We just had our first winter storm blow through. The result was twenty-seven hours of no power. After the first two hours my son proclaimed the most boring day of his life (no computer, no Nintendo). In the midst of trying almost every home VOIP solution under the sun, I’ve still hung onto my landline. Good thing too. Even my cell phone battery died. Of course, my PhoneGnome didn’t mind. Without power or Internet connection, landline calls worked just fine thanks.

Happy to say, I just got my PhoneGnome. It took just a few minutes to plug in and configure itself (I like that part). Teeny tiny isn’t it? More later…

 

One thing I wish for in my quest for perfect Internet phone service the ability is to fix voice quality problems on the fly or at least be able to understand “is it me or the network?”

When I had Vonage service, I usually started the converation with “So how do I sound, can you hear me?” Many times there was such a delay that practical converation was impossible. If I was at my computer, I’d try quitting applications to see if that helped (usually not). After hanging up in frustration, I’d try messing with the dreaded ”Bandwidth Saver” feature. But in my opinion, AFTER the call is way too late.

Is it possible to build intelligent applications that KNOW when they’re not performing optimally and can tell you what the problem is, or better yet advise how to fix it?

No sooner had I written this when Peter Csathy, CEO of SightSpeed, let me in on a little secret (okay well it’s not actually a secret…), SightSpeed detects when your video or voice call isn’t going so well and automatically makes adjustments to improve the quality.

For example, a video call that appears jumpy or out of sync with the audio could be caused by network congestion. SightSpeed can downsize the bandwidth usage for video so that at least the voice aspect of the call is preserved or improved. SightSpeed lets you know it’s doing this by popping up a dialog box that says it’s making these adjustments. I don’t know if you can you make adjustments yourself DURING a video call, but you can easily see your upload and download speeds while talking to someone.

To see SightSpeed statistics: 

With your mouse hovering over the SightSpeed title bar,  press CTRL + S (or right mouse-click followed by CTRL + S). A statistics dialog box appears showing your current, peak and average bandwidth usage.

Gizmo Project has a Call Quality Assistant (click the bar graph in the bottom left of the Gizmo Window) that gives you an idea of your network conditions. While it shows you at a glance the quality of your connection, it doesn’t say what you should do about it and at this point in my life, that’s what I need.

 

Initially, I thought that the online support systems for VOIP softphones Skype and Gizmo Project were pretty decent. Using them to answer burning questions is another matter. 

Online Help belongs with the application. When I click Help > Online Help, please DON’T send me to the Knowledge Base or FAQs. Please DON’T open up another browser window and make me wait while the generic Help home page appears. Please DON’T make me use the Search feature. High level user guides or getting started tutorials are great, but make sure they’ve got some meat in them.

A Knowledge Base gives you little gulps of info with no breadcrumb trail to follow and no sense of context. To really aid and educate users, build Help right into the interface. Take the time to explain fields and buttons before I use them. To provide more information, use a fly-out Help pane (part of the interface that’s only visible when needed) and pull the content from an online server.

I want online Help that is specific to what I’m looking at on the screen. I want to browse Help by drilling down to the level of detail I need without losing my place in the story.

The End.

I’m a few days behind on this one (see VoIP Watch and VoIP and Gadgets), but Laptop magazine is giving away a few Skype Wi-Fi phones and router bundles. To qualify you’ve got to tell them the craziest place you want to set up a Wi-Fi connection and make a Skype call.  Sign up here…

TheVOIPGirl.com’s had another nice welcome from PhoneBoy (no, we’re not related), a prolific VOIP, telecom and technology blogger with an affable writing style. He explains things…

Check out his review of GotVoice and you’ll see what I mean. GotVoice is an interesting service that takes voicemail messages from different voicemail services (including VOIP ones) and sends them to your email inbox. You get convenient access to all your voice messages in one place. He also points out a few shortcomings of TheVoipGirl.com that I hasten to address. Thanks PhoneBoy!

I’ve been wondering about the GrandCentral “One number for life” mantra, and TalkPlus‘ second number for your mobile phone. While I understand these products target different markets, I find it hard to keep them distinct in my mind. It dawned on me that this could be a problem that consumers have as well.

There’s a lot of chatter about Voice 2.0 applications–the user in control not the network–but that is the VOIP blogosphere talking. Me, I think okay, I get another number, it’s free for now, and it’s solving what problem exactly? 

GrandCentral:

Provides a phone number not tied to a device or location. When people call this number, the phones you have “attached” to it ring, like your cell phone, home phone, and office phone. Up to six phones can be linked to your GrandCentral number. The service is all about giving you control over how people reach you (inbound calling) as opposed to how you place calls. Callers can leave voice messages that can be checked by phone, email or online. You’re notified of a voice mail via email or text message to a cell phone. And you can flag unwanted callers as spam. It’s also free.

You need it if people have a hard time tracking you down. You find yourself playing telephone tag. You WANT to be found but heck, you’re always bouncing between work, home, and on the road.

TalkPlus:

Provides a second number for your cell phone so you can separate personal life and work life. The number can be used as a second line for business, dating, classified ads, online auctions, social groups, or a second residence. Like GrandCentral, unwanted callers can be blocked while priority numbers ring through. When making outbound calls, you can specify which caller ID to use so that the person you are calling doesn’t know how or where you’re calling from.

