Commentary from Datasharp Telecom, one of the leading independent telecoms companies in the UK focusing on emerging technologies from within the telecommunications sector. VoIP, IP telephony, PABX, hybrid IP systems, hosted solutions, convergance technologies.

Tuesday, November 28, 2006

Vesper from Casino Royale

Britain's unluckiest man falls down manhole

16 major accidents during lifetime of mishaps

A 54-year-old Doncaster unfortunate - dubbed "Britain's unluckiest man" - has continued a lifelong tradition of mishaps by falling down a manhole, Ananova reports.

John Lyne, of Stainforth, near Doncaster suffered injuries to his back, left leg and both knees as a result of the tumble, and will be out of action for 32 weeks, according to the Doncaster Free Press.

Lyne's career began as a child, when he fell off a horse and cart and was run over by a delivery van. As a teenager, he fell from a tree and broke his arm. On his way home from hospital - on Friday 13th - the bus he was in crashed, provoking another fracture in the same arm.

Since then, he's been hit by lightning twice, fallen victim to a rock-fall in a mine, has nearly drowned and has enjoyed three car crashes.

Lyne said: "I don't think there is any reason or explanation for it though, it has just happened really. I have to particularly be careful on the Friday 13ths, when a few accidents have fallen."

The poor bloke added: "Everyone thinks it is just hilarious. My mates, family and wife Susan just laugh about it."

South African man throws pregnancy sickie

A South African man has been fined £70 for forging a sick note claiming he needed some quality time tending his unborn baby, Ananova reports.

According to Sapa news agency, 27-year-old Charles Sibindana "stole a medical certificate from a health centre used by his pregnant girlfriend", but failed to take into account he lacked the necessary womb to pull off the scam.

Magistrate Bruno Van Eeden in Vereeniging, near Johannesburg, slapped the master skiver with the aforementioned fine and told him "not to walk around faking sick letters from gynaecologists".

RTX ships 'first' cordless Skype phone

Danish handset maker RTX Telecom today launched what it claims is the first cordless Skype phone that doesn't require a PC. That's what the blogs are saying, at any rate. What RTX is really claiming is to have shipped the first RTX PC-less Skype handset, which is a bit like Honda making a big deal about how it's the first company in the world to ship a Civic with four wheels.

rtx telecom dualphone 3088 skype cordless

RTX's Dual Phone 3088 isn't the first PC-less Skype phone by a long chalk. Philips announced one back in September, and both Logitech and Panasonic launched similar products earlier this year. And then there are all the Wi-Fi-enabled Skype phones from SMC, Netgear et al that likewise require no PC.

The 3088 uses a DECT connection to communicate with its base-station unit, which plugs into a broadband router. It also hooks into the phone network to allow it to operate as a standard. Outgoing calls can be made either way.

RTX claimed the 3088 offers ten hours' talk time and almost six days' standby-by operation.

Wary launch imminent for BT broadband telly Vision

BT will quietly launch its long-trailed TV over broadband service Vision on Monday.

The IPTV package brings the 30ish Freeview channels plus a host of premium on-demand content to the firm's broadband base. A set-top box will offer Sky+ style PVR capability with its hard drive able to store 80 hours of programming.
Click here to find out more!

A string of deals with content providers Disney, Channel 4, SonyBMG, the FA Premiership, and others will see movies, music videos, and sport available on a paid-for basis to supplement Freeview channels. BT says there will be no charges for unwanted Vision services - anything apart from Freeview will be opt-in.

BT will not begin big splash advertising of Vision until spring. Next week's launch will see pricing and programmming strategy fleshed out, but early numbers will be carefully watched to avoid embarrassing supply delays. A spokesman said the firm would be taking a "sensible approach" to the rollout.

The problems experienced by Carphone Warehouse and Orange in the rollout of their "free" broadband services earlier this year have acted as an augury to the rapidly converging communications and media industries.

Elsewhere, O2 has made it clear it is concentrating on establishing the infrastructure of its broadband service before a marketing push. Along with Vodafone it will eschew a "free" pitch in favour of emphasising quality of service.

Few expect BT to wrest a very large portion of the pay TV market away from Sky and cable monopoly NTL (soon to be rebranded as Virgin Media). The rationale backing Vision surrounds customer retention and adding value to its position in the broadband market.

Friday, November 10, 2006

Britain wide open to alien invasion

Britain wide open to alien invasion
Actual aliens this time, not an enlarged EU

The British government is shockingly underprepared for an attack by extraterrestrials, an ex-MoD man has claimed.

Nick Pope, a career civil servant who spent four years heading up the MoD's research into UFO sightings, is concerned that credible evidence of an alien threat is being ignored and that Britain is "wide open" to attack.

According to an article in London paper The Evening Standard, Pope said: "The consequences of getting this one wrong could be huge. If you reported a UFO sighting now, I am absolutely sure that you would just get back a standard letter telling you not to worry. Frankly, we are wide open - if something does not behave like a conventional aircraft now, it will be ignored."

Pope explains that he became convinced of the reality of alien visits to Earth while he was investigating reports of UFO sightings. The MoD investigates all of these to make sure that British airspace has not been compromised.

He says he has seen no evidence of hostile intent, but suspects that the planet is being covertly reconnoitred.

What he doesn't say, is what sort of plan should be in place to deal with any wannabe alien marauders. After all, if some big green lizardy things with arm-mounted bazooka-death-ray-guns did show up and want to take over, we'd be hard pushed to mount a credible defence.

