Well I have been using this Nokia N95 for quite a while now, at least a month and half, and I never had a chance to come to that same conclusion that Luca and VoIPGirl came to: that the earbud cord is too short. Why? Because I still haven’t used it for music! I’m a Apple value chain slave so I’m an all-iTunes, all-iPod guy. Same thing with the N800–no sense using the earbuds, not even for the FM radio feature, at least in my opinion. Novel, yeah, but not practical.
Signal to Noise
Teddy Wallingford, Rock and Roll CEO
PhoneValet Anywhere Turns Apple’s iPhone into One-Stop Source for All Voice Mail
Parliant turns iPhone into a single-source telephony device with real-time access to voice mail and call logs from standard telco, VoIP*, and cable lines
OGDENSBURG, NY and OTTAWA, ON, July 27, 2007 — Available now from www.parliant.com, PhoneValet Anywhere for iPhone delivers home and office voice mails to iPhone’s Safari browser, making iPhone a single-source telephony device for both wireless and landline messages. PhoneValet Anywhere for iPhone is a $59.95 server upgrade with unlimited users for existing PhoneValet Message Center 5.x customers.
“PhoneValet Anywhere extends PhoneValet Message Center’s capabilities to remote Macs and PCs via a standard Web browser,” said Kevin Ford, Parliant’s President. “When we saw iPhone we decided to further refine PhoneValet Anywhere’s interface and functionality to allow the fast-growing iPhone nation to listen to PhoneValet voice mail messages, return calls, view recent calls and view/edit notes on call details. iPhone users accustomed to Apple’s visual voicemail will have a very familiar experience.”
PhoneValet Anywhere for iPhone automatically converts PhoneValet voice mail files into a format that can be played on iPhone for a seamless listening experience. The audio file format is optimized to sound good but the files are small enough to download quickly even when iPhone is on an EDGE network.
Parliant’s multi-award winning PhoneValet Message Center turns a Mac into a multi-line virtual call center. It features an automated attendant, unlimited voice mail call tree, call blocking, recording, logging and screening, automated dialing and Interactive Voice Response (IVR) capabilities. Its patent pending technology does all this and more using standard telephone lines and many Internet telephone lines – with no need for an expensive phone switch.
PhoneValet Message Center retails at $169.95 per line for new users (including software and Parliant’s USB telephone adapter) available from Parliant at www.parliant.com, Apple stores, Apple’s online store and many retailers across the U.S. and Canada. PhoneValet Anywhere for iPhone is a free upgrade for existing PhoneValet Anywhere 5.x customers.
Read it and weep. Now what was SunRocket–the number 2 pure play VoIP carrier? Not looking positive.
So my mom finally decided to take the leap to IP-based phone service. Naturally I’ve been nagging her to dump the land line for years now. She had always been an AOL dial-up user and paid the premium Bell charges for POTS. So it made sense for her to switch to broadband and get a VoIP phone line. My suggestion was that she give Packet8 a look. But she preferred the bundling approach of Time Warner, from whom she now subscribes to Internet access, TV programming, and telephone service.
She has had a lot of trouble with the Time Warner VoIP service. Interestingly, the number port was painless and quick, but that’s about the only aspect of the process that was easy. On day one, the installer was there for half a day. When he left, the line was working but only intermittently. Incoming calls were hit or miss–sometimes, the phone just wouldn’t ring. Later, it got to the point where the ATA would ring when incoming calls occurred–but it would only ring ONCE. (“I could’ve sworn I heard the phone ringing!”)
So Time Warner sent their tech out for a follow-up visit. He said the first tech “screwed up the wiring”. Gee, never heard that from a phone company or cable tech before. But apparently the service is working OK now. I’ll keep you posted on Mom’s VoIP journey.
I jumped on iTunes to snag a copy of Crystal Gayle’s song “Turn my Brown Eyes Blue” for an upcoming performance (no, I’m not singing it–just accompanying somebody who is) and I was informed by my beloved iTunes client that this track is available as an “iTunes Plus” track. Meaning no DRM, 30 cents more, and higher encoding rate. I went ahead and downloaded the 99 cent track. Sorry, Steve. Not parting with an extra quarternickel for a throw-away track.
Hectic. Hectic. Hectic. Blogging has been sparse and Signal to Noise isn’t the only thing that’s suffered. Since returning from the wireless event in Boston (Muni Wireless) several weeks ago, things have been nonstop. The consulting business has really picked up, and so has the music business. Also squeezed in a family emergency trip to Kansas City which came out of the blue. Needless to say, it’s been a roller coaster ride, and I really do intend to get back to regular blogging and participation with my fellow bloggers (famous blogger last words). I can’t tell you how many blogs I’ve seen with the final post saying something like “I haven’t been posting much lately” only to have that final post be 2 years old and still the most recent one! Not here, I tell ya.
The perennial east coast IP event, Fall VON, is headed back to Boston again in 2007, although it appears a little later on the calendar this time around. (It’s actually Fall VON as opposed to Late Summer VON.)Â Check out the speaker line up and schedule and be sure to register as this event is always a must-attend:
Nice move, GC guys!
From an e-mail:
because it ensures that not only will we have the resources to continue to bring you even more innovative communications features down the road, but that we will be able to continue to offer you the service, with many features for free, for a long time to come.
We started GrandCentral because we wanted to create a service that puts users in control of their voice communications and not the other way around. As you have discovered, with GrandCentral you get all of your phone calls through just one number that never changes and you can link and ring up to six phones when somebody calls you. But that’s just the start. You can set different rules for each caller (some ring all your phones, others can go straight to voicemail), create personal voicemail greetings for each of your callers, and even check your voicemail on the web with all of your messages in just one inbox. We’ll even save your messages for as long as you want.
Have you ever tried to save a message on your cell phone but it gets deleted after a few weeks? Or have you wished you could hear your voicemail messages while they are being left like you used to be able to do on your old home answering machine? Have you ever been on a call on your cell but wished you could switch it to your desk or home phone? How about having a filter to weed out unwanted telemarketer calls automatically? With GrandCentral you are in control and can do all of this, and this is just the beginning. As part of Google we’ll be able to create even more unique features to let you control your calls the way you want.
Many of you probably have questions about what happens to the service now that we’re a part of Google. We’ve created an FAQ–which will answer most of your questions, but a couple of highlights:
Our priority now is to ensure that you, our current beta users, continue to have a great user experience. While we scale the service, we are moving to an invitation-only model for new users. If you’re a registered user today, you can invite five of your friends to join. In addition, GrandCentral will continue to remain entirely free as we work with Google to add capacity, work out any kinks, fix bugs, and add a ton more great features. We hope you continue using the service and send us feedback about anything we can do to improve it.
Thanks for your support so far. We’ll always work to earn it.
Craig Walker and Vincent Paquet, GrandCentral Founders
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