Disruptive Telephony

Jon Arnold tagged me.  Of course, we really have to blame Luca for starting it and Jeff, phoneboy and others for pushing it along - and Moshe Maeir for adding the phone angle. I don't usually like to play the meme games... but it's Friday, it's lunchtime, I have a horrid cough and generally feel lousy... so I'll take a moment of distraction to blog my setup.  Plus, I get to talk about phones.  So here it is (click for larger view), and courtesy of 5 minutes in PowerPoint I've even numbered the phones.  What you are looking at is two computers with three screens.  The screen in the corner of the room is my rather old home desktop PC.  My (also older) laptop is then connected to the second monitor in the right foreground.  You can see pieces of my podcasting rig, although much of it is hidden by the laptop screen.  I write on either computer depending upon what time of day it is and which of the 5 or 6 different blogs I'm writing in. 

As to the phones, proving that VoIP teleworking can be secure (unlike what ComputerWorld.au thinks), most of the Mitel phones are hanging off of different teleworker servers back up at Mitel's office in Ottawa.  Why do I have so many phones?  Well, part of my job role is to test and experiment... so I'm always trying out new things - and from a security point-of-view, trying to break them.  So here goes the list:

1. Uniden cordless handset for household land line 
2. ancient Mitel 5020 that I started using as a secure teleworker set 4 years ago and never bothered to upgrade (see, we protect your investment ;-)... actually, the truth is I got a newer set to replace it and then decided to use that new set as a SIP set instead 
3. DUALphone for Skype calls (and yes, I could also use it for my land line) 
4. Mitel 5340 IP phone - connected as a secure teleworker set back to an IP-PBX in Ottawa... excellent phone, great acoustics, backlit 
5. Mitel 5220 IP phone (now replaced by the 5224) - running in SIP mode and connected to a local SIP proxy 
6. Mitel Navigator - perhaps the coolest phone I have... see the long silver bar under the monitor - that's the phone!  Handset is off to the right.  Connected as a secure teleworker back into Ottawa.

Plus I've generally got 1 or 2 softphones running on my laptop.   Using our "hot desking" support, I am usually logged in with my extension to either #4 or #6.  Often #6 because the Navigator has the excellent feature of acting as my PCs speakers and allowing me to have music playing in the background - and the music cuts out when a phone call comes in.  Very nice for someone working alone in a home office.

So now, who to tag:

• Alec Saunders 
• Martyn Davies 
• Irwin Lazar

With that, I think I've now down my blog meme playing for 2007....   off to get some cough medicine.

Over on one of Google's blogs, there is a post "New life for network equipment" about how the Network Startup Resource Center helps take networking equipment that is "old" by Western standards and give it new life in other parts of the world where equipment such as routers and switches may be too expensive to easily purchase.  First off, kudos to Google for supporting such an organization with their own donations.  As they say in the blog entry, it's very easy for those of us in the always-on part of the world to take that connectivity for granted.  And yet for a very large portion of the world, there is no such guarantee for connectivity.

This post, though, did make me think... what happens to all the "old" VoIP gear when it is replaced?  We are at the stage now in the evolution of VoIP where people are replacing IP-PBXs with newer models (from the same or different vendors).  SIP phones have been out long enough that they, too, are being swapped out for newer models.

Where are they going?  Landfills?  Probably. 

But yet some of those pieces of equipment may work perfectly fine in other parts of the world where people can't afford newer systems (keeping in mind that PSTN gateways might not, of course, because of the sheer number of different telecom standards).  Is the NSRC already dealing with VoIP systems?  Are they interested?  Are they even the appropriate organization?  I don't know... and obviously I can contact them... and perhaps I will when I have a chance at some point.  But it's an interesting question to me.

Where does old VoIP equipment go when it's been replaced?

As everyone has been hyping the iPhone, it was entertaining to see that Ken Camp is decidedly not a fan: "iPhone? iThinkNot" After providing links to a number of the VoIP bloggers who wrote about the iPhone, Ken starts tearing apart what he's seen and read.  Here's a taste of the full post:

It will be mediocre at anything, at best. In my words, it will be crap.

The touch screen will be a disaster. The closed interface assures that it's another all your tunes calls stones Apples are belong to us. Apple is the worst offender and not understanding open standards and extensibility on the planet. Worse that Microsoft.

The iPhone is just an iPod. With a jazzier, and doubtless a less functional interface. And yep, it might make phone calls every now and then too. If you're on the right carrier in the coverage area. We'll lock you in to Apple and Cingular proprietariness all with one key.

Limited features, locked in to a single carrier, not open to third  party software. And using the argument that third party software might take the telephone network down? Gimme a break.

