The Taxing Truth About VoIP Phone Service Taxes
At at one point or another, we’ve all complained about high taxes. Whether we’ve whimpered at the digits and dollar signs taken out of our paychecks, or dropped our jaws at the sales tax at the bottom of our receipts, taxes generally stir up an unsettling feeling among us all. We feel your pain. That’s why what we are about to do next is only in your best interest. Let’s take a look at how those taxes are stacking up on your phone … [Continue]
Skype Hopes to Change What You Talk About on the Phone
Skype's revenues have always depended on your willingness to change the way you talk over the phone. Now the service, recently bought by Microsoft, hopes to make money on what you actually talk about. The company has announced the launch of what it calls "Conversation Ads," large targeted ads that appear on the screen when a non-paying Skype user is talking to another subscriber while using the service's "Skype for Windows" … [Continue]
OBi110 Now Available at $42, Lowest Price Ever for Powerful VoIP Adaptor
If you've been considering a purchase of Obihai Technology's OBi110, now is a good time to buy. The popular VoIP device, which gives users the ability to make and receive free calls over the Google Voice service with any telephone handset, is now available on Amazon at $41.99 (with free shipping in the US). This is the lowest price we've seen for the OBi110. But there's a small trick: You have to make sure the item is sold by Obihai … [Continue]
VoIP Provider Callcentric Offers New Plans, Free Phone Numbers
VoIP service provider CallCentric launched a redesigned web site and added several new features over the weekend. Among the changes: Callcentric customers can sign up for free incoming phone numbers that can be used for any purpose. The numbers, from more than 80 rate centers in New York state, incur no monthly or incoming per-minute fees. Two new rate plans have been introduced in addition to Callcentric's unlimited calling plan … [Continue]
Qualcomm VoIP Chip Could Signal the End of Metered Cell Calls
Engadget and others today picked up on an acronym and initialism-laden press release from chip-maker Qualcomm about the "first successful VoIP-over-LTE to WCDMA handoff." Qualcomm's marketing folks may not have put it in an easy-to-understand fashion, but they believe this is an important breakthrough. They are right. The problem is that nobody — not even Engadget's usually reliable down-to-earth writers — have gotten past … [Continue]
Skype Hopes to Change What You Talk About on the Phone
Skype's revenues have always depended on your willingness to change the way you talk over the phone. Now the service, recently bought by Microsoft, hopes to make money on what you actually talk about. The company has announced the launch of what it calls … [Continue]
Megapath’s New Speed Test Plus Is a Valuable Free Tool for VoIP Users
Every serious VoIP user has at one time or another tested his or her downstream and upstream bandwidth to see if there's a problem. Sometimes (though rarely at today's typical broadband speeds), a bottleneck large enough to affect voice conversations is pinpointed … [Continue]
VoIP Provider Callcentric Offers New Plans, Free Phone Numbers
VoIP service provider CallCentric launched a redesigned web site and added several new features over the weekend. Among the changes: Callcentric customers can sign up for free incoming phone numbers that can be used for any purpose. The numbers, from more … [Continue]
Bill Simon’s Free SIP-to-XMPP Gateway Easily Puts Google Voice on Your VoIP Phone
Unless you're an adventurous VoIP tinkerer, there is no easy do-it-yourself approach to getting Google Voice to work over an IP phone's unused line. Obihai Technologies series of Obi telephone adaptors allow you to easily use a basic analog phone with Google … [Continue]
FBI Asking VoIP Companies to Voluntarily Support Backdoor Access to Users’ Phone Calls
The Federal Bureau of Investigations is working to convince Internet companies and Voice over IP service providers to go along with a proposed federal law that would require them to build back doors into their systems to facilitate government surveillance operations, … [Continue]
Company Spotlight: Obihai Technology Reinventing VoIP a Third Time
If your home or office phone system has any analog telephone adaptor (ATA) or one of several Cisco-branded IP telephones, you are using products originally … [Continue]
E911 Over IP: VoIP Makes Emergency Calls Much Cheaper, Much Better
Perhaps the only remaining deterrent to consumer adoption of VoIP is the belief that Emergency 911 calling services do not work well with the technology. While this may have been true in VoIP's earliest days, … [Continue]
AT&T Accused of Swindling Millions Through Services Aiding the Deaf and Disabled
There is ample evidence showing that expensive incumbent phone carriers in the U.S. such as AT&T make little sense for consumers. Now there's more. The US Justice Department is filing suit against AT&T, … [Continue]
In Nepal, VoIP Is Still a Racket
Voice over IP may have already become the worldwide standard for making international calls, but in Nepal the technology is considered a form of racketeering. In a humorously exaggerated news story … [Continue]
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