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VOIP Meets Cell Phones
pnutjam writes "This looks really interesting. It looks like this company, Xcelis, has a bunch of cellphones hooked to VOIP equipment. Basically you pay them and if you have free in-network calling on your phone you call their phone and then dial out to whomever you want. Voila, unlimited calling to anyone."
I hope this doesn't become too popular! Companies will have to raise prices elsewhere.
No, you'd need to go to Jared Bernstein and Leo Neumeyer for the VoIP version. I can help you with stand-alone.
When will the wireless networks give us unlimited plans as an option... that's what I want to know. VoIP is too buggy... there are numbers that you can't call and faxes don't like it.
00101010
This is very inconvenient, because it essentially makes the addressbook on my cell phone useless. I'd love to have something that just automatically routes calls through them. That would definately add to the value of their service.
This, and what about incoming calls? I believe most cell phone companies still count your # of minutes based on people calling you, as well as your outbound calls.
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
I wonder how long until cell phone companies get rid of unlim mobile to mobile...
The lawsuits by the free in network providers.
I suspect the cell phone companies user contract will contain a provision prohibiting you from dialing a service such as this.
Yeah? Well I think you're overrated too.
Bernstein
Neumeyer
So you can have the underwater sound of a regular cellphone, combined with the intermittent stuttering of VoIP.
Generally any kind of free call comes with associated restrictions. It can be as vague as 'reasonable use', but it's almost always there. So, unless they've agreed this specifically with the cell phone providers... aren't they breaking their TOS?
...does it support 14.4 dialup?
I'd like to make cheap or free international calls from anywhere.
Let me buy a calling card for $0.01/min domestic and as-cheap-as-possible international and I'm there.
It doesn't cost the cell company anything extra just because I am routing the call elsewhere at one end. I still pay the monthly service fee.
Yeah - this business model has the probable lifespan of a mayfly.
The *special* hell.
At first I thought this sounded interesting for international calls, but now I see that international calls are not permitted, at least during the trial period. Am I the only one who can't figure out what this is for? I have free long distance on all my mobile phone minutes. I have unlimited calling on off-peak hours and more anytime minutes than I would possibly want to spend on my phone in a given month. Looking at the other plans my provider offers, I'd bet you couldn't even take advantage of some of them unless you had an extra battery for your phone. Who is the target market for this?
Breakfast served all day!
This is a lawsuit waiting to happen.
Can the next Slashdot poll ask 'Who will sue Xcelis first?'?
Aero
Please stop hurting America -- Jon Stewart
a beowulf clust of cell phon.....crap!
SIGFAULT
Back before they were required to place 1-800 and 950-xxxx calls for free, some off-brand pay phones blocked #s to long distance companies. They wanted to force you to pay thier exhorbitant "operator-assisted" rates.
Of course, now pay phones just stick you for the cost of a local call. If you can find one.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Just take the cellphone out of the picture entirely
- Sig
hmmm, I think I can deal with dropped cell calls every now and then, and VoIP, although a bit noisy, isn't too bad on its own. But, together? Seems like one noisy-assed channel.
and now back to the fallout shelter...
They should also add something which enables connections to landlines for a minimal fee. On many providers, calling a landline if your minutes are used up can cost as much as $.50 while many telephone or calling card companies charge $.05 or lower.
There's no place like ~/
You could do this for yourself or for a small company which is a great idea!
when skype release their linux version with a d-bus API it will be possible to do this yourself.
I have the Charter plan through AT&T wireless with unlimited minutes for $99/month.
Verizon can and is terminating accounts of people using this service. Others will follow suit...
The providers know about this service and hate it, and also have enough money to crush it. So don't plan on umlimited minute plans for the time being.
I've signed up for the trial. I'm interested in caller-id.
Not necessarily... while it would no longer be as simple as entering the number of the person you want to call, many phones will let you daisy chain them with a Pause feature. This feature tells the autodialer to wait n number of seconds (or half seconds or what have you for the particular phone) before dialing more numbers.
So you set it up to dial your access number, say 702-555-1212. You want it to then call your destination number, say 613-555-1234. You would then program the phone to dial:
702-555-1212,,,,613-555-1234
(the comma representing whatever character your phone uses to indicate a pause).
