Archive for December, 2006

Cordless Dual phone for Skype from RTX

Thursday, December 14th, 2006

The Danish company RTX Products A/S has introduced a cordless telephone handset that works with internet phone service provider Skype’s services and does not require a personal computer. The new DUAL phone helps people to save money on their phone bill and gives them more flexibility when using Skype.

The company’s DUAL phone 3088 can also be used as a normal phone using a landline. It works by connecting its base station to both a broadband internet connection for Skype calls and a traditional analog landline connection for making calls over the public switched telephone network(PSTN). The cordless aspect of the product is provided by DECT, a wireless technology well known for high reliability, low cost and no interference problems.

The phone has a simple Skype user interface and possesses almost all the Skype voice features. To use it on the internet, however, the internet connection must always be on. Users will have the option of making a Skype call or landline call and also Skype PC calls, SkypeOut, SkypeIn and Voicemail. The phone is priced 159 euros and has a colour display and an operating time of more than 10 hours of talk time as well as up to 140 hours at standby.

RTX Products A/S is a 100% owned subsidiary of RTX Telecom A/S, an internationally oriented group which develops and markets advanced high-tech solutions and products such as the DUALphone, Wireless Local Loop (WLL), Bluetoothâ„¢ headsets and healthcare products.

VoIP : The future is bright

Thursday, December 7th, 2006

VoIP is a telephony term for a set of facilities for managing the delivery of voice information using Internet Protocol (IP) and is the future of communication.

With worldwide revenues from Internet voice technologies expected to grow from about $13 billion in 2002 to nearly $200 billion by 2007, Lets take a look at the different technologies and progress of VoIP.

In VoIP technology already available long-distance phone calls, conferencing, e-mail, and other communications are now affordable and flexible.

Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) retrieves server responses and handles client requests and is able to determine the end system that will be used for a communication session, automatically sets the relevant parameters of the communication at receiver and user ends and then manages call transfer and call termination. SIP has taken VoIP technology forward in terms of operational efficiency and many VoIP vendors are now including SIP as standard, bringing SIP to a growing audience.

Another influential element in the future of VoIP is improvements in VoIP gateways. Gateways are developing from PC-based platforms to more robust embedded systems, which will be able to handle an increased amount of call traffic.

Currently, the most promising areas of development for VoIP are corporate intranets and commercial extranets. Companies are already looking to remove fax traffic off the PSTN and relocate it on to the Internet and corporate Intranet, through FAXoIP gateways and via IP-capable fax machines.

Another area of growth will be video conferencing. Video conferencing (H.323) with data collaboration (T.120) will become a popular method for corporate communications in the future, as network performance and interoperability increase.

The future of VoIP as a major communication method over the coming years is therefore assured. VoIP Telecommunications are here to stay.

Source: Ezine Articles

Will wireless networks disappear from schools?

Friday, December 1st, 2006

As schools prepare themselves to be tech savvy and more and more schools are putting transmitters in classrooms to give pupils wireless access from laptops to the school computer network and the internet, yet another debate poses a question mark on the use of wireless.

Many parents and some scientists are concerned that low levels of microwave radiation emitted by the transmitters could be harmful, causing loss of concentration, headaches, fatigue, memory and behavioral problems and possibly cancer in the long term.

Although there is no conclusive evidence for this, yet the debate is sure to send a shock through wireless LAN vendors, for whom the education market is a critical growth area. This is the latest in what seems to be a rising number of wireless controversies involving school-age and sometimes younger children, covering not only emissions but also privacy, security and safety, and acceptable use of cell phones, WLANs, and RFID.

Take a look at some of these incidents which show how parents and teachers are getting more and more apprehensive about the hazards of wi-fi.

At the Prebendal School, a prestigious preparatory in Chichester, West Sussex, England, a group of parents lobbied the head teacher, Tim Cannell, to remove the wireless network last month.

At Ysgol Pantycelyn, a high school in Carmarthenshire, Wales, parents aired their concerns to the governors, who agreed to switch off its wireless network.

Stowe School, a Buckinghamshire private boarding school, also removed part of its wireless network after Michael Bevington, a classics teacher for 28 years at the school, said that he had such a violent reaction to the network that he was too ill to teach.

HBO to offer a Broadband Internet Channel

Friday, December 1st, 2006

HBO, a U.S. cable network owned by media conglomerate Time Warner, is considering offering a broadband Internet channel that would be available to customers who also subscribe to its cable television service, the Financial Times reported on its Web site.

HBO executives have been hashing out the details of what they will offer online, and a spokesman says no formal decision has been made. But programming will almost certainly be offered via a subscription service, much like the mixture of HBO movies and original fare such as The Wire, Deadwood, and Big Love now offered by cable and satellite operators for a monthly fee of $10 to $12 or more.

An HBO broadband offering would join a field that’s getting more crowded by the moment—and apparently enjoying some success among early adopters. The Disney Channel says it has streamed more than 48 million episodes of shows since launching its broadband service in January. To capture a decidedly edgier audience, Sony, MGM, and Comcast launched their own broadband horror movie site, FearNET, on Oct. 30. But the world of broadband TV viewing would get a big boost when HBO, which annually wins a slew of Emmys and enjoys the industry’s heftiest profit margins, makes its long-awaited entry online.

HBO has made its first leap into broadband with a new topical comedy channel it will produce jointly with corporate sibling AOL.

Nokia to block VoIP calls

Friday, December 1st, 2006

Nokia is launching a platform will enable operators to block specific types of data services, namely peer to peer file sharing and VoIP calls. The centralized solution is implemented as a software upgrade to the Nokia Flexi Intelligent Service Node (ISN) and will be commercially available during the first half of 2007.

With this VoIP blocker, Nokia wants to empower the mobile operators better manage their data traffic by controlling bandwidth-consuming applications including Skype and IM-related services. Thus this peer-to-peer Traffic Control solution enhances the service, subscriber, and access awareness capabilities of the Nokia Flexi ISN to identify data traffic according to the type of service, for example file sharing, so that operators can treat that traffic in a way that best optimizes the use of network resources according to the operators’ business strategy.

“With the explosion of affordable high-speed mobile data access, operators are now being challenged to make the best possible use of their networks, especially when peer-to-peer applications increase their traffic load and compete with their own services,” says Roberto Loiola, Vice President, Marketing and Sales, Networks, Nokia. He also adds, “The Nokia Peer-to-peer Traffic Control solution now gives operators the means to analyse and manage such traffic. It allows them to apply their business models by prioritizing the traffic of preferred services and partners, maximize their return on network investment, and avoid becoming only bit pipes for other content providers.”