Telephony Recent Comments

Comment on AT&T brings navigator, U-Verse to iPhone by Stan Levin

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 07:34 GMT

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Comment on Hard times an infocom wake-up call for hotels? by Dick Willson

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 02:29 GMT

Until the telepresence systems are interoperable it is not of much use if one is travelling. If the person is out of the office and needs to be present at a company meeting then the telepresence system has to interwork with the system installed in the company. Similar requirement if one needs to teleconference with a business partner.
Hence the primary market for todays proprietary telepresence systems is for closed internal private systems for:-
1. Large companies (like Cisco) used for internal meeting in order to reduce the travel expense.
2. Managed systems that are deployed around around the country that organisations can rent, the motivation is again to reduce travel expense.
Not applicable to the “masses” who cannot even get decent “broadband” connectivity in a hotel and “broadband” technology has been available at least for the last ten years or more.

Comment on Hard times an infocom wake-up call for hotels? by Wes Hirschhorn

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 11:17 GMT

It just seems odd to me that you can get free wireless internet in your room at the “value” hotels like Holiday Inn Express but the upscale establishments, your Marriotts, Hyatts and Hiltons hit you up $10 a day or more. I've even seen one hotel where the only way you could get internet access was to sign up for a wireless data plan with T-Mobile! I don't use them as my wireless carrier, why would I want a data plan with them for the few days I'll be in that particular hotel?
Yes, a “real” network is an expensive proposition, no doubt. On the other hand, those of us using our business computers should have pretty robust security apps installed on them. I don't know that we should need the hotel chain to take that on for us.

Comment on Hard times an infocom wake-up call for hotels? by Ed Gubbins

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 09:44 GMT

Nah, cruise ships are different. That's not business travel; that's vacation.
Why were you in the computer room? Why weren't you stretched out in a chair on the Lido deck reading a book?
I don't feel sorry for you, JS.

Comment on Hard times an infocom wake-up call for hotels? by Jerry Sharp

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 09:38 GMT

An additional area is cruise ships. I just came back from a cruise where the ship charged $.65/min, with about 10 attached computers in a computer room. I would say that most all of the 2200 passengers used that computer room some time during that cruise, for that room was always crowded. However, if they had accessibility in the state rooms, the computer usage from their laptops would be greatly increased. The wiring in a cruise liner is much easier to retrofit than a hotel, for all panels are removable. Their biggest problem then would be the bandwidth. A cruise ship is nothing more than a floating luxury hotel.

Comment on Hard times an infocom wake-up call for hotels? by Jim Hayes

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 06:47 GMT

I've visited several state of the art hotels and consulted with others on creating a usable infrastructure for hotel patrons. No office is as hard to design for wireless as a hotel with long corridors and many tiny rooms all framed in metal studs. Add large conference rooms, lobbies, etc. and the physical structure is challenging.
Complicating the design is capacity. Bring in a large number of guests with their laptops, netbooks, iPhones and other portable wireless devices and you have a lot of traffic. Now we have guests streaming video on the hotel net, requiring “throttling” hardware to limit individual bandwidth. In one case where I consulted, they even had a tech executive hacking their system to see how it was designed!
So a good hotel system is not cheap. It requires an extensive fiber optic backbone, top notch wireless security, sophisticated traffic management and - most importantly - knowledgeable management.
Don't expect this in a Holiday Inn Express…
Jim Hayes
VDV Works LLC
www.vdvworks.com

Comment on Hard times an infocom wake-up call for hotels? by John Wise

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 06:28 GMT

Great observations, Ed. Budget-conscious travelers often train themselves to avoid conveniences in hotels for the same reason they avoid the mini-bar - cost. But upgrading hotel communications has much more to offer in terms of enhancing the guest experience in the interest of building loyalty. Now, in this economy, is the time hotels are starting to seek new AND repeat customers. theWit Hotel is an excellent example of this; their focus on guest experience is visible not only in the brand but in their technology philosophy. Hospitality can be a booming vertical segment in this economy for those technology providers and integrators that can strike a balance between technology sophistication and delivering great value to guests.

Comment on Hard times an infocom wake-up call for hotels? by Deven Nongbri

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 06:20 GMT

Excellent piece that hopefully gets the attention of hotel chains across the country. Not having free Wi-Fi in the rooms is a non-starter - the technology for this to work seamlessly has been here almost a decade so there's reason any business hotel worth its salt can't offer it.

And I've never used the keyboard to access the Internet over the TV - too afraid I'd be charged an arm and leg for service I'm not even sure I'd want to use.

Comment on Hard times an infocom wake-up call for hotels? by Ed Gubbins

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 04:47 GMT

I neglected to mention above the keyboard that sometimes sits below the television in many hotel rooms, offering Web access through the TV. Has anyone ever actually used that device? Obviously it doesn't contain the files on my hard drive, so it's of little use to me, though in the future, maybe, when everything sits in the cloud rather than the desktop, such a system might be useful again.

Re: Consumers say VoIP not essential; magicJack begs to differ

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 02:51 GMT

A reader from Embarq's emailed comments:

Voice communication products seem to be flooding the market and creating a big mess. Honestly I cannot believe that people pay for most of this junk. I recall talking to people over the internet starting over 10 years ago using AIM. Now we have tons of Instant Messengers that provide the same capability including video conferencing. Too many people do not realize the that the necessary tools are already there. Granted syncing up Instant Messengers can be pain. Take the money people are spending on the magic jack and you can get a decent wireless headset to hook up to a computer. I believe the issue is with too many products for communication. Voice communication needs a superstar like the iphone. We need to skip all these different products for voice communication and come up with a standard that just works with everything regardless of local, national, or international. Consumers paying for reliable internet connectivity and network backbone support should be our economic concern. Every company that sells a voice product today needs to stop making products that hold the world back from the true potential of our technologies. We need to imagine a world where anyone can reach us if we want to be reached. We need to reach a world where our home computer networks are like our own personal secretaries. We are not going to get there by flooding the communications market with these silly telephone products like the magic jack. I admire the ease of use, but seriously we can do better than that. I guess we'll have to wait for computers to get cheaper. I'm thinking a touch screen computer that you can hang on the kitchen wall that has a wireless headset docked for charging. Of course that should include all the functionality you would find in a normal windows based PC. Maybe some software that makes shortcuts to frequently used applications. Imagine if this computer could listen to you and schedule appointments on the family calendar. I can keep going here but I think you get the picture. ;)

Re: Ericsson rolling out mobile app store without Sony

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 17:35 GMT

wonderful. where are they going to get the content though? that's the multi-million dollar question :)

Re: AlcaLu helps wireless operators target ads

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 01:36 GMT

Ads on mobiles? Can any one leave us alone, there are ads every where

Re: MWC: Handset OEMs embed Ontela photo-saving service

Sun, 28 Jun 2009 23:31 GMT

nice, thanks for sharing

Re: Broadband stimulus exempted from �buy American� requirements

Sun, 28 Jun 2009 12:07 GMT

You mean $5 billion and $7.2 billion instead of $5 million and $7.2 million?

Re: 4G: Inspiration for change

Sat, 27 Jun 2009 05:39 GMT

This is a very insightful piece. It seems that the writer had a crystal ball when he made these predictions I think all that this predicts has come true. Those that have not yet occurred are in the works at the drawing boards of the major industry players. Truly amazing piece.