This way the phone dials the access number, waits a few seconds to let that call process and the service connect, then dials your destination number.
You could even insert access codes if necessary with additional pauses if need be (ie code 1234):
702-555-1212,,,1234,,,,613-555-1234
It is more work to setup, and you'd need to figure out what sort of delay you needed, but otherwise it should work. The ability to pause and enter more digits has been built into many phones for years...
Blockwars: Free, multiplayer, head to head game.
"They do not preach that their god will rouse them, a little before the Nuts work loose." Kipling, 'The Sons of Martha'
This is nothing new, Verizon already uses Voip on the back-end of their cellphone network, although most people don't know that. VZ is converting their entire telephony network to a managed IP network and all call legs are slowly being converted to Voip/Sip. So that means for cell phones, the switch at the tower does the conversion of voice to IP, and the end-user is never the wiser. Now a cell phone that has a sip stack is an entire different thing, and that is being worked on. In other words there are two Voip implementations: one, where you have Voip from the phone you use (has an Ip address, etc), and two the transitional where you get a typical phone and that is converted to IP down-stream. So cell phones these days can connect to an IP network, browse online, etc. once that is more standard you will start to see cell phones that have optional soft-phones built-in aka SIP plus RTP stacks.
It isn't a lie if you belive it.
I use a pretty ancient CDMA cellphone, the Motorola Startac ST7868W. It has the ability to place calling-card and PBX extension calls from the phone book. After sending a number, it can send digits as DTMF, complete with the necessary timed delays and pauses. You can use this feature to call a calling card access number and then automatically dial access code and real destination number, or to call your main office number and then enter digits to ring a certain extension. I also use it to enter the access codes for a conference bridge I frequently use. Certainly it could be used for placing calls through a cellphone -> voip gateway service.
If such an ancient phone has this feature, it's likely more modern ones have something similar.
They use caller id to identify you so no need for pin codes, and they have an online phone book with speed dial. I'm using skypeout to call from home and bigzoo from my cell and pay on average
Someone that actually understands voila (pronounced vwä-lä).
If I see one more post on slashdot that spells out wah-lah, I am gonna puke!
So hold on a second here, basically what they have is a bunch of cellphones from various providers (with free in network calling of course) hooked into a VoIP system to place phone calls? It seems that way from what they state on their website:
"In our office there are hundreds of Pantheon products that are connected to the wireless service providers. These Pantheon units are also connected to the Internet and to the public telephone landline network. When you place a call using our service you are making a mobile to mobile call, which is free, however our technology allows that call to be routed over the Internet or landline telephone network."
and--
"Most wireless carriers including offer unlimited free Mobile-to-Mobile calls when you call another cellular phone on the same network. This feature is normally included in their wireless calling plans. Depending on your calling plan, you may have to pay an additional fee to add this feature to your account."
I'm sure when some cell providers find out about this, they'll put an end to it. They are after all loosing money on the deal. It's a great idea for unlimited international long distance though, as from most cell phones you can't place international calls (well sometimes at decent rates.)
I do a similar sort of thing already for international numbers in order to avoid the very high long distance rates that T-Mobile has for international long distance. Using Net2Phone Direct you can get a local number somewhere in the United States, which you can call to access their VoIP service. If you set up your account to recognize your number on callerID, it won't ask for your account number or PIN, and then it will ask for the number you wish to call. Thereby, it saves me a fortune on all my international calls. All I need to do is program the local US access number with a wait signal before my friends number, like +12022169400w011491795555555, and I'm set. I highly recommend it. Only draw back is that your caller ID doesn't come through to the people you are calling.
It depends on the Wireless companies, only works for outgoing calls, and makes no mention of call quality or reliability. The cell phone companies will be the ones to decide how VOIP integrates with cell phones, and plans like this will just be loose out to them changing the rules.
Thanks for putting on the feedbag. Thanks for going all out. Thanks for showing me your Swiss Army knife.
Wow, 45 comments and not a single one bemoaning the privacy issues? What has become of Slashdot?
If you sign up for this service, Xcelis will be in a fantastic position of keeping track of ALL the calls you make through your cellphone. Who you called, how long you talked to them, perhaps even what you talked about. Hmmm, Xcelis might just be a front for the American Spy Agency^W^W^W Dept of Homeland Security.
