Where is Sprint 4G?

So, I live in Florida. Recently I switched my cell service from Verizon to Sprint for a few reasons that will bore you to death. So I’ll sum up — When I first switched, I absolutely couldn’t have been happier. I loved my phone (EVO 4G), thought the CS reps were the bomb, and loved how my phone bill remained constant monthly (with Verizon, no two were ever the same).

Anyway… then comes the iPhone… and now everything changes. The CEO made no secret that iPhone users are their holy grail and will be treated as gold. All of us non-iphone users will simply be… non-iphone users. Since the iPhone came, my “unlimited” account is now capped at 5GB (of course they say this is allowed in my unlimited contract).

But, I digress. Today’s article is about Sprint coverage maps and why you never ever ever should trust sales people. Look at that map above, remembering that I live in Florida. Florida looks awesome for 4G coverage, no? To help, here’s just Florida:

Florida close-up

I mean, just look at that — Sprint 4G is everywhere! Remember, this is a sales map and Yellow indicates 4G coverage. This map has one purpose, and one purpose only: sales. Sales people have one purpose only: get more sales. Anything other than getting more sales is a total failure of the entire function of either the map or the sales person.

To illustrate my point, let’s look at the non-sales 4G coverage map:

Brown is 4G, Orange is NOT

To clarify, remember here BROWN is 4G, orange is NOT 4G. There’s a lot of orange on that map. Kind of a huge contrast to the yellow being 4G coverage, but what do I know… I’m just a Sprint customer that can’t get 4G.

How many times have you picked up your VoIP phone and not had a dialtone and said, “damnit, service is out again.” I can’t count the number of tech calls I have been a part of or heard about where a piece of equipment suddenly stopped working and the user declared, with passion generally reserved for Samuel L. Jackson and Al Paccino at the climax of a movie, that they were positive it was plugged in and it just stopped working. After a long line of troubleshooting, unplugging and replugging it in miraculously cures the ailment, clearly a function of some latent factory problem.

Since purchasing my 1994 car some three years ago, I have on three different occasions forgotten that it has a kill switch on the ignition. If it sits for some small period of time, the kill switch engages and the engine won’t turn over. Lights work, radio works, but trying to start it results in a non-response. If the ignition is not fully disengaged, for instance if it is slightly on and leaves the radio playing, pushing the unlock will not disengage the kill switch. After forty-five minutes of non-response from Verizon’s roadside assistance, I walked out to the car, pressed the unlock button, heard the familiar “BEEP BEEP”, started the car and drove to the office. Even the pros sometimes forget to follow the basic troubleshooting steps and end up falling into the assumption ravine.

Two minutes of stepping back, forgetting that I know everything, and following a basic checklist would have saved me a lot of time and embarrassment.

Are people really seeing a lot of conversion on cold calls? For example, this beautiful call (below) I received within the first 10 seconds told me everything I needed to know. She had no idea what I did, what we were, and why we would ever need what she was selling.

But… that made me think…

Are people really buying from cold calls?

The old spam argument was that if Spam wasn’t selling products, we wouldn’t have spam. In other words, idiots out there actually click the links in spam and buy the products. If they stopped, spam would stop.

So, I guess I answered my own question. Cold calls must still work. I must be the minority of people that find it telephony spam and annoying.

(press the play button to listen to the audio…)
Download audio file (paper-upload.mp3)
(audio file direct link)

How can I not be me??

Ah, the joys of debt collectors and their mini-miranda warnings.

(press the play button to listen to the message… if it’s not you, please hang up) Download audio file (debt-collector.mp3)
(audio file direct link)

Those messages, left on my voicemail, for people I have never heard of gets my blood boiling. Plus, what does “If this is not you, please hang up” really mean? How can I not be me? I gotta be me!

In today’s litigious world, every company using a phone wants to protect themselves from lawsuits. Do lawyers, courts, and reasonable people really expect me to have to obey an auto-dialer’s warning that I cannot listen to the voicemail?

If a debt collector leaves a message on my pbx system, at my expense, who owns that message? Can I post it on the Internet?

I don’t have answers to these questions— although, if you leave me a message on a work system that tells you that all calls may be monitored or recorded… then I’m doing whatever I want with it. If you don’t want it monitored by others, then you shouldn’t leave the message.

Anyway, I thought I’d start the day off by sharing my morning voicemail. And if you’re Ernest Kiebler, Ernie Heyword, or whomever this message was for, you should call 800-503-3852 and refer to file number 21416930. You have a debt that is in collection.

RIP, Skype for Asterisk

Digium announced today the official end of Skype for Asterisk– ending anyone’s dream of a more friendly, open, Skype under Microsoft.

Their email, stated:

We expect that users of Skype for Asterisk will be able to continue using their Asterisk systems on the Skype network until at least July 26, 2013. Skype may extend this at their discretion.

The announcement of Skype and Asterisk came during Astricon 2008, a little less than 3 years ago. After almost a year, a beta program was announced with a pay per use licensing announced shortly thereafter.

The full announcement:

Product notification:

Skype for Asterisk will not be available for sale or activation after July 26, 2011.

Skype for Asterisk was developed by Digium in cooperation with Skype. It includes proprietary software from Skype that allows Asterisk to join the Skype network as a native client. Skype has decided not to renew the agreement that permits us to package this proprietary software. Therefore Skype for Asterisk sales and activations will cease on July 26, 2011.

This change should not affect any existing users of Skype for Asterisk. Representatives of Skype have assured us that they will continue to support and maintain the Skype for Asterisk software for a period of two years thereafter, as specified in the agreement with Digium. We expect that users of Skype for Asterisk will be able to continue using their Asterisk systems on the Skype network until at least July 26, 2013. Skype may extend this at their discretion.

