Give Dad the Gift of Technology
Though shopping for a Father’s Day gift can be a challenge, the following ideas from Vonage, the fastest-growing broadband telephone service provider, will help dad have a high-tech Father’s Day.
* The gift of on-the-go entertainment: If your dad is a music lover, an MP3 player will give him hours of musical enjoyment. This audio compression technology allows you to store CD-quality sound on a small handheld device. With a portable music player, your dad will be able to listen to his favorite tunes while working out or riding to work.
For dad’s viewing pleasure, get him a portable DVD player. It will come in handy on long trips and can even be plugged into a regular TV when he wants to watch movies on a bigger screen.
* The gift of low-priced communication: The broadband phone service by Vonage will let dad relay conversations over a high-speed Internet connection using a regular phone and a phone adapter.
The technology, called Voice over IP, costs less than a regular phone line. In fact, Vonage provides unlimited calling anywhere in the United States and Canada for $24.99. Free features include voicemail, caller ID, call waiting, call forwarding, three-way calling and in-network calls. Vonage also offers competitive international rates.
Once you sign dad up, Vonage will send him a startup package that includes a free phone adapter. The adapter can be used anywhere in the world that has a high-speed Internet connection. Installation of the service takes less than five minutes.
* The gift of organization: You’ve given dad many ties in the past. Now give him a place to display them — a motorized tie rack. With the touch of a button, his entire tie collection will glide past him for easy selection and leave him with a more organized closet.
For work or play, a personal digital assistant can keep dad on schedule. But this handheld device is more than just a personal organizer: Most PDAs include cell phone, fax and Internet features.
Asterisk – a Powerful VOIP Toolkit
Asterisk, is an open and powerful VoIP telephony toolkit; which can be used to give an individual the ultimate control over their phone performances. For example the transfer of voice over wifi, eliminating phone call costs, ability to select from hundreds of VoIP providers, and how to create your personal voicemail and menus.
What is this gadget Asterisk? Asterisk is a powerful VoIP toolkit, which application is easy; it is an open source VoIP telephony toolkit (server software) which runs on any platform. It allows an individual to manage VoIP services from their own home in several powerful ways, which can not be handled even the most expensive PBX (public branch exchange). For instance, it can be used as a gateway from a VoIP service to the common copper phone lines to the normal forward calls directed to your mobile phone device from your location. It lets you create VoIP connections to any individual on the net, manage your voicemail, prompts to a virtually limitless capability depending on how far you want to take it.
There have been tremendous improvement not just the layout but styling too. Theres has been an increase in its usability too. Asterisks is very essential in handling both SIP signaling and RTP. If your telecom routing project requires a SIP from front end to your router selection server then the best choice should be Asterisks. Although you need to be able to push 400-500 calls per second using asterisks channeled to any sever. For you to perform this task you need to work on the Asterisks side of things.
Most businesses and organizations are now capable of hitting more than 9 million calls all routed in 48 hours roughly which translates to a minimum of 59 calls per second. The other powerful Asterisks VoIP toolkit is the updated AsterisksNOW 1.5 with this gadget you can make and place calls from your home. Generally AsterisksNow is a software appliance which is a customized Linux distribution that includes Asterisks brand and Asterisks trademarks. Asterisks being a worlds leading source of telephony engine and toolkit, its easy to configure using graphical interface. This VoIP toolkit contains all components used to either run debug or build an asterisks. The advantage of this toolkit is that its easy to install and therefore minimizes all worries of having to use a kernel version or depending on package.
An asterisk is therefore the worlds current leading source of telephony engine and VoIP toolkit. It offers flexibilities in the world of proprietary communications. It empowers developers together with integrators to create an elaborate and advanced communication solution. Asterisks are normally released as an open source but under license from the GNU general public license (GPL). Its available freely no payment is required for any body to download and use it. An asterisk is the only popular most open source of software available. Asterisks are the top and leading VoIP influencer. Try one today and I guarantee you to discover how amazing this powerful VoIP toolkit can revolutionalize your organization or business entity.
VoIP Solutions: Thrives With Inherent Benefits
In this high-tech world, expectations of business professionals as well as individual users have moved quite a bit ahead than the traditional dial-up networks. The ‘next generation’ people are more likely to step-in to advanced telecommunication services that are fast, reliable, customizable as well as self-manageable. As a matter of fact, this has opened new avenues for the latest VoIP solutions.
