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February 25, 2008

Telephone Reminders for Asterisk 1.4 with Phone and Web Scheduling

If you loved your ‘Speak and Spell’ when you were a kid, then prepare for a childhood flashback… except the Nerd Vittles version is more akin to ‘Spell and Speak.’ Today’s edition of Telephone Reminders for Asterisk 1.4 not only lets you schedule reminders by phone using your own voice, but now you can use a clever (if we do say so) web interface as well.
Just fill out a simple web form to set your reminder or recurring reminder in motion, and Telephone Reminders for Asterisk will swing into action with Flite or Cepstral’s Allison to deliver your typed message to the phone of your choice at the appointed time.
 
It’s the perfect tool for bugging the hell out of your friends without ever picking up the phone. Wanna wake your worst enemy in the middle of the night with a nice reading of the Gettysburg Address? No problem. Actually, there is a slight problem.
 
It’s against the law to make irritating phone calls. But it’ll be great for calling all those politicians back to thank them for the hundreds of telephone messages they delivered while you were eating dinner. And, yes, we’ve preserved all of the recurring reminder functionality that you’ve grown to love. So you can schedule one-time reminders, weekday reminders, daily reminders, weekly reminders, monthly reminders, and annual reminders.
 
Click Here for the Full Nerd:
 
 

February 22, 2008

WiMAX as a Military Technology?

Nortel Government Solutions is working with the US Department of Defense to explore possibilities for military use of WiMAX. An ideal situation for the Department of Defense would be a powerful wireless network that could instantly connect “anytime, anywhere” whether in the air, on the ground, or at sea.

One vision of the use of WiMAX is quoted as follows from WiMAX Day:

In the arena of military tactics, WiMAX can be used to establish “links between temporary camps and command centres…. quick connections between camps and vehicles,” and with mobile WiMAX 802.16e “will allow constant communication with vehicles moving up to 60 miles per hour on the battlefield.” This is similar to a system that was developed for the Command Operations Center (COC) of the US Marine Air Ground Task Force (MAGTF) where WiMAX was integrated into mobile command units, combined with tactical radio and satellite systems.

Satellite Phones

This exploration is not just being undertaken by the United States. The French military has already arranged for the use of WiMAX via French WiMAX operator TDF. The Department of Defense is still waiting for “some standards to mature,” according to WiMAX Day. Whether or not WiMAX is adopted as part of a new technological  strategy depends on how the technology evolves and the overall future of the standard.

Source: WiMax.com 

February 20, 2008

Rumor: Intel to Reunite Sprint and Clearwire With $2 Billion WiMax Infusion

A new report from TheStreet claims that Sprint and Clearwire could be reuniting thanks to a $2 billion investment from another WiMax champion, Intel. Before Sprint tore up the existing WiMax agreement it forged with Clearwire, the plan was to split the cost of building a nationwide network between the two companies.
That would have allowed eventual customers to easily roam between the two networks and, at the same time, lessen the financial burden on Sprint and Clearwire. It was a good plan given build out costs are expected to reach $5 billion.

Unfortunately, when Sprint lost its CEO and primary WiMax champion Gary Forsee last year, it lost Wall Street's confidence as well. In fact, the company has faced substantial backlash from investors who, even before the Sprint/Clearwire deal dissolved, felt that shelling out $2.75 billion (Sprint's half of the build-out cost) for a next-generation wireless network wasn't the best use of the company's money. The deal was eventually scrapped and Sprint would only say that the two companies couldn't agree to terms.

Intel, Sprint and Clearwire all said they wouldn't comment on the rumor, but Monday's article, as well as previous reports from the Wall Street Journal, claim that an announcement could be made as soon as this week.

Click Here to Continue Reading

 

February 19, 2008

Zaptel 1.2.24 and 1.4.9 Released

The Asterisk.org development team has released Zaptel versions 1.2.24 and 1.4.9.

Zaptel 1.2.24 Highlights:
* Linux kernel 2.6.24 compatibility
* New module parameters for tuning VPMADT032 echo canceller modules
* Improved interrupt handling in the wcte12xp driver

Zaptel 1.4.9 Highlights:

* Linux kernel 2.6.24 compatibility
* New module parameters for tuning VPMADT032 echo canceller modules
* Improved interrupt handling in the wcte12xp driver
* Fixed TX/RX stream naming in ztmonitor
* Report battery loss on analog FXO ports as a channel alarm (only usable in
  Asterisk 1.6/trunk)
* Added optional ring detection method to better support UK CallerID reception

Thank you for your support!

Asterisk 1.6.0-beta3 Released

The Asterisk.org development team has released Asterisk-1.6.0-beta3.

This release contains a number of bug fixes over beta2, as well as a few new features.

* Added an 'n' option to SpeechBackground to request that the channel not get answered.
* Added a number of new manager actions to improve configuration management over the Asterisk Manager Interface, including the ability to:


   - List the categories in a file
   - Get the contents of a single category
   - Empty a single category
   - Create a new configuration file
   - Delete a line by line number with respect to the category
   - Inserting variables and categories at a specified line
   - Inserting categories above an existing category
   - Added a false condition to the GotoIfTime application
   - Added a new manager event for IAX2 jitterbuffer statistics

Thank you very much to everyone that has participated in testing Asterisk 1.6 so far.  The results have been very good!  Please continue to help test this release so that the official 1.6.0 can come along soon.

Thank you very much for your support.