So how do you really feel, Ken?  ;-)

With the torrent of media hype about Apple's new iPhone, one of the things that has surprised me is the lack of discussion about one of the aspects of the device that I find truly disruptive... it will be running a full version of MacOS X.  Now, granted, with 15 million blogs and countless web sites commenting on the iPhone in the past few days, I'm sure I've missed some where people have discussed this aspect, but to me it's a key element.

Consider this... if you have the full capabilities of MacOS X (which we don't yet know for certain but all of the Apple info seems to indicate it will have full MacOS X) - and you also have WiFi support and/or Cingular EDGE support - why not simply run the Mac version of Skype or Gizmo?   Or Yahoo Messenger or AIM? Or anyone else's softphone that runs on MacOS X?

The phone then becomes an extension of your contact/buddy list and can provide that kind of connectivity wherever you can get a WiFi or EDGE connection.  That to me is one of the fascinating aspects of the whole play.  The phone as an application platform - with a "standard" commercial operating system.

I suppose I should note that first out "announcing their support" for the iPhone was the folks over at Jajah (from where I got the picture), but unless I'm missing something there's not a whole lot for them to do.   You go to a web page, enter in the number you want to call and Jajah calls you!  With that in mind, it could be said that any web-based "click-to-call" service will be "compatible with the iPhone".  I mean... you'll be able to start using Google's click-to-call right away as well.  Now, perhaps there is more to Jajah's "support" than just seizing the moment to ride the coattails of the iPhone announcement (they do, after all have a Jajah Mobile version of some type - I'd try it, but it won't work on my Blackberry from what I can see), but in any event it's a sign of the type of services that I can see being enabled as the iPhone rolls out.

Regardless, the iPhone will definitely be interesting as it allows Mac-based VoIP to be extended out to wherever the phone can have data coverage, be it WiFi or EDGE.

P.S. I'd definitely take one to try it out... oh, wait... that's right... Cingular doesn't offer service (or at least numbers) in Vermont!  I'll just have to live vicariously through others (or suck it up and get a number elsewhere and constantly be explaining to people in VT why I have a phone with a NY area code).

After seeing this post at Engadget, I, too, have to truly wonder whether this is for real or some sort of very elaborate hoax.  The Nikko Home Electronics website has more info...  well... actually it has a big Flash object that obviously took some time to create. 

It appears there are two models: 1) The "C.S." or "Communication System" and 2) the "M.E.S." or "Mobile Entertainment System".  Gizmodo has a video of the MES from the floor of CES this week out in Las Vegas, proving that there is at least one working model of that system.

I have to say that the light saber as a phone is certainly amusing and destined to warm the heart of any Star Wars fan.

I don't know if it is actually for real, but hey, it would be amusing if it really is.  (And if Nikko wants to send one my way for review, my shipping address is....  ;-)

You would think that Apple, being as big as they are, would certainly have taken care of the right to use the name "iPhone" before they launched, wouldn't you?  The fact that Apple went ahead and launched anyway really astounds me in light of Cisco's ownership of the trademark.  Instead there is first news of ongoing negotiations and then today's news of a Cisco suit against Apple.  It boggles the mind a bit... I mean, obviously Apple had a very hard deadline of MacWorld, and I could imagine someone at Cisco playing hardball knowing that Apple had to sign before MacWorld and holding out for the best deal. 

But now what?  I mean, now that the product is announced and everyone is all excited about it, what kind of bargaining position is Apple in?  You could easily see someone at Cisco now saying "Well, since the product is going to be so popular, let's add a few more zeros to that licensing agreement price."    Is Apple perhaps counting on public opinion to paint Cisco in a bad light enough that Cisco will relent?  Hard to see that happening, especially given Cisco's own "product launch" of the iPhone name a few weeks ago.  Is Apple thinking that they can always fall back on calling it "applephone" or something like that if Cisco won't give way?

Very strange indeed... it will be interesting to see how this one plays out.

UPDATE: CANOE Money has an article up with more detailed information.

If you don't follow Jan Geirnaert's weblog, which he is now branding as www.skype-gadgets.com, it's worth checking out. He's a Belgian living in Malaysia and he mixes in commentary on Skype and VoIP hardware along with interesting notes about Malaysia, Hong Kong and that whole part of the world. Living on almost the other side of the globe from him, I find many of those posts quite interesting.

And he's often finding interesting news out about Skype... and pointing us to interesting gadgets. Take today's post on the "Cat-iq" phone from the ITU fair/trade show he's attending in Hong Kong. He has this picture and another, both of which you can click to see larger views. He doesn't yet provide more details or links... but it's interesting to see a glimpse into some of what people are coming up with over there. (And I'm guessing from the fact that it says "Wahlen" that this is perhaps from a German manufacturer.)

Anyway, do check out Jan's blog as he's often got interesting information.