VoIP Watch

My Experience with L'Avion to Paris Was Great!!

Okay, I'm picky when it comes to air travel and based on my experience last night on the flight from Newark (EWR) to Paris Orly, I'm flying L'Avion again and again.

Restful, easy, non-obstrusive but attentive service from very happy flight attendants. Fast check in. A private departure lounge and just a great flight.

The meal was good, but candidly I can care less what the food is like at 37,000 feet. The all Business Class seating was a dream. I was able to sleep close to four hours out of the roughly seven hour flight, watched a movie on a very cool digital media device and read my book when I didn't sleep.

For those heading to Paris from the New York area this is a great option and worth the price over coach.

A Very Fashionable Crew

Wed 27/06/2007 16:12 27062007023

L'Avion is Awesome

Wed 27/06/2007 16:12 27062007022

All business class rocks

Anti-Twitter from Luca

Pal Luca calls Hictu his "anti-twitter" in an IM to me. Hictu is a video blogging service so check out what Luca has to say.

In many ways this looks like a competitor to SightSpeed's VLIP, but until I get some time (likely after the Vineyard Vows in July) I won't get first hand experience with this.

T Mobile Displays @Home

Wed 27/06/2007 07:21 27062007020

Today I stopped in a Manhattan T-Mobile store and saw their display. Note they are not displaying any handsets in association with the unit, and no one seemed to be able to answer questions about the product's availability with regard to handsets.

In reading the collateral, there were all kinds of disclaimers about 911 and in my view made E911 sound like a best efforts claim to avoid potential litigation down the road. Unlike Earthlink, AT&T and AOL, all of whose voice service require very strict compliance with E911, this seemed to strike me as odd, but consistent, due to the nature of how the mobile operators currently hand off 911 calls, to the state police or hiway patrol, not the local authorities (at least in California despite efforts to make that happen in some communities.)

I've actually reached out to a former T-Mobile PR person to get in touch with the company's PR person to get more on this and other questions answered that the release doesn't provide.

Stay Tuned!

T-Mobile Rolls Out HotSpot @ Home With VoIP

After about two years of being in the rumor mill T-Mobile rolled out their Hotspot @ Home service.

What's ironic is here they are in the USA pushing the concept of VoIP and dual mode using cable operators and telco's DSL, FIOS or other networks for FREE, yet in the UK they are seeking to make the services like Roam4Free or Truphone impossible to reach, contending that those companies don't have any network costs.

It seems what's good for them is all that matters. I wonder how the would feel if Cox or TimeWarne or Comcast, all of whom have mobile programs with Sprint and offer VoIP chose to make calls from T-Mobile customers very expensive to terminate or impossible for the @HOME phones to send UMA based traffic....

For disclosure purposes, my agency represents Truphone.

Earthlink Give N800 Owners Free Access to WiFi Net

If you have a Nokia N800 and are living in one of the Earthlink Feather cities Nokia and Earthlink have a great deal for you.

Free access.

TMCnet's Tom Keating provides some perspective and is promising to give the N800 Internet Tablet a real workout.

Tom Keating On The New Live Meeting

Tom Keating has a very detailed review of Microsoft's newest entry into Video Conferencing, called RoundTable (sorry, no pizza delivered).

At $3,000 I'll stick with SightSpeed until I can see a reason to make that kind of investment. Thank you.

VoIPWatch Slowdown For Good Reason

I'm giving fair warning that I'll be posting less the next few weeks. Why? Starting this Thursday I'll be in Europe for my French Wedding, now dubbed The French Connection.

Some of you who have followed this blog since its inception, may know that back in 2004 I met Dr. Helene Malabed on Sunday November 7, 2004 as a result of some serendipity by two blogger buddies, Bob Cox, now founder of the Media Bloggers Association who convinced me, over my protestations, to attend the BloggerCon in Palo Alto, CA that year, and Om Malik, who asked me to come to San Francisco and organize a wine dinner that showcased which wines work best with Indian food that same weekend.

Never one to turn down a reason to drink good wine, I called my long time winepal Melanie Wong, who organized a dinner at Sultan which included my friend, and now Comunicano colleague Bill Ryan, who also knows Om, Adityo Prakash, who now know Om, and a few others. Helene and I met in the W lobby, where she was doing some work on her Toshiba Tablet (she got high geek factor points with that one), wearing funky pink fuzzy Ugg Boots and drinking red wine. My opening line:

"Can I share half of your Internet connection." She said yes, and the rest is now history. Helene ended up joining us for dinner that night and quickly all at dinner, including the two of us, realized that there was something special happening.

So, thanks Bob and Om...for making me the happiest guy in the world...

For those that want to keep up with what's going on in France, I'll post now and then to my wineblog.

SightSpeed DownUnder

SightSpeed has launched a local version in Australia this morning.

The key here is local presence and local servers. Given where Australia is, and how the traffic initially will be county or regional specific, the installation of servers will provide the same high quality experience we have come to know and love here in the USA.