Kevin Fleming will deliver Keynote at Asterisk & Open Telephony Conference

The Asterisk & Open Telephony Conference today announced that Digium executives Kevin Fleming, director of Software Development, and Mark Spencer, founder and CTO, will present two keynote addresses at the popular event hosted by IT360° Conference & Expo 2008. The annual Asterisk and Open Telephony event will be held at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, April 7 – 9, 2008.
Kevin Fleming’s keynote: “Asterisk Virtualization,” will take place on April 8 from 3:00pm – 4:00pm and will discuss the benefits, pitfalls and economic advantages of running Asterisk on popular virtualization environments including VMware and Xen. Virtualization provides virtual PBX services, and support complex redundancy and failover models. It is valuable for geographic distribution of services with relatively simple reconfiguration when network changes are required.

Mark Spencer’s keynote: “The Future of Open Source Telephony,” is scheduled for April 9 from 12:10pm – 1:00pm and will include new and exciting evidence of Asterisk’s growing business presence around the world.

Bruce Cole, president of Plum Communications Inc. and producer of IT360°, says, “Asterisk has reached a critical mass in Canada and we are excited to be hosting the second annual Asterisk & Open Telephony Conference. Digum’s Mark Spencer and Kevin Fleming are open source telephony pioneers and we look forward to hearing their keynote addresses about the past, present and future of Asterisk.”
 
Registration: www.it360.com (Chinese Langage). 
 
Source: Exchange Magazine 

Aastra to take over Ericsson's iPBX Unit

Ericsson has entered into an agreement to divest its enterprise PBX solutions business to Aastra Technologies, a provider of open standard internet protocol based and traditional networking solutions. The agreement involves transfer of approximately 630 employees of which some 360 are based in Sweden. The transaction is expected to close in April 2008.

Ericsson's enterprise PBX solutions business provides IP PBX, converged PBX systems and branch office solutions. The product portfolio includes communications solutions for enterprises of all sizes, mobility solutions, telephone terminals and services.

Executing on the strategy for the multimedia business, Ericsson says that it would focus on providing its broad portfolio of enterprise applications directly to operators and service providers. Strategic products from the acquisition of Netwise will also remain within Ericsson.

Source: TradingMarkets 

February 14, 2008

Why so few Skype WiMAX Phones?

Brian Dolan of Fierce Wireless notes that Skype’s gm of mobile and hardware devices Gareth O’Loughlin, is wondering just where all the Skype-compatible WiMAX devices are at this year’s Mobile World Congress closing out today in Barcelona.

Brian makes the point that this lack of Skype WiMax isn’t due to the tried-and-true reasoning that carriers view alternative channels to cell as cannibalistic to their traditional business models and reflexively defend these business models.

“The prevailing mindset of most carriers, however, has shifted in favor of a more open wireless network that discriminates less when it comes to handsets and applications,” Brian writes. :That said, O’Loughlin lamented the lack of WiMAX devices at the show.”

Brian does raise Skype’s release late last year of a Skypephone with Hutchinson Whampoa’s 3G carrier 3. Yet according to both Brian and O’Loughlin, that’s somewhat of a baby step.

 

Click Here to Continue Reading 

February 07, 2008

Asterisk 1.4.18 Released

The Asterisk development team has released Asterisk version 1.4.18.

In response to a community request, in preparation for this release, the development community held a release candidate period before making the official release.  Multiple people tested it out and reported issues.  The release candidate process was definitely a success for this release, and we will continue to do it for future Asterisk 1.4 releases.

To see what changes have been made since the last release, see the ChangeLog here:

http://svn.digium.com/view/asterisk/tags/1.4.18/ChangeLog?view=markup

The release is available for immediate download from http://downloads.digium.com/

Thank you for your support!

February 04, 2008

Google Succeeds in Push to Open Wireless Airwaves

Google Inc. succeeded in its push to force the winner of airwaves being sold by the U.S. government to open its network to any mobile device.

One bidder offered $4.71 billion for the biggest set of airwaves being auctioned, surpassing a $4.6 billion threshold that triggered so-called open-access rules, the Federal Communications Commission said today on its Web site. The agency didn't reveal which company made the bid. 

The rules aim to boost consumer choice by requiring the winner of the so-called C-block airwaves to let any legal wireless handset or program use the network. Google, owner of the most popular Internet search engine, may now exit the auction after winning the conditions, said Jeff Lindsay, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. in New York.

``What people don't know now is if Google will drop out of the bidding and allow someone else to win,'' Lindsay said today in an interview. ``It's a totally different scenario if Google goes all the way.''

The total value of all bids climbed 4.3 percent to $15.6 billion in the latest round, exceeding government projections and making the airwaves sale the largest ever in the U.S.

Google, AT&T Inc. and Verizon Wireless are among 214 companies participating in the auction, which includes 1,099 slices of spectrum. The C-block comprises about a third of the airwaves, which will become available when television broadcasters switch to digital signals in 2009.

Likely Bidders

Opening the network to more devices would help Mountain View, California-based Google sell more advertising on phones by expanding consumers' access to mobile Web content. Google and Verizon Wireless are likely bidders for the C-block, Stifel Nicolaus & Co. analyst Blair Levin said today in a note.

``We know that the C-block will have a winner, and that the open-access conditions will be triggered, but we cannot know now who that winner is,'' Levin said.

Google rose $16.03 to $564.30 at 4 p.m. in Nasdaq Stock Market trading. AT&T gained $1.14 to $38.49 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. Verizon Communications Inc., which owns Verizon Wireless with Vodafone Group Plc, advanced 53 cents to $38.77.

Google spokesman Adam Kovacevich and Verizon Wireless spokesman Jeffrey Nelson declined to comment, citing FCC rules that bar participants from discussing the auction.

Source:  Bloomberg Inc. 

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