Ho John Lee’s Weblog

The VoicePulse signup problem I described earlier today seems both worse and sillier than before. They apparently stopped signing up new subscribers at the end of November 2005, due to non-compliance with the FCC E911 requirements. They’re currently doing integration testing with Intrado for 911 service as well as negotiating with the FCC on what constitutes an acceptable solution, with an expected resolution sometime in January 2006.

Here’s someone who ran into a similar signup problem (although I didn’t get a warning prompt about no E911 today):

It turns out that Voicepulse isn’t selling new service at all right now. Of course it’s all the big bad FCC’s fault (never mind the fact that many other VOIP providers are selling new service at the moment, and many of them are providing usable 911 service.) I’m sure the FCC is making it hard on these providers, since the old-line phone companies are pulling the strings, but a) other companies are currently selling new service (I proved this to myself, I ordered VOIP service from a known-good provider) and b) many of these other companies are providing 911 and E911 services.

I just got off the phone with VoicePulse, my current VOIP service provider. They are demonstrating how not to manage a web service feature transition today, by both turning away new customers and annoying their existing ones.

I’ve been relatively happy with VoicePulse, having signed up with them a few months ago for commercial US PSTN access. The voice quality and stability has been OK, and they also offer IAX access which I was thinking about using for future integration with our Asterisk implementation.

All day today I’ve been trying to add a new device and a new number to my existing account. The sign up process requires entering the serial number and MAC address from the VOIP adapter (in this case, a SPA-2002 I picked up a few days ago), selecting a telephone number, and providing contact and billing information. I noticed that since I signed up for my account a few months ago they’ve started collecting E911 contact information, and added some verbiage explaining the limitations of VOIP’s 911 service (i.e. they don’t really have any idea at all where you are).

In a previous post I observed that the PhoneGnome looks like a SPA-3000, with a simpler configuration process for normal people who aren’t interesting in hacking their phone system.

Today, PhoneGnome is offering to convert unlocked SPA-3000 hardware into PhoneGnome adapters for $34.95. (link)

Not sure if you can undo the firmware change afterwards, or what’s in their load. I may check this out when I get some time for Asterisk and phone hacking.

See also: Using the SPA-3000 as an Asterisk PSTN Trunk, PhoneGnome Analog to VOIP adapter

Update 08-23-2005 - the upgrade offer appears to be temporarily suspended, due to configuration issues between various customer supplied SPA-3000 hardware.

Om Malik writes about a new product called the PhoneGnome, which combines an analog phone line and a LAN port for use with a VOIP service.

But the best part about the gizmo is that, when you try and outgoing call, it basically uses your selection of service provider to place that outgoing call. For someone else with a PhoneGnome to call you for free. They would not have to dial any different number or address. For instance, if my # is 415-555-1212, (and I have PhoneGnome), as a PhoneGnome user, you call 415.555.1212. In case I don’t have PhoneGnome, your call will get routed over the PSTN. On this website, my.phonegnome.com website, PhoneGnome can select a provider for national long-distance, international calls, or both, and select separate providers and plans for each.

Couple of interesting announcements on the infrastructure and services front at Yahoo today.

Jim Winstead (founder / operator of blo.gs) writes:

the sale of blo.gs has been completed, and i’m proud to announce that yahoo! has acquired the service. as of right now, give or take a few minutes, yahoo! is running blo.gs.

this is the sort of good home that i was looking for — yahoo! obviously has the resources to run and improve blo.gs in pace with the incredible growth of blogs (and syndication in general), and in talking with them it was also clear that we had some of the same vision for the future of the service and the ping/notification infrastructure.

News.com, see also Dialpad Q&A and more at News.com:

Step-by-step article on using the Sipura SPA-3000 for Asterisk PSTN trunking at GeekGazette, via Sineapps:

For us serious Asterisk PBX geeks out there, the SPA-3000 provides a cost-effective means of bring a PSTN trunk into the PBX while still functioning as an ATA. Not only can you use the SPA-3000 as inbound and/or outbound trunk, you can also easily configure the SPA-3000 as a PSTN failover should the primary trunk into Asterisk fail. Considering what you can buy the SPA-3000 for right now, this is one of the best deals going.