I have Vonage VoIP service at home on a cable modem connection. When I talk to a cell phone user over my VoIP phone, there is a noticable lag that occurs. I've gotten used to it, but initially my wife and I found ourselves talking over each other all the time because of the 1-2 second delay. It sounds to me like this service will only compound that problem.
Now I can pay $10 a month to crappify my already bad cell connection!
With already getting free calls to everyone on the network, and free long distance, I may actually want to pay exta dollars to get worse quality, just in case I need to make a 16 hour call to someone off-network!
Who's the brain surgeon who came up with this one?
HexaByte - he's a square and a half!
Do mobile plans in the States really have mobile-to-mobile options that don't use up your minutes? That's cool. I don't think any of the providers in Canada have that, but getting unlimited local calling is pretty easy.
I've got my cell on a plan with unlimited local evenings & weekends, and then use one of those ubiquitous call #X, enter account, password and destination # type plans. Similar to calling cards, but it's 500 minutes/month for CAD10. www.onlinetel.com. It's pretty easy to enter the entire sequence into your cell phone directory.
Bryan
Hellooo Internet everywhere. Can't find a good AP for your cheap WiFi card? Plug in your cell phone and surf the net at ~56k speeds for only $10+whatever you're paying your cellphone provider. I find this quite amazing. It's like a landline that's always with you [as in calls are basically free and unlimited]. You're in the mountains or on the countryside with your shitty P233MMX laptop and you wanna see what's cooking on Slashdot, there you go. Only issues that still need to be cleared up: Let's take an average celly carrier, like Rogers AT&T in Toronto and the GTA. I'm not sure if they offer free mobile-to-mobile service, as I remember asking for such a thing when I signed up with them. I also remember going out of my "home" area and calling in the GTA from Barrie, it was apparently treated as long distance [even though that number was in my "home" area]. Point is, I'm not sure you can call other mobiles for free anywhere, like say those mobiles are in a different area code. And if you can't... that'd suck. The point of paying the $10/month would no longer justify itself. But it's a good concept. Cheap too. If your cellphone provider doesn't rape you in the process.
Check THIS out: http://bobanddavid.com/cinco.html
CINCO!!
One of the nicest uses for this would be cheap international calling through cell phones, since a lot of phones already have unlimited nights and weekends and mobile to mobile within the US.
Unfortunately, they don't seem to support that yet.
14.4k, that's another matter entirely.
The big benefit of this is that you can reduce the plan that you're on. Why get the 1000 minute plan when you can get the 300 minute plan? Off peak might be free, but if you need to make lots of calls on peak, it would be quite useful.
Frankly though I can't imagine that this operation will be around for long. Phone companies are not going to tolerate somebody manipulating their market like this to make some money at their expense.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
All they'll accomplish is eliminating unlimited mobile to mobile minutes for everyone. The cell company isn't going to take a loss or provide service for free. Currently, the mobile to mobile minutes are more of a gimmick to get the friends/family of their customers to switch than anything. If this ceases to be an incentive because services like this make it irrelevant then they'll stop offering them.
Mike
Clicky
I think that that phone sends your SIP u/p in the clear. MD5 authentication is not yet supported by many devices and providers.
This is an interesting concept but what is really needed is a device that provides cellular service but is a black box that allows interfacing to a phone system. Every company of any size with a standard cell carrier would have a bank of phones attached to their PBX to cut cellular costs.
Cell companies should jump on this by offering DS1 service for calls onto their network
I am very easy to get along with, but I don't have time to waste being nice to people who are being stupid. -Theo
A bill to outlaw this type of service will be written by one or many cellular providers and presented to one or many congresstools in 3...2...1...
And when Skype releases a version that uses ALSA, it might actually have a chance of working right on more than two different sound cards :)
Aren't most "unlimited" plans actually "high limit" plans? In other words, they're not truly unlimited, they just have very high thresholds and the phone companies count on the fact that most people never reach those thresholds. Check the fine print on your plan... even if there's no expicit threshold, the phone company may still be able to charge you for "unusually high" usage.
EricMy cellphone customer disservice story
I find it hard to believe they can't give me unlimited calling for the $35/month I'm paying.
I think you should rephrase. Companies will raise prices elsewhere. They already charge more than they have to for the disservice. However, if they feel they can milk a little more out of you, you know they will.