Skype for Asterisk remains for sale and activation until July 26, 2011. Please complete any purchases and activations before that date.

Thank you for your business.

Digium Product Management

Skype’s login service is down.

Other than a brief post:

Some of you may have problems signing in to Skype – we’re investigating, and we’re sorry for the disruption to your conversations

Our engineers and site operations team are working non-stop to get things back to normal – thanks for your continued patience

What are we doing to help? Our engineers are creating new ‘mega-supernodes’ as fast as they can, which should gradually return things to normal. This may take a few hours, and we sincerely apologise for the disruption to your conversations.

Tropo Go Global

Tropo, a voice application platform, announced yesterday availability of local numbers in more than 40 countries. Tropo previously had offered local numbers limited to the United States, but now launched the program internationally.

Need to test an app that makes calls? Those have been 100% free in development for calls to US numbers. We’re expanding that support internationally as well. In addition to the free calls to US mobiles and landlines that you’ve always had, our developer program now supports free calling to landlines in 17 other countries.

Although SMS may still be limited to US numbers, the availability of International local numbers to developers makes testing voice applications incredibly easy and affordable (as in free).

More information can be obtained directly from their release announcement.

Phone Power, LLC acquired VoIP.com

VoIP.com and Phone Power, LLC have merged. According to Phone Power, the two companies became one on October 1st, 2010.

On Friday, Phone Power sent out an email to current VoIP.com affiliates stating:

From: “voip.com” system@voip.com
Date: October 8, 2010 7:27:04 PM EDT
Subject: Important Annoucement Regarding The Voip.com Affiliate Program

Attn Affiliates:

On October 1, 2010, VOIP.com merged with Phone Power LLC. The official announcement will go out next week, but we wanted to reach out to all Affiliates beforehand.

The VOIP.com Affiliate program will be discontinued and all affiliates are urged to migrate into the Phone Power Affiliate program. Effective Tuesday October 12, 2010, existing VOIP.com Affiliate URLs will no longer work for tracking sales. You are encouraged to join the Phone Power Affiliate program on the Commission Junction network.

Phone Power Affiliate Program highlights:

- $75 one-time commission per sale, for any active plan. High volume programs can go as high as $110/sale.

- The lowest price VoIP service in the industry. No activation fees, and free adapter with purchase.

- 60 day chargeback period.

- A wide range of banner sizes and text links provided.

- No affiliate program fees or costs. Commission Junction is free to join.

- Dedicated Affiliate program support.

To sign up for the Phone Power Affiliate program, click here: link

If you already have a Commission Junction account, you can use your existing login. If not, it will setup a new account for you in a few clicks.

If you have questions about the program, feel free to contact us.

Thanks,

Jim Murphy
Affiliates@phonepower.com
Phone Power / VOIP.com
818-264-4405

I spoke with Phone Power’s Jim Murphy on Friday who confirmed the acquisition. Mr. Murphy advised that official word will be released on Tuesday October 12, and that Phone Power would be taking over the domain as well as the 800-TRYVoIP phone number.

Update: Phone Power released the following statement:

Phone Power Announces Acquisition of VOIP.com

Winnetka, CA, October 11, 2010 – Phone Power LLC, one of the fastest growing telecommunications providers, announced that it has acquired VOIP.com, a Voice Over IP service provider headquartered in Boca Raton, Florida. Phone Power has built a solid reputation in providing cutting edge communications solutions to both residential and business customers. This is the third acquisition for Phone Power in the last twelve months. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. The acquisition grows the Phone Power customer base over 25%.

“VOIP.com is an excellent fit for Phone Power as we continue to grow,” said Ari Ramezani, CEO of Phone Power. “We are very pleased to welcome VOIP.com customers into the Phone Power family. We look forward to utilizing our combined synergies to provide all of our customers the most advanced features that technology has to offer and a world class customer service experience. The Voip.com brand will contribute significantly to the company’s organic growth potential.”

Moving forward, the VOIP.com brand will co-exist independently with the Phone Power brand. Phone Power plans to manage the VOIP.com brand by continuing to invest in marketing, infrastructure and customer support.    Voip.com clients will gain access to Phone Power’s advanced features such as their free softphone, mobile apps, and free international calling.

About Phone Power

Phone Power is a next-generation telecommunications company, headquartered in Winnetka, California. A privately-owned company founded in 2005, Phone Power’s residential and small business phone service provides outstanding communications to tens of thousands of customers in North America, processing millions of minutes of calls each day, from all over the world. For more information about Phone Power, visit http://www.PhonePower.com

About VOIP.com

VOIP.com is an internet-based phone service provider serving both residential and business customers. Their service provides its customers with a wide array of included VoIP features and low prices on both domestic and international calling. http://www.voip.com

Media Contact Information:

Enne Michael
Phone Power LLC
Media Relations
818-264-4404
media@phonepower.com

Oh… you heard it here first.

New features from 3.1 include:

• asynchronous TLS
• embedded LUA, HTTP server, Python, XCAP (and more)
• SIP Registration to remote servers
• new DoS preventions

From Kamailio:

Since last major release, version 3.0.0 (which was out in January 10, 2010), the two SIP servers are practically the same application, the name making the difference regarding the database structure and the extensions used for certain features, such as user database based authentication or location service. Therefore another development direction was towards smooth integration of Kamailio and SER extensions, previously duplicated modules such as auth, sl, ratelimit or sms were merged during this development cycle.

For more information, please visit www.kamailio.org.