"One is left with the uneasy feeling that if it turned out to be so [hostile aliens on the rampage], there is very little we could do about it," Pope notes.

Quite so.

So what convinced this otherwise mild-mannered civil servant that the truth was out there?

He says although most sightings can be explained away, there are a few that defy conventional explanations. He cites two examples: the first from 1993 when numerous RAF personnel reported a vast triangular craft flying above their bases. Hundreds of members of the public also called in sightings over a period of several hours.

The second is from 1980, when RAF staff in Suffolk found a landing module of some kind in the woods. According to the reports, it flew off when they arrived to check it out, but subsequent examination found that the footprints it left behind were emitting 10 times normal levels of radiation.

Monday, November 06, 2006

UK Telecoms

Just pick up a copy of Comms Dealer magazine and you would be hard pushed to read about an industry going through any problems. Lots of Mergers and acquisitions, strong sales and company growth, new technologies emerging by the week. I also see a merging of entertainment with telecoms which is definately an area to watch....

Bluetooth and Wireless Headsets

One of the greatest developments that has happened in recent years is the emergance of bluetooth wireless headsets. A fantastic device that can potentially connect your landline, with your mobile phone as well as operate IP telephony over your PC. Thats 3 forms of verbal interaction with one device, all at the same time. I'm sure there are other applications for the wireless headset but I'll wait for the posts to follow....

The only problem now though is everyone walking around with these cyber devices hanging off our heads. Not to mention the weird sight of people walking along talking to themselves. Small price to pay...

Friday, November 03, 2006

Skype users hang on for free calls

Skype users hang on for free calls - Promotion gone wrong

Skype user forums are filling up with angry customers who signed up to the Voice over Internet Protocol firm's free UK calls promotion.

The only trouble is they are still being charged for calls. The cock-up has done little for Skype's reputation for "customer service".

Punters who bought £10 of Skype credit were supposed to get six months of free calls to UK landlines, including the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man.

But dozens of customers who paid their £10 are still waiting to have free calls activated.

A statement from Skype said: ""We are really sorry to hear that some users have experienced problems with Talk for Britain. We are working extremely hard to resolve these issues and will update our website as soon as the problems are resolved."

SkypeIn not in right now

SkypeIn not in right now - Incoming calls routed nowhere

Skype, the popular VoIP service, has been having technical difficulties with its SkypeIn service which enables Skype users to have a real phone number and receive normal phone calls through their Skype service.

Users report that only a small proportion of calls to UK numbers are getting through, with voice mail failing and some users not receiving any calls at all.

The problem seems to have surfaced in the middle of October, but has been getting steadily worse since, and is now so bad that Skype is mailing those who complain to apologise and promise compensation. But with business customers reporting lost clients, and personal users missing out on contacts, it seems unlikely that Skype will be able to satisfy many of the affected users.

Only the SkypeIn service appears to be experiencing problems. SkypeIn allows incoming calls from the normal phone network which are routed to a Skype account, or it would do if it was working.

SkypeOut, the service which allows Skype users to dial normal numbers, uses infrastructure supplied by BT and is working fine, and Skype-to-Skype calls are also connecting without any problems.

In theory, any call experiencing problems connecting to a Skype account should instead be routed to the voice mail service. But some customers report that all their incoming calls have been routed to voice mail, regardless of their availability, while others have no voice mail functionality at all. Many users are realising that an unreliable phone service can be worse than no phone service at all, as callers receiving an unobtainable signal may well assume the worst.

Wednesday, November 01, 2006

IP phone man's VONAGE Hell

Vonage has apologised after coding slip-ups caused one of its customers to be billed 80 times - at a cost £5.99 per occasion - for changes to accounts that didn't belong to him. He found out he was able to see other customers' account details and credit card information when he logged into his Vonage account. The IP telephony firm had changed his number so many times that his Linksys router had given up to the ghost. To add insult to injury, he discovered he'd been billed scores of times for changes to other people's accounts.

Other customers were subsequently assigned numbers temporarily given to him.

He'd been unable to receive voice mails for 18 months since becoming a Vonage customer, a problem he attributes to the phone number merry-go-round he's been forced to endure. The problem peaked last week when he was able to see one of five other customer's personal and billing details at random when he logged into his account.

Since reporting his problems to Vonage, the IP telephony firm has sorted out the mess and he says he's now able to login and collect voicemail for the first time in 18 months. "I went to Vonage for the convenience of using the service when I go abroad and as a way of reducing my phone bill. In the end, I'd have been better to stay with BT,"

He said Vonage reps in New Jersey told him a scripting error was the root cause behind why he was assigned continuously changing numbers. Numbers temporarily assigned to him were reissued, which goes some way towards explaining why he could see other people's details when he logged onto his Vonage account, while not exactly getting to the bottom of the problem.

In a statement, Vonage said the mix-up was an isolated problem, for which it apologised.

"Vonage has conducted a thorough investigation of the issues raised. We found that in this customer's circumstance there was a temporary problem in the transfer of voicemail facilities following a change of number, due to an upgrade of the voicemail service, for which we apologise. While we cannot publicly discuss an individual's account details and usage, we can reassure Vonage customers that this was a unique and isolated situation. Vonage takes security extremely seriously, and appreciates the vigilance of this customer in raising their concern."