You need it if your mobile phone is your primary means of communication but the  separation of work and play is important to you. You want people to know that you’re calling from the office (the caller ID says this is a work-related call) even though you’re calling from home or the beach in Maui. You are also concerned about personal privacy and want to make sure that your personal number is only available to the people you want to have it.

***

In talking with Craig Walker, GrandCentral CEO, he tells me they couldn’t be more different than TalkPlus.

“Our philosophy is that we don’t need MORE numbers for people to reach us at…we need less.  As long as I have the control over my inbound calling that GrandCentral gives me, there’s no reason that I would want to juggle different personas. I don’t want phone numbers that identify me as being located at a certain place or doing a certain thing, I want a phone number that is personal to me.  If you want to reach me, call my ONE NUMBER.  I’ll be able to answer it wherever I want…I will be able to know who’s calling every time, and I’ll even be able to listen in on the voicemail as its being left if I’m still unsure whether I want to take the call.  When somebody calls me, they shouldn’t be able to “figure out” or know where I am based on the number…if I’m in the office, working from home or on the beach, that’s my business.” 

Obviously there’s more to both GrandCentral and TalkPlus than what I describe here, and the enthusiasm voiced by many in the VOIP blogging community seems to be not so much what these services are doing today, but what we can expect from them in the future.

To set up a free GrandCentral account, click here. To sign up for a TalkPlus sneak peak beta (for Cingular, T-Mobile, and Sprint customers in select U.S. states only), click here. TalkPlus won’t be a free service like GrandCentral and pricing is to be determined.

Have you noticed that it’s raining mobile VOIP these days? Information Week asserts that VOIP has finally hit the mainstream wireless market and points to Fring, JaJah Mobile and Windows Mobile 6 as indicators who’ve all had new announcements this week. Truphone is also part of that crowd.

Tom Keating reviews Jajah Mobile on his blog. Check it out.

As a consumer, I’m happy there are options. But I’m also a consumer who’s not really ready. This mobile VOIP stuff means more decisions. What’s most important to me? Being in touch with my Skype contacts, my Google Talk buddies, my JaJah list or some other list somewhere? Do I like downloading an application to my phone or would I rather not–too finicky? Do I need multiple phone numbers for my cell phone? I like to use the Wi-Fi capability of my nifty Nokia N80i, but cruising around my usual haunts in town I’ve yet to find a free access point (obviously I need to get out more). The only place I’ve used mobile VOIP is from the comfort of my own desk.

Here’s an idea from Michael at GroovyGreen.com who commented on my Three Tries to Cancel Vonage post. When he called to cancel his Vonage service, he had this great yarn prepared:

“This is what you do: Call their HELP line, go to the cancellation option and then wait. (Luckily, I waited about 5 minutes.) Next, as soon as the person gets on the line say, “Hello, My name is Michael and I would like to cancel my account because I am moving to another country.” This will immediately cause them to lose most of their script and go to Page 2. The kind woman on the other line then asked me if the move was permanent. I told her that I would be overseas for the next 10 years. She countered by saying that Vonage could be used anywhere, it was one of the advantages, etc. I agreed that the thought had crossed my mind, but unfortunately I was moving to a place where Internet service was not allowed. She asked if she might know the location of this country. I told her Ethiopia. She asked if there were any towns nearby that might have Internet access, I told her no, because I was moving to a monastery and it was 100 miles away from the nearest town. Very remote. She became quiet and then asked if there was anyone living in the U.S. that could use the account while I was gone. As this point, I was like, ‘Jeesh…’, but I went on, “No, there’s nobody here in the U.S. I could transfer this too. That’s part of why I’m leaving the country. My family has passed away, my dog just died, and I just don’t value material possessions as much as I used to.’

She got started on canceling my account….”

I’ve had my PhoneGnome for about a week now and so far I’m really happy with it. What a great product! It marries the best of low cost Internet calling with the safety and reliability of regular landline service. It just works…

PhoneGnome-to-PhoneGnome calls are crystal clear and regular landline calls are, well, regular landline calls. PhoneGnome detects which type of call (Internet or PSTN) you’re making, makes a short announcement to let you know how it is going to place the call, and away you go.

I had a few problems setting up PhoneGnome to use an Internet phone service for outbound long distance calls, in my case a Gizmo Project account. To use Gizmo, I had to enter the SIP settings manually. My mistake was in entering my SIP phone number. Make sure you enter the phone number assigned by Gizmo Project without any dashes, spaces, dots, etc. Once I fixed that, smooth sailing.

While PhoneGnome can certainly work with Gizmo Project and other SIP friendly Internet Telephone Service Providers (ITSP), it’s better to sign on with one of PhoneGnome’s ITSP partners, says David Beckenmeyer,  CEO. Their partners are better integrated with PhoneGnome so you don’t have to worry about entering scary stuff like SIP credentials. At the moment, they offer VocalNet ($14.95 and $21.95/month) and Infonex (pay as you go) services.

Because PhoneGnome is really plug and play, it’s something I can sell my parents on. It’s not too weird or too techy, it configures itself, 911 still works like you expect, and you get dial tone even if your Internet flakes out. Did I mention it just works?