You still have to have cell coverage by your provider right?
I already have unlimited long distance on my cell phone.
What am I missing? I read the page and it's probably obvious but it's just not clicking.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
I have "unlimited" night and weekend minutes and "unlimited" mobile to mobile minutes on my Cingular plan. When I looked at my usage online a few months ago, it turns out that I indeed did not have truly unlimited airtime: I had 99999 N/W and 99999 M2M minutes each month. Of course, this is more than twice the number of actual minutes in any given month, so there was no way I would ever exceed those minutes, so they were in fact unlimited to me. Now that I've added my brother and sister as additional lines on my plan and we draw from the same minute pool, it would be possible for us to exhaust all those minutes, but we would each have to spend 16 hours a day on the phone. Not gonna happen. That, and it was probably easier to program the billing system with a very high threshold for "unlimited" plans and not worry about it rather than programming truly unlimited minutes.
CyberDave
Important Message: BigZoo.net (ISP Service) Phasing Out of Service Thank you for your interest in BigZoo.net Internet Service.Over time, with increasing alternative technologies and providers of telecommunication service, we have found it difficult to provide a competitive service under these conditions. We deeply regret having to inform you that BigZoo will phase out our Internet service on January 31, 2005 at 11:59 PM (Pacific Standard Time). This is a difficult decision, but we hope you will understand. Thank you for your understanding. Sincerely, BigZoo Customer Support
From the article:
Xcelis, a four-year-old start-up, sells a range of telecom gear, including a device called the Pantheon that lets people wirelessly redirect calls to and from their cellphones through their home or work landline phones
I agree that this will likely have a short shelf life. The extreme # of minutes on their cell phones will stand out like a flashing beacon to the cell carriers.
But, a "home version" would be interesting. Two phones with the minimal accounts for unlimited mobile to mobile would still be cheaper than one of the mega minute plans. A kit to connect your "home" cell phone to your Vonage box would do the trick. The cell carriers wouldn't see the insane #'s of minutes on a service providers accounts but just you calling your other phone often. A slick trick would be to allow bi-directional calling with this kit.
In early days of PacBell GSM here in CA they had 1st incoming minute free. I had my SIM in a box with a GPS receiver attached. I could call from a land line every minute, poll for position, hang up under a minute. One month I made 1800 sub-minute calls to my mobile to track my cars location.
They later ammended the plan to not include data calls and then scrapped the 1st minute plan all together, but I got a lot of testing in before they did.
This reminds me of "unlimited" long distance for landlines. Here in Canada, some phone companies offered unlimited long distance (evening, nights and weekends) for $20/month. Apparently, though, enough people were using this that some of them had to slap on limits of like 800 hours or so per month. I think this was due to excessive long-distance calls for dial-up Internet connections.
Anyhow, the point I'm making is that whether or not a plan is truly "unlimited" or merely "high threshold", I bet the phone company that people won't be calling excessively, no matter how attractive the plan. Kind of the same way that planes will overbook flights on the assumption that not everyone will actually show up for the flight.
If this kind of scheme ends up using a lot of wireless bandwidth, the phone companies may take corrective action...
EricIt's pretty obvious this is a really dumb idea. Most of the previous responses have detailed the reasons why.
What I really see is PDA phones having WIFI or better yet, WIMAX, connecting to a network and doing VOIP that way, thereby completely bypassing the cell phone company.
That way, when you have WIFI, you call for free (or very low cost). When you don't have WIFI coverage, you dial out using the cell phone network.
Now THAT'S cell phone VOIP! Not this load of crap lol.
eTrade SUCKS
Now I have to search for a replacement. Any suggestions for a landline 'virtual calling card' service at ~2 cents a min?
VOIP!
Oh yeah, what about WiMAX, right? Sorry, that isn't slated to be available in a truly mobile form until 2006/2007 (search for "Third-generation CPEs").
Just go to your favorite theater.
In case that link doesn't work, with the recent Google Groups changes and all, search for "Which version of Windows CE and Shell should be used" instead.
Have fun: Join D.N.A. (National Dyslexics Association)
On a back end web server listening on a re-directed port along with a password and you're prompted with: ...and then the "old" modem in that computer taps C-Kermit and dials specifically: ,19998887777,,,,5,!,*97,15554443333,,;
:), flashes the line, dials my transfer code (*97) and dumps me to the phone number I entered.
