PhoneGnome Virtual PBX Launched

PhoneGnome has introduced a new “PhoneGnome for Business” product with a “virtual receptionist” feature, allowing PhoneGnome boxes to be used by small and medium business or other small organizations.

The service works with or without the PhoneGnome box, an appliance-based way to integrate IP telephony with standard telephone service.

However, when the virtual attendant function is used in conjunction with remote users also equipped with a PhoneGnome box, any existing telephony number with the Virtual Receptionist, used as a company’s main number, gets free inbound minutes.

"If you set up each virtual location with the box, all inter-office calls and transfers will be 100 percent free - even if those locations are oceans apart," says David Beckemeyer, PhoneGnome CEO.

"And what’s nice about the PhoneGnome approach is you don’t have to be a SIP or VOIP expert to set it up," says Beckemeyer. "The box self-configures when you connect it, doesn’t need a computer, and you use your existing regular phone numbers to call and transfer."

Beckemeyer is an astute observer of user behavior, and obviously has figured out that one of the most-popular features of any IP phone system, in a smaller business setting, is the virtual attendant feature.

So what he's done is take a simple IP telephony appliance and add the single most valuable feature for many small businesses.

Of late, when observing the ways communication habits seem to be forming among younger users, I have asked the question of whether it will necessarily be logical for business managers to buy PBXes. If you assume everybody already has a smart phone, then you are talking about some software that creates business personalities for users, without requiring dedicated hardware.

Virtual Attendant is an interesting way to add a very-popular feature to a very low cost way of integrating IP telephony with standard POTS in a smaller business setting.

AP Screws Up

AP seems not to get it. Michael Arrington at TechCrunch is so incensed about what many of us consider dumb policies that TechCrunch now refuses to link to or even quote Associated Press.

AP apparently hassled the Drudge Report (also not a smart move) for linking to their stories along with short quotations via reader submissions.

Drudge Retort is doing nothing different than what Digg, TechMeme, Mixx and dozens of other sites do.

AP does not want people quoting their stories, despite the fact that such activity very clearly falls within the fair use exception to copyright law. They claim that the activity is an infringement.

A.P. vice president Jim Kennedy says they will issue guidelines telling bloggers what is acceptable and what isn’t, over and above what the law says is acceptable. They will “attempt to define clear standards as to how much of its articles and broadcasts bloggers and Web sites can excerpt without infringing on The A.P.’s copyright.”

Those that disregard the guidelines risk being sued by the A.P., despite the fact that such use may fall under the concept of fair use.

It's just a bad move by an organization that seems not to understand how journalism is changing.

AT&T Launches More U-verse Markets with VoIP

AT&T has launched U-verse--with VoIP--in portions of the Columbus and Cleveland, Ohio and Reno, Nev. markets. The voice is priced about the same as cable digital voice.

Unlimited VoIP costs $40 monthly. A separate plan offering 1000 minutes of talk time costs $30.

The moves mean the competitive landscape is changing: AT&T finally is making a push into VoIP, for example. Up to this point it has been the cable companies that have profited most from VoIP in the U.S. market.

$1.54 3G iPhone to be Sold

Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobile will sell Apple Inc's new iPhone for as little as 1 euro ($1.54) for the 8-gigabyte version together with a 69 euro monthly contract.

And you thought a 3G iPhone for $199 was a great deal.

More Handset Subsidies Because of New iPhone Pricing

Among the likely ramifications of the new 3G iPhone pricing are competitive responses from other carriers.

Wireless service providers are likely to increase their own mobile handset subsidies, boost marketing budgets, and reduce prices on some services, analysts and industry insiders say—all likely to mean slimmer margins, reports Olga Kharif at Business Week.

That would be a directional shift. In the past year, U.S. wireless carriers had scaled back on the subsidies that resulted in lower handset prices in exchange for long-term wireless service contracts. But now that AT&T is boosting its subsidy of the iPhone, chances are other operators will follow suit, especially on iPhone copycats.

680 Million Mobile Internet Subs in Brazil, Russia, India, China by 2012

Brazil, Russia, India and China—collectively known as BRIC—represent 43 percent of the world's population and will account for nearly 1.2 billion mobile phone subscribers this year, according to eMarketer.

"Mobile is not simply viewed as an extension of the Web in BRIC, as it is in the United States, Western Europe and parts of Asia-Pacific," says John du Pre Gauntt, eMarketer senior analyst.

"Mobile is the Internet," he says.

eMarketer projects that the BRIC countries will account for over 1.7 billion mobile phone subscribers by 2012. Of that amount, over 680 million subscribers will access the mobile Internet.

Over the Top or Walled Garden Video?

At the end of the day, we'll probably find that both linear multichannel video and "over the top" video will be part of the user experience on a regular basis, despite our discussions of which model is better.

In part that is because linear, walled garden TV experiences still are convenient, and because interactive features more common to Web experiences will gradually migrate into the TV experience as well.

People use multiple forms of voice and messaging products as well, for the same reason. Some formats are highly useful in some settings and for some reasons, while others retain an advantage in other settings. Most people use both tethered and mobile voice. More people are using both fixed and mobile broadband. More people also are using more over the top video. But linear subscriptions haven't dipped as the new habit takes hold.

That doesn't mean there won't be changes. There always are whenever a new medium arises. Old media are reshaped, at the very least. But it's hard to see over the top completely replacing traditional multi-channel video, any more than mobile voice completely displacing fixed, IM-based or portal-based communications.

People are going to use the tools in lots of different ways. Even in the "commodity" voice world, they already do.