November 15, 2005

By Staff

Vonage urged the FCC to name an administrator to assign the phone number technology VoIP providers need to deploy E-911 capability to nomadic customers. In a Nov. 14 letter to FCC Chmn. Kevin Martin, Vonage CEO Jeffrey Citron said availability of pANI-ESQK (pseudo automatic number identification-emergency service query keys) "is an essential gating item for nomadic VoIP E-911 deployment... Most selective routers use 25-year-old technology that's capable of processing no more than a few area codes. As a result, pANI- ESQK is necessary to route a non-regional telephone number through the local selective router. By using pANI-ESQK, a nomadic [VoIP provider] can dynamically assign a number that includes an area code recognized by the relevant selective router, thereby allowing a call to pass through and reach the appropriate [public safety answering point]."

November 10, 2005

By Erik Heinrich

Since Mark Skapinker switched to VoIP provider Vonage Canada about two years ago, he hasn't looked back.

"I'm saving a lot of money," says Skapinker, who says he and his wife, Hazel, spend much of their free time on calls to family and friends across North America and overseas.

The main reason the family switched is because long-distance charges for calls to 20-year-old daughter Lisa - a student at Dalhousie University in Halifax - were often more than $40 a month. Combined with the cost of a residential line and overseas long-distance charges, the monthly phone bill approached $100.

November 18, 2005

By Staff

SCOTS telephone pioneer Alexander Graham Bell has been voted the greatest UK inventor of all time.

Scottish inventors dominated the vote with Bell beating John Logie Baird, Alexander Fleming and James Watt to take first place.

November 15, 2005

By Arshad Mohammed

The number of subscribers for Internet phone services surged to about 3.6 million in the third quarter as providers aggressively signed up customers, according to an independent report released yesterday.

That was up 33 percent from 2.7 million subscribers at the end of June, said the report prepared by TeleGeography, a research firm owned by privately held Primetrica Inc. Revenue from Internet phone services jumped 38 percent, to $304 million, during the period, the report said.

November 11, 2005

By Staff

To hold their value in the residential market, condominium units nationwide need to offer high-tech amenities that will support emerging technologies in the coming years.

A new wave of voice, video and data systems with such names as VOIP, WiFi and IPTV are creating a kind of alphabet soup that has to be carefully digested before a consumer can properly assess a condo unit's likely market value in the years ahead.

If a developer doesn't install some of these amenities during construction, "it can be cost-prohibitive or even technically impossible to do it later," says Carl Lender, vice president of sales and marketing for Fort Lauderdale-based CSI Consulting, which advises builders on emerging technologies. That, in turn, can sharply reduce a unit's resale value.

November 11, 2005

By Russell Shaw



Earlier this week, fellow VoIP blogger Tom Keating got a tour of Vonage's headquarters and Network Operations Center.

In his post "A peek inside Vonage headquarters," Tom's embedded a streaming video of his tour.

December 1, 2005

By Staff



100 BEST NEW TECH TOYS FOR MEN

26. Vonage Wi-Fi VoIP Phone
Like Martha last summer, most VoIP phones are handcuffed to the home. This one is as portable as a cellphone, tapping into any wireless hot spot from Baltimore to Beijing. In out tests as at dozen Starbucks in Manhattan (all within a half block), the phone instantly logged on but lost reception when we strayed too far from our latte.

November 1, 2005

By Staff



The 50 Most Powerful Men Under 39

Most men spend their first 65 years scratching out a living and the rest of their lived searching for the best nursing home. Others spend their first few decades accumulating power and the rest of their lives throwing it around. These are the smart one, and we celebrate their shrewdness, their influence, and their juice in our annual list of the 50 most powerful guys under 39.