... as long as I can tap a web browser somehow. :)
ENTER CURRENT #: (let's enter 19998887777)
TRANSFER TO #: (let's enter 15554443333)
atdt
So, it calls me (pauses due to finding the cell phone I may be holding), dials "5" for the heck of it (lets me know it is working
Free unlimited calls anywhere I go already
With the new flexible pricing plan from Sprint PCS, additional blockes of 100 anytime minutes are just 5 cents a minute. At $9.95 per month, that's 200 extra minutes from Sprint. How many people really need more than 200 additional peak minutes on their plans? And as others have mentioned, the call quality of these "free" minutes is gonna suck.
signature pending slashdot approval
ONe of the GSM plans was a $99/mo, unlimited airtime plan.
I don't think that it exists anymore.. it was a promo plan.
I can't be the only one who thinks homestarrunner is incredibly unfunny. In fact, it's almost as humorless as the Far Side.
You mean so I can spend $240 on the phone, and then another $30 to $50 for a VoIP subscription that's about as restrictive as most landline phones?
At least it's mobile. But I think it's not worth the early investement.
Pantheon's idea shows promise. But Sprint, Verizon, etc. won't let this last. It's going to hurt their bottom line, and they'll put the kibosh on free in-network calling quick.
-- No sig for you!
Cable companies or DSL providers can provide voip to your homes and the service can be used with any cell phone. The cell phones don't have to be from any of the providers like Cingular or Verizon. Free from airtime charges! woo hoo Now that would be sweet!!!
Everyone has seen the advertising. Plans are sold with free unlimited in-network calling. If you read the boilerplate in your service agreement, you'll see something that reads (paraphrased) abuse of the network (re:unlimited free calling) is subject to termination.
Unlimited free in-network calling doesn't mean UNLIMITED. It means unlimited until they choose to see otherwise, labelling it as "abuse" of their network. They have the right to terminate you for such abuse.
What kind of abuse? It is up to your provider. Don't like it? Walk away. Or live with it. Most people don't abuse it. But there are plenty that try.
-- No sig for you!
And this is news????
:-).
My brother and I have been doing this for over a year
I live in the US, he lives in "Unnamed Country in Central America".
We both have VOIP phones, he hooked up his phone to a 3Com PBX.
We (as in all my family) can call each other from any phone on the US or in "Unnamed Country in Central America" and not pay extortion telco international rates in either country.
AC
This scheme works for plans that have unlimited in-plan airtime, so both the airtime and the long distance are unlimited.
> This is an interesting concept but what is really needed is a device
> that provides cellular service but is a black box that allows interfacing to a phone system.
A Wavecom WMO2 could be made to do this without a lot of heartache. Long story short, it's a GSM cell phone.. except instead of a keypad and a screen, it has a serial port. And instead of a speaker and a microphone, it has a modular male end, like you plug into a standard telephone handset.
Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
hmmm like making fake fees that seem like taxes.... o wait that's already done
Why don't they just do this with 2 different mobile networks: two sets of phones (1 set from each network with free in-network calls), connected in pairs through their gateway? Then they can market free calls to each network's subscribers, without relying on iffy VoIP, with its lower quality and smaller market of tightwadder customers? I smell a pure, unscalable gimmick.
--
make install -not war
The use of three-way calling also uses up twice as many minutes, so one person could use up all the minutes in theory.
(X) Most phone users will not put up with punching letters on a keypad (SMS anyone)
Apart from those users who contributed to the 500 billion sms messages sent in 2004 you mean?
Why not wait just a year longer for the mesh network mobile phone. No servers/carriers needed. Just use your exces phone bandwith to route other peoples calls. Offcourse this would start as an feature that would work alongside a normal cellulare network at first... but ones we hit critical mass.... Ok enough of this the future is blinding me
I have nothing to say, just want people to read my cool new sig
Interesting idea, maybe I am missing something.
Won't you be paying conference call chages to your telco service providor for initiating a call with two different parties?
Party one: your current number 1999etc
Party Two: The call destination 1555etc
The find their lack of Sprint compatability disturbing.