The hosted business VoIP solutions help the business houses to gain a strategic advantage in simplifying and enhancing voice and data communications. Unlike expensive traditional systems, IP solution ties with excellent voice quality services as well as value added features that too at minimal rates. As a matter of fact, the users can enjoy making the local calls, long distance or international calls at cheaper rates. Therefore, it can be said that such solutions significantly down-sizes the monthly telephone bills drastically by up to 40-60 percent compared to PSTN services.
As a matter of fact, the advanced IP services are based on the packet switching technique that enables the users to transmit the data over the internet or IP network. While, routing a call over internet, the analog data is digitalised into compressed IP packets. These IP compressed packets absorb the noise on their route and results in uninterrupted communication between the sender and the receiver. Therefore, the users can easily transmit the audio, data, pictures and video over a high-speed single IP network instead of only plain data, in case of PSTN services.
For implementing the VoIP business solutions, one requires phone and Analog Transmission Adapter (ATA). These are considered as standard equipment for the initializing the internet telephony solutions. Generally, the ATA is offered by the VoIP solution provider at the time of signing-in for these services.
Other than its basic benefits of enhanced productivity and cost efficiency, the business houses as well as others can eliminate the expensive roaming expenses. This is because VoIP solutions are location independent that allows the users to carry the VoIP phones along with them, regardless of geographic location. Apart from that, flexibility, adaptability and compatibility are some of the important considerations that must be considered while selecting a VoIP solution provider. Unlike PSTN services, hosted VoIP solutions ensure security over the ‘unified’ communication.
The IP market is flooded with the IP solution providers, so it is essential that the potential users must carry comprehensive research. With various benefits and features, voice over IP solutions has achieved a complete market penetration by leaving a mark on both business as well as avid casual users.
How to use VOIP for Free International Calls
Here are a number of services available that allow you to make internet telephone calls utilizing VOIP for free. These services fall into two broad categories. 1) PC software applications made available for free or low-cost that enable PC to PC phone calls over VOIP and 2) VOIP service providers that allow free PC to PC phone calls as a lead-in to their paid services (such as PC to landline or mobile numbers). Many of these applications also enable IM or chat services between users, and some are compatible with Microsoft, Yahoo and AOL instant messaging.
The first category consists entirely of free or low-cost PC softphone applications that are widely available for download. These range from freeware to shareware to applications available for purchase. Most of these applications rely on existing PC hardware (microphone and speakers or headset) to implement a PC softphone. The common denominator for all of these applications is that both participants in the internet telephone call must be running the same PC softphone software, or at least running software that supports the same protocol on both ends.
A good example of programs such as this is ExpressTalk, which utilizes the SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) standard, one that has gained fairly wide acceptance. Microsoft Windows Messenger uses the SIP protocol. A SIP provider is required for ExpressTalk, but you can register with many SIP providers at no cost. ExpressTalk includes a rich feature set, with support for features such as CallerID, data compression, use of up to 4 lines and multi-party calling. ExpressTalk provides a very user-friendly interface with one-click access to the integrated phone book and one-click dialing. Currently, there is at least one SIP provider, Voipbuster, that is offering free calls to landline and mobile numbers. There is however, a 120-day limit to free calls before a fee is charged.
Another source for free PC softphones allowing free PC to PC VOIP calls is the major software download sites. Most of the applications available from these sites require both users to be running the same software. Also, many of these programs are freeware with limited support.
Probably the most recognizable name in the second category (free PC softphones offered as a lead-in to paid services) is Skype. This provider started a number of years ago by providing a PC softphone that enabled users to make PC to PC internet telephone calls for free. Skype has since evolved into a full-scale provider, but still offers one of the best free PC softphones available. Skype now offers SkypeOut and SkypeIn for calls to and from landline and mobile users. Although this is a paid feature, Skype has made this service available for free until December 31st, 2006. Also, there is a wide assortment of USB and wireless handsets and ATA- type devices available for use with Skype. Another advantage to using Skype is that it is available for PC, Mac or Linux platforms.
Other examples of this type of provider are Firefly and Gizmo Project. These providers offer a free PC softphone app that can be downloaded and used to make PC to PC internet phone calls for free. They also allow calls to landline and mobile users for an additional fee, which varies among providers.
Google Talk, which is still in beta form, offers a unique hybrid of features such as voice, chat, IM, email and file transfer. Google Talk will likely gain widespread use, and interoperability is a major goal for the product. Google Talk is currently available for free, and is free to use.
As you can see, it is still possible to obtain free VOIP service. While most of the free services allow only PC to PC calls to made for free, careful research can identify providers with lengthy free trials for calls to landline and mobile users.