I see from the GeekGazette site that Slashdot has been here as well.

This follows a recent firmware upgrade to the SPA-3000, as described at Voxilla a few days ago:

The enhancements to the SPA-3000, a very popular adaptor among “do-it-yourself” VoIP enthusiasts because of its built-in gateway functionality, includes an often-requested feature allowing PSTN calls to be routed directly to a VoIP destination without the SPA-3000 “answering” the PSTN line until the VoIP destination answers.

via Joi Ito’s Web:

David Beckemeyer writes about an R&D activity at Earthlink which has implemented dual IPv4 / IPv6 access on modified firmware for a Linksys WRT54G wireless home gateway router.

The Linksys WRT54G is inexpensive, widely used, and is similar to many other home gateways providing NAT routing and wireless access. (It’s also popular as a platform hacking wireless router code, as it runs Linux internally). After loading the modified firmware, the router still provides IPv4 NAT functionality, but in addition provides a publicly routable /64 IPv6 network, and can directly route to other public IPv6 networks via the experimental Earthlink IPv6 routing service. You do not need to be an Earthlink customer to use the free service.

I have liked the Sipura products since they first came out a few years ago. The SPA products are widely used by VoIP service providers (Vonage, etc) for their feature set, flexibility, and low cost. We have been testing out Sipura adapters on the Kuppam network for the past few months, with good results, and I just received a new SPA-3000 the other day which I haven’t gotten around to setting up for use with Asterisk yet.

Yesterday Cisco announced they will also acquire Sipura, which will be merged into Linksys.

SAN JOSE, Calif., April 26, 2005 - Cisco Systems® today announced a definitive agreement to acquire privately-held Sipura Technology, Inc. This represents Cisco’s first acquisition for its Linksys division, the leading provider of wireless and networking hardware for home, Small Office/Home Office (SOHO) and small business environments. Sipura is a leader in consumer voice over internet protocol (VoIP) technology and is a key technology provider for Linksys’ current line of VoIP networking devices. In addition to Sipura’s valuable technology and customer relationships, their experienced team with extensive VoIP expertise will help build a foundation for Linksys’ internal research and development capabilities in voice, video and other markets.

Last updated: April 5, 2005

Here are some notes on building multi-site VOIP PBX services using Asterisk and SIP Express Router.

General approach:
1. Use Asterisk for PBX functionality at each site
2. Use IAX for inter-site traffic to minimize NAT-related issues
3. Use SIP Express as a front end to SIP clients at single sites

Platform technology:
Both Asterisk and SIP Express Router run on Linux and don’t require very powerful hardware. SIP Express in particular can handle hundreds of calls on a small generic Intel-compatible server. Asterisk provides more extensive functionality, including voicemail, transcoding, and conferencing, and requires somewhat more server resource. For a small office scenario, any current Intel-compatible server should be adequate. In the recent GeekGazette article Kerry Garrison implements Asterisk on a Pentium II/450MHz/386MB RAM/12GB HDD/48x CD-ROM/Intel 10/100 system combined with a generic Intel Winmodem card for line access.

The Asterisk@Home project packages a pre-built CD image for Asterisk running on Linux

SIP Express Router installation is simple, and it can easily be downloaded and run nearly out of the box, especially if call accounting is not required.

One of the nuisances of installing wireless access points, VOIP phones, and other small networked devices, is the need for power in the vicinity of the device. This can be a major challenge, if you’re building a small wireless ISP using an access point on an antenna mast, which is why wireless user groups have come up with homebrew POE hacks. In the past, power-over-ethernet support has been for relatively expensive equipment geared toward commercial, large-scale installation, such as rolling out a building full of Cisco 7940 IP phones.

There are a some cheap power-over-ethernet adapters available now from Linksys and D-Link:

D-Link DWL-P200 (5V or 12V, list price $39.00)
Linksys WAPPOE (5V only, list price $39.99)
Linksys WAPPOE12 (12V only, list price $49.99)