Overheard in the tech blogosphere » VoIP

Overheard talking about Digg and Cassandra

Margaret Rouse — Tue, 22 May 2012 12:03:26 +0000

“Built on mostly open source software and commodity hardware, Digg dropped its open source MySQL database in favor of Cassandra, a non-relational, “NoSQL” database that was developed by Facebook and handed over to the Apache Software Foundation.” — Rob Barry

Today’s WhatIs.com Word of the Day is Digg, a social news site that allows members to raise the visibility of stories they like best and bury stories they don’t like. Digg was launched back in 2004.

Overheard talking about cramming landline phone bills

Margaret Rouse — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 16:32:23 +0000

“An investigation by Rockefeller’s Senate Commerce Science and Transportation Committee last year found that phone companies had placed $10 billion in third-party charges on customers’ landline phone bills over the last five years — and that a large percentage of those charges were unauthorized.” — Brendan Sasso

Today’s WhatIs.com Word of the Day is cramming, padding your phone bill with sneaky little charges for things you don’t want and never knew you were paying for.

U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar has convinced Verizon, CenturyLink and AT&T to stop cramming landline phone bills. The Senator is on the Commerce Subcommittee on Communications, Technology and the Internet — which has oversight over the FCC and the wireless industry.

What do you call Twitter spam? CAW

Margaret Rouse — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 17:01:47 +0000

“You can go on eBay today and type ‘twitter followers’ or ‘buy twitter followers, and you can pump up your number. Those are great examples of completely spam accounts.” – Michael Hussey

This week Twitter went to court this week to shut down five websites that allegedly provide tools for spamming Twitter. And that got me thinking — why hasn’t anyone come up with a cute little word for spam on Twitter? Spam is a honking big problem on Twitter.

So ok folks — here’s your chance to invent a new word. What should we call spam on Twitter?

I’d like to suggest we call it CAW. Because unlike a bird’s delightful little tweet, the repetitive, annoying sound of a crow’s CAW has no redeeming value. And neither does spam.

CAW could even be a backronym. We’d just need to come up with some clever words that begin with “c,” “a,” “w.”

Got suggestions?

Overheard – VoIPSA

Margaret Rouse — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 14:56:05 +0000

“Some computer viruses have a crude but scary ability to spy on people by logging every keystroke they type. Now hackers and potentially law enforcement have another weapon: a virus that can eavesdrop on voice conversations that go over computers instead of a regular phone line.”

Jordan Robertson, Wiretapping Skype calls: virus eavesdrops on VoIP

Today’s WhatIs.com Word of the Day is VoIPSA.

Overheard – Web self-service

Margaret Rouse — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 13:00:24 +0000

“More and more organizations are finding that, while a dedicated customer service staff is still an integral part of any company, customers can do a fine job answering questions and service issues for themselves and for one another.”

Barney Beal, SaaS CRM vendors get serious about Web self-service features

Today’s WhatIs.com Word of the Day is Web self-service.

Overheard – RealDVD and the power of the MPAA

Margaret Rouse — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 16:22:17 +0000

“It’s perfectly legal to rip music from a CD and upload it onto an iPod for personal use; why can’t a person do the same with their own copies of movies?”

Brennon Slattery, Why Pick on RealDVD?

It’s sad that RealDVD, with its sophisticated and lawful approach to DVD-copying, had to swallow the wrath of the MPAA. It’s also clear that the DMCA [Digital Millenium Copyright Act of 1998] needs to be updated to reflect the changes in media distribution 11 years later.

Overheard – Difference between CDMA and GSM

Margaret Rouse — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 19:26:54 +0000

“The two biggest differences between the CDMA and GSM standards are international compatibility and how the networks handle activating phones.”

Adama D. Brown, Brighthand FAQ: What’s the difference between CDMA and GSM?

Outside the U.S. and Canada, most GSM phones will still work, while almost all CDMA phones simply can’t be used overseas.

CDMA phones are activated remotely, by the carrier, using the phone’s serial number, known as the ESN. Since each carrier has a database of all the ESNs that are approved for its network, this lets most CDMA carriers refuse to activate phones not originally intended for their network.

GSM phones are activated differently. Each account is associated with what’s called a SIM card, or Subscriber Identity Module. This card, about the size of a fingertip and the thickness of a piece of paperboard, carries an encrypted version of all the information needed to identify your wireless account to the network. You slip it into the appropriate slot on a GSM phone (usually under the battery) and that phone is ready to use.

Overheard – Deep fiber

Margaret Rouse — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 19:06:01 +0000

Pushing fiber close to the customer is generically called “deep fiber,” and various acronyms are used to indicate just how deep the fiber is. FTTH means “fiber to the home,” which is the extreme of giving every user an optical-electrical termination. FTTC takes “fiber to the curb,” serving a group of homes, while FTTN means “fiber to the node” or “neighborhood.”

Tom Nolle, Fiber-optic networks: Access network design

Overheard – WiMAX and LTE

Margaret Rouse — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 16:07:09 +0000

For most service providers and consumer, 4G wireless has the potential to deliver 40 Mbps or more of broadband connectivity per user. There are two technologies capable of supporting this requirement: WiMAX from the IEEE and the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP)’s Long-Term Evolution (LTE).

Tom Nolle, Three 4G business models emerge for LTE and WiMAX

Operator studies suggest that the migratory WiMAX model is most valuable in cities with large student populations, areas where mass transit is used for commuting in preference to private automobiles, and areas where online video usage has been well-socialized among wireline broadband users.

Where there is a strong wireline content appetite, sustaining that appetite in other places where the user may relax is far easier. On the other hand, in locations where much of the population commutes by car, where the user is older and less likely to view content online at home, and where a large segment of the population of a service area may be moving in from a different area, the mobile-evolution or LTE model is easiest to validate.

Overheard – High Speed Packet Access

Margaret Rouse — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 14:01:15 +0000

It’s no secret that 4G wireless technology – aka Long Term Evolution and WiMax – is in the works and actually starting to see some deployment. But until then, a 3G technology called High Speed Packet Access, or HSPA, is seeing the big growth numbers around the globe.

Sam Diaz, Growth of 3G wireless broadband illustrates demand for 4G connections

HSPA is a general name for the High-Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) and High-Speek Uplink Packet Access protocols. They are packet-based mobile telephony protocols used in 3G to increase data capacity and speed up transfer rates. One of the primary differences between HSPA and EV-DO networks is that HSPA allows mobile handsets to transmit voice and data simultaneously.

Jonathan Morgan has written a very interesting post explaining why HSPA is so important. It all comes down to dollars.