprisingly, the customers are all over the place.
From the home user looking to replace their legacy cordless handset to the enterprise executive who spends their days all over the corporate campus, mobility solutions are increasingly coming up in conversations.
And with good reason.
Wireless VoIP technology has continued to evolve and today is much more reliable than it was even two years ago. Price points for end points and associated infrastructure have also fallen making them much more accessible.
Sprinkle in the ever increasing “work from anywhere” (even inside your own building) sentiments and it is no wonder VoIP mobility solution offerings are continuing to pop-up.
The story of the growth of VoIP mobility solutions isn’t complete though. There is still a lot of debate over which technology, 802.11 or DECT, will eventually win out as the dominate technology.
Having used both technologies extensively, DECT has won me over.
But given the continued investment in 802.11 solutions by manufacturers, 802.11 isn’t dead. And with demand continuing to grow there is seems to be room for both.
Or will there be?
As of the latest software release by Aastra (2.5.1.2000 Patch July 09), the following Aastra IP Phones now support Electronic Hookswitch (EHS) or otherwise known as DHSG.
If you are not familiar with EHS, it is a feature that allows you to answer your phone using your wireless VoIP headset without the need for a Handset Lifter or corded solution.
Matt Riddell over at VentureVoIP has put together a great list of 35 free applications and bolt-on’s for Asterisk Open Source PBX. Many of these may be familiar to our readers, including FreePBX, FOP (Flash Operator Panel), A2Billing and ViciDial. Others like Asterisk Desktop Assistant and Asterisk.Net were new to me and I suspect many others.
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