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Wi-Fi, Linux, And VoIP In Canada

Posted by timothy on from the not-just-in-africa dept.

WEFUNK writes "Canadian Business magazine has a cover story promoting Wi-Fi, VoIP, and Linux as 'Stuff that Works: 3 hot technologies that live up to their hype.' The article goes on to describe a number of Canadian success stories, ranging from Spotnik Mobile's growing network of Wi-Fi hotspots to the Canadian National Railway's use of Linux since 1993, and quantifies the benefits of VoIP to a Canadian insurance company's call centre. The article also includes some shipment numbers for Linux servers in Canada, mentions the growing number of Linux apps, and nicely downplays the SCO debacle."

6 of 175 comments (clear)

  1. Re:fp from canada by silvaran · · Score: 4, Informative

    We have this too (University of New Brunswick), but we have specific labs for different purposes. Like the Linux lab, the Java lab (Windows 2000 with emacs and Sun j2sdk), but the public labs are all Windows 2000. It pisses me off to go into one of the public labs and have to kill:
    - Realplayer tray app
    - AOL instant messenger
    - Yahoo instant messenger
    - ICQ instant messenger
    - MSN instant messenger
    - Quicktime tray applet
    - whatever else the last user of that particular computer decided to install.

    It's so much nicer having a home directory in Linux that not only stores personal documents, but personal desktop settings, etc. Another thing I can't do on the Windows 2000 machines is kill messenger.exe (need Administrator access) so every once and awhile SPAM pops up from this stupid network tool.

    It's nice to log into the computer and get exactly the same desktop that I, myself customized while the next person to log in gets his/her own desktop.

  2. Re:I don't understand VoIP by transact · · Score: 5, Informative

    On my bookshelf
    Cisco's "Voice over IP Fundamentals"

    O'Reilly's "Practical VOIP"

    Alan B. Johnston's "SIP Understanding the Session Initiation Protocol"

    Cisco's "Deploying Cisco Voice over IP Solutions"

    Douskalis's "IP Telephony"

  3. Re:I don't understand VoIP by Muiz · · Score: 4, Informative
    VoIP is not overly complicated, nor is it simple as you think it might be. There are a number of VoIP solutions in the OpenSource world. One of the best is the Asterisk PBX, which has plugins for SIP, H.323 and IAX, which is an inter-Asterix PBX protocol over IP. This lets you tie multiple PBXs together over IP, including over a WAN running IPSec. There are also a number of vendors who make solutions to tie together legacy PBXs over IP using VoIP gateways. Take a look at this product. In fact, I am in the process of trying to convince a small-mid size client who have an office here in Vancouver and their head office in Ottawa to build tie-lines for their inter-office voice network. They currently spend a bundle on long-distance that they shouldn't need to.

    Standard Disclaimer: I am not employed by Multitech nor do I have any financial interests in them.

  4. Re:Sidetone by CrimsonDeath · · Score: 4, Informative

    That's true, but what they're talking about is comfort noise generation. There's always static on the line (background noise in the room for example and electronic noise) and as part of the compression, if the sound power is too low, no audio is sent. That's called silence suppression, and prevents the consumption of bandwidth when no one's talking (which is more than 50% of the time ... normally people aren't talking both at once).

    Well, on the other end, during a silence period, nothing at all would be played, so it would sound like a dead line. Comfort noise generation does a bunch of math on the background noise at the transmitting end to pick up key frequencies in the background noise, and then these are recreated at the other end. They don't match (not even close -- you could consider it extremely lossy compression) but it's close enough to our ears so it sounds continuous.

  5. Linux and WiFi by oob · · Score: 4, Informative

    Linux and WiFi make a great combination.

    Here's a HOWTO (soon to be published at the Linux Documentation Project) about using Linux as a WiFi Access Point.

  6. Re:I don't understand VoIP by hedley · · Score: 4, Informative

    And if you want to pay $20 for the same thing, contact www.packet8.net.

    No I don't work there but check out www.dslreports.com for lot's of good VoIP info and detailed user experiences between Vonage and Packet8. Packet8 does not have all the features of Vonage but it has some other features that Vonage doesn't have (call forwarding that rings all phones on the forward list).

    I have Packet8 and it is good. I can call unlimited for $20 and my buddy in Germany is 5c/min. Why not get your DSL or Cable paying for itself?

    Both the Vonage and Packet8 are fine choices, read the user reports and decide for yourself.

    Hedley