--The universe will not be altered by forum threads, even those which are very wry. --Tycho Brahe (Penny Arcade)
If only the VHF band could be freed for sale to cellular deployment! everyone run to buy a Digital TV... so they can auction that spectrum already ;)
Oh yeah, and what about the $120 (OK, Canadian) a month I'm paying???
Browsers shouldn't have a back button!! It's all about going forward...
Take a look at this phone:
/You have to understand that my parents are technophobes, with this they can just pick up the phone and dial a number
//All my international calls go to family and friends, if this works I will be giving more phones for christmas next year!
It's a VOIP phone from SOYO that allows free direct calls between same model phones. They also provide an international calling plan but I don't think I will be interested in that.
I bought two G668 models and I intend to place one in my parent's place (they live abroad) and one besides my regular telephone. That way it will work as a family "bat-phone" and reduce our long distance charges to zero.
Two great advantages are that they don't need to get connected to a computer and they can make AND receive calls. These phones have their own number when used within the "Network".
I expect to recuperate the cost in two months!
I have "unlimited" night and weekend minutes and "unlimited" mobile to mobile minutes on my Cingular plan. When I looked at my usage online a few months ago, it turns out that I indeed did not have truly unlimited airtime: I had 99999 N/W and 99999 M2M minutes each month.
Are you sure the 99999 isn't just a 'special number' used in the billing system database to designate unlimited. Most likely those fields in the database are numeric versus text so 99999 probably denotes unlimited. The software could just as easily do the following
'if M2M==99999 then dont subtract minutes; else subtract mins'. This would truly be unlimited versus your suggestion that 99999 is actually a real cap.
I feel the VOIP explosion is upon us...
Check this article from the Economist
Kind of the same way that planes will overbook flights on the assumption that not everyone will actually show up for the flight.
Back in the 1980s the airline that my mother worked for had a standing policy to overbook by 15.
It was cheaper do that than to schedule extra flights. For example if everyone showed up and you had 15 extra people, you could purchase tickets for all of them on a competing airline, refund their ticket prices and give them a free night in a hotel all for less than the cost of a second plane.
Truthfully, that almost never happened. Usually overbooked flights would STILL have open seats on them.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
If you think about it, Xcelis communications depends on caller ID to verify whether the caller has paid his bill or not. The phone number also tells them if you are on a monthly plan, on a 7-day free trial or not authorized for the service. What happens if the cell providers fail to provide caller ID on mobile-to-mobile calls? Without Caller-ID, Xcelis can no longer authenticate its users. Without authentication, their service is open to anyone.
.. they get a bunch of people to sign up for the free trial.
What happens when the access numbers are posted on the Internet?
What if call transfer was not allowed on a m-to-m call? If you think about it, the would have to hand out a whole list of numbers that you would have to go to if the number you called is busy. Most people won't deal well with a whole list of access numbers.
What if the cell phone compnies signed up to the service and made perma-calls or repetitive calls to numbers that are in the boonies where it's not likely that Xcelis has a VoIP gateway? Xcelis would have to absorb long distance charges on those calls.
What happens when the cell phones that are used to make the calls are blacklisted for re-selling the service? (read the small print) How would the cell phone company discover the access numbers? Well
So you mean, that I can buy WiFi phone for $240 (and another $50 for AP?) where I could buy analog-to-sip adapter for $80 without strings attached and cordless DECT/GAP phone with base station for $40 (and additional handsets for $20 each)?
I know, WiFi sounds so sexy...
Robert
Bastard Operator From 193.219.28.162
Sounds like SIPphone.com's access numbers except you get to call anyone in the PSTN. For those of you not familiar with SIPphone's access numbers, it's one of the greatest services I've known that is free (like Netzero was free back in the day). Say you have a bunch of friends all over the country, each with broadband access. They all purchase analog telephone adapters for their phones from SIPhardware.com and sign up for SIPphone's service (free service, hardware is not free) and plug into the broadband. SIPphone to SIPphone calling is free, but you can also call a SIPphone on a regular phone line via the access number local to you. I think the access numbers also work for peer networks such as freeworldialup. Try it out, I think it's well worth the $60 upfront cost.
Linux at home
I hate this corporate spin bullshit.
They will only have to raise prices if:
A) They make no profit as-is.
B) There is no place else they can cut to make-up the money.
C) Basic cellphone coverage costