I was doing a Google search the other day, looking for some photos of me at the last company I worked at, when I discovered US patent 7,958,276, Automatic Configuration of Peripheral Devices. When I worked at my previous company I started playing around with an algorithm to automatically configure a voice over IP device. One of the main problems people would have previously is that they would plug in a new audio device and have to spend a pile of time figuring out how to configure it. The same was true with video. So at the time I came up with basically a complicated priority list that would ...

I'm always amazed when I see what the larger voice over IP (VOIP) companies are charging these days. Last time I looked at Vonage, I believe they were charging around $30/month, plus an activation fee and equipment fee of around $70 at the start. So while you do get a lot of bells and whistles included in that price (caller ID etc), it's still rather expensive in my mind. If you're looking for something cheaper, and you have an Internet connection at home, here's what you can do. First, you'll need either a SIP softphone or an analog telephone adapter (ATA). A popular SIP softphone is CounterPath's ...

Jeff Pulver is not only one of the original pioneers of voice over IP (VoIP), but also a really great individual who dedicates himself to technology and meeting all the people involved in it. I first met Jeff in the lounge of the Fairmont San Jose where him, Erik Lagerway and myself all sat around drinking one night years ago. If I remember correctly, Jeff picked up the tab that night, so I definitely owe him a few beers. Jeff will be up in Vancouver on the 10th and 11th of January. If you're around and want to grab breakfast with him on the morning of the 11th, check out the Facebook event he ...

Boris tipped me off on Twitter to a few articles about VoIP to ring in the new year. Here are a few: 2008, The Year That VOIP Died VoIP is not dead ...

This next post hits pretty close to home. I work in the field of voice over IP. I write software for my day job that allows people to talk to each other using two computers. A popular manifestation of the technology I work with everyday is Skype, which many people use to communicate with each other. One of the benefits of Skype is that the entire conversation is automatically encrypted. In theory, this should mean that nobody, not even the government, would be able to listen in on your phone calls. However, a recent article speculates that there may be a backdoor in Skype that would allow governments ...

When I first started my current job, the COO and one of the founders was a guy named Erik Lagerway. During the time he was at our company, we shared many a beer and even a plane ride or two together (the most memorable being the one to Phillidelphia where we got to witness first-hand drunken broomball in Horsham and Whatchamachukinchunk). His current brainchild is a service called Gaboogie which was designed in an attempt to simplify conference calls in the enterprise environment. Most conference calls today are setup via email, and involve participants calling into a conference bridge at a specified ...

"BT has stepped up the battle in the increasingly competitive broadband market by unveiling its new Total package offering interactive TV, videophoning and other integrated home media services." "The new services are being described as the biggest shake-up in communications since Alexander Graham Bell made the first landline call in 1876. " Yet another major carrier is adopting VoIP as part of their mandatory service offering. Read about it here ...