Tag Archive
Google Voice + magicJack = $1.66/month Phone Bill
What do you get when you combine Google Voice + MagicJack? Well, you get $1.66/month phone service, of course. First, you need a MagicJack which costs $39.99 for the first year and includes the USB device. Subsequent years are $19.99/year or $1.66/month. Second, you need to get Google Voice, which is... »
Sponsored WiFi Access, Sending Party Pays and The Future Of Media
We continue to see more of what I am calling the sponsored model of public WiFi. After all the municipal models failed, with city and county governments in many places buying into a very flawed model that was heavily overplayed by Earthlink and a group of advisors to cities, plus an over dependence on... »
StarTech.com ConXit Connection Wizard Helps You Find Right Connector for Home Theater, PC, and more
Ever get frustrated trying to convert Component to HDMI or convert from one video connector to another because your TV is 10 years only and doesn’t support HDMI? Even if you are a home theater guru, the number of converter options and cabling options can be immense and downright confusing. Well, StarTech.com, a manufacturer of... »
FCC Proposes Applying Net Neutrality to Carriers’ Wireless Networks
Today, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowsk said that wireless carriers shouldn’t be allowed to block certain types of Internet traffic flowing over their networks. This has huge implications for the VoIP industry, since as I wrote last week, AT&T blocks port 5060 (SIP) on their 3G data network, thus blocking VoIP... »
Cox Communications Expands Fast 50Mbps Broadband Internet to Virginia
Cox Communications today expanded its fastest broadband service to residential and business customers in Northern Virginia. Now offered in Fairfax County and Fredericksburg it delivers up to 50 Megabits per second (Mbps) downloads and 5 Mbps uploads using DOCSIS 3.0. Last month, this service was launched in Lafayette, Louisiana. The third generation of cable’s DOCSIS... »
AT&T’s LTE Plans Taking Shape In Slow Motion
Updated: With Verizon planning to launch its first trial LTE network sometime by 2010 and the perceived threat of Apple switching allegiances to an owner of a faster network, you would think AT&T would get its LTE plans on the front burner. Well, that is not the case — Ma Bell is taking its... »
Cox Will Shape Its Broadband Traffic; Delay P2P & FTP Transfers
Cox Communications, the third-largest cable company and broadband service provider, is joining Comcast in traffic shaping and delaying traffic it thinks is not time-sensitive. They call it congestion management, making it seem like an innocuous practice, though in reality it is anything but. Chalk this up to yet yet another incumbent behaving badly! To... »
Verizon VoiceWing Exits VoIP Business
Verizon VoiceWing customers received letters in the last couple of days saying, “We regret to inform you that effective March 31, 2009, Verizon will no longer offer VoiceWing. At that time, all VoiceWing service will be terminated”. Rumors of VoiceWing’s demise have been circulating, especially with Verizon FiOS (Voice, Video/TV, data) a much more... »
Cox traffic management good for VoIP?
Network libertarians are up in arms again over network management processes. Cable provider Cox Communications has announced it will trial technology to ensure automatically that all “time-sensitive Internet traffic” moves without delay, including voice calls and streaming video. Less time-sensitive traffic, such as file uploads, P2P, and Usenet newsgroups (People still read Usenet?) “may be momentarily delayed,”... »