VoIP Tech Chat

VoicePulse, a VoIP Service Provider, announced today the addition of a new “regulatory” fee for it’s customers. In an email sent to account holders, VoicePulse advised that effective on the next billing cycle (in one example this was effective in less than 48 hours), users will be charged an additional fee to offset compliance and regulation costs assessed to the provider. This is the second new fee announced by the carrier this week.

As  of this posting (3/10/2010), the provider has not posted these announcements on their website’s press releases, press, or newsletters page. And, although the email indicates the terms of service had been updated, the public version did not include the “regulatory fee” as of this posting.

The announcement follows: Read the rest of this entry »

The VoIP Users Conference celebrates it’s 3rd anniversary on March 26th with a good ol’ fashioned sleep over. Ok, well it’s not really a sleep over, but it’s just as cool. That’s right, starting on March 26th, 2010 at 3am EST,  get ready for the 24 Hour Live Voipathon Podcast and Phone In.

24 Hour Voipathon

Use the Internet to bring voices together

Voipathon is a simple idea: To unite people from as many parts of the world (and time zones) in a 24 hour long discussion about the Internet, voice over the Internet and how communities can and do use these tools.

We will talk about

• Content creators, their rights and how important they are to the Internet
• ways to connect your voices together (including free phone calls)
• ways to get around obstacles to voice connections put in place in some countries
• communities that use the Internet to make the world a better place
• keeping the Internet free of censorship by spreading understanding of the principles of freedom
• piracy, copyright, takedown notices etc

We will hear from

• People from all corners of the planet sharing their experiences
• Experienced telephony users who can help you make a connection, free
• Members of communities who are helping improve lives everywhere

Join us on March 26th, 2010

For more information, please visit:

• voipathon.org
• VoIP Users Conference

Can you believe that we haven’t posted a true VoIP Tech Chat in over a year? Although many of you are thankful for the break, we have decided to invade your favorite audio player once more (with feeling) with the first of (what we hope) will be many podcasts for 2010. This week we discuss Verizon Wireless, Vonage, Customer Service, and well, just a good ol’ fashioned VoIP Tech Chat.

As always, VoIP Tech Chat can be accessed from:

• VoIP Tech Chat (download mp3)
• iTunes
• And, thanks to popular request, you can also stream the chat by pressing the play button below

  Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Links of “Interest:”

• Follow Fred on Twitter
• Follow Patrick on Twitter (Yay!)
• Past Post from Patrick regarding a positive experience with Verizon

VoicePulse announced today in an email that Business and Wholesale accounts will be required to meet a minimum usage of $10/month. They also advised that their Terms of Service had been updated to reflect the change. The company targeting users utilizing the service as a backup provider encouraged account holders to contact a representative to discuss becoming the “Primary” provider.

The email follows: Read the rest of this entry »

Every now and then a weakness becomes exploited in a manner that deserves recognition. A 41 year unemployed systems admin from Moscow did just this — he exploited a weakness in a video billboard and rigged it to play a pornographic movie. A traffic jam followed as Moscow drivers slowed to watch. The man was arrested, any negatives in his history brought to light, and then all video billboards in the Moscow area were banned.

Here’s the article, from The Moscow Times: Read the rest of this entry »

Leif Madsen explains things in a manner that makes concepts easy to understand — which is probably one of the reasons we like Leif. If you’ve read Asterisk: The Future of Telephony, then you most likely already appreciate his talent; he is of course one of the authors.

Anyway, Leif posted a great article on his “Asterisk, and other worldly endeavours” blog today regarding ENUMplus and ISNs. Check the article on his blog: Musings about ENUMplus and ISNs.

The Asterisk team of Digium announced new versions of Asterisk in reference to a potential security issue. The release highlights best practices and hopes to raise awareness of some potential security issues and injection statments. The announcement follows:

The Asterisk Development Team has announced security releases for the following
versions of Asterisk: Read the rest of this entry »

Smart's phone

Between Apple’s iPhone, Google’s Android, and the new Microsoft Windows smart-phones, Blackberry certainly understands that market domination may be nothing short of a historical footnote. As of December 2009, RIM maintained a large share of the smartphone market. With competition coming from some very large names, Blackberry had to strike both hard and fast. First strike? The wallet.

Blackberry Enterprise Server Express Edition

RIM recently introduced a free version of the “popular” Blackberry Enterprise Server (BES) software — the Express Edition.  Additionally, RIM promises that there will be no additional user license fees for using this software. In the past, after spending $3k on the Blackberry server software, you would then purchase client usage licenses at $55 – $100 per license (depending on how many you bought). These costs added consideration for many people to avoid the Blackberry system whatsoever. Although an enterprise may not hesitate to spend more than $25k on user licenses, a small to medium sized business would much rather use a smart-phone with imap capabilities than worry about such an expensive integration. Read the rest of this entry »

Looking to integrate faxing into your Asterisk PBX?

Team Forrest describes how to install, configure, and then email your fax as a pdf. Check out the post at Team Forrest.

Be careful out there

A older scam gains popularity — or at least that’s what recent reports indicate. Targeting American cellphones, the goal of the scam is to have you make an international call and rack up your phone bill. Here’s how it works:

1. Your phone rings and becomes a missed call within 2 rings
2. You call back the number, assuming it’s in the US
3. Your phone bill imitates Cheech and Chong (aka becomes very high)

The recommendation is that you only call back numbers you either recognize or can identify by area code.

Here’s the FCC release: Read the rest of this entry »