IP Telephony

Vonage spent nearly $1.4 million to lobby Feds in 2007

The Associated Press reports that Vonage spent nearly $1.4 million to lobby the federal government in 2007.

February 29, 2008 by Russell Shaw in Telcos

Should software be patented? This site would like the practice stopped

A new website entitled End Software Patents is attempting to galvanize public support to accomplish that goal.Here's the core of their argument:Patents differ from copyright in one key manner: independent invention is a valid defense against claims of copyright infringement.

February 28, 2008 by Russell Shaw in CXO

Asterisk Voicemail for iPhone on way; here's a peek

On his website, Asterisk developer Chris Carey posts an interesting preview of something he is building called Asterisk Voicemail for iPhone.Chris says Voicemail for iPhone will allow you to check your voicemail messages on your house or business line from your iPhone.

February 28, 2008 by Russell Shaw in Enterprise Software

Don't want Comcast junk mailers? They'll charge you $1.99 "service fee"

Update: Comcast has contacted the customer referenced below, has apologized for the charge, has refunded it, says was applied in error, counseled the customer service rep not to do this, and said it won't happen again. But not before this all went down:In addition to Comcast's invoices- which already are too much- they'll send you promotional mailers throughout the month.

February 28, 2008 by Russell Shaw in Telcos

Reader: Vonage assigned my Packet8 number, and I'm not even a Vonage customer

I've just received an email from "dmuniz," who is a reader of this blog.Are you ready for another Vonage horror story this Thursday afternoon?

February 28, 2008 by Russell Shaw in Telcos

Google offers free voicemail, phone number to ALL SF homeless

Google said today it is giving a free lifetime phone number and voice mail to every single homeless person in San Francisco who wants one.The effort, which part of Project Homeless Connect, will enable a homeless person to check his or her messages from any phone.

February 28, 2008 by Russell Shaw in Mobility

Here's my problem with many rogue coders, hackers, Open Source cultists

I'll call a spade a spade here.Too many hackers, coders, and open source religionists are elitists.

February 27, 2008 by Russell Shaw in Mobility

Is Apple going to ease up on iPhone jailbreakers? Based on what COO said yesterday, kind of sounds like it

In remarks at an investment conference yesterday, Apple chief operating officer Tim Cook said that because the demand for hacked iPhones exists, there would always be a level of hacking.That type of hacking could be taken to be the type of jailbreaking that when performed successfully, can "free" iPhone from its tethers to geographically exclusive carriers such as AT&T Mobility in the U.

February 27, 2008 by Russell Shaw in iPhone

Attn. Stanford students, Palo Alto street peeps: FCC Comcast Torrent-thwart hearing to Stanford?

Valleywag is hearing that a "do-over" of yesterday's net neutrality-overlayed FCC hearing about Comcast's thwarting of Torrent packets may be headed to the campus of Stanford University in Palo Alto.I wonder how happy Comcash will be to face the citizenry's champion of net neutrality and reasonable copyright.

February 27, 2008 by Russell Shaw in Government : US

The music business is dead. Or dying. Or morphing. Or all of the above

Five hundred music business execs gathered today at the Digital Music Forum East conference in New York.To read Nate Anderson's account in Ars Technica, attendees differed on the matter of the importance of record labels.

February 27, 2008 by Russell Shaw in Social Enterprise

9-1-1 VoIP passes Senate, but that's far from a complete solution

The IP-Enabled Voice Communications and Public Safety Act of 2007 has just been passed by the U.S.

February 27, 2008 by Russell Shaw in Hardware

iotum's conference call Facebook app picks up three new intl partners

Internet calling solutions provider iotum has announced expanded availability for its FREE Conference Calls application on Facebook.Internatinal in scope, the expansion fir the five-month-old service is being facilitated by agreements with Internet communications partners Truphone in the U.

February 26, 2008 by Russell Shaw in Banking

Lose your VoIP in today's massive South Florida blackout?

(via South Florida Sun-Sentinel)Quoted on the website of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel newspaper, Florida Power & Light spokeperson Aletha Player estimated that some 700,000 South Floridians lost power due to a shutdown at an FP&L nuke plant today.Power losses and VoIP don't play well together, especially when we are talking about VoIP over your PC.

February 26, 2008 by Russell Shaw in Networking

Comcast hires these people off the street to help fill gallery for FCC Torrent-thwart hearings

Seems as though Comcast wanted to ensure a sympathetic gallery crowd for yesterday's FCC hearings about the broadband Internet giant's habit of thwarting BitTorrent packets and connections.So what better way to do just that than getting some warm bodies off the street and then paying them to sit there and "hold spaces" for local Comcast employees who were "invited" to show up.

February 26, 2008 by Russell Shaw in Networking

Pics: once was a CompUSA, now a big empty box

It's now bare-to-the-walls time for CompUSA.Gizmodo has a couple of shots of a Portland, Oregon CompUSA, stripped clean.

February 26, 2008 by Russell Shaw in Tech Industry

Russell Shaw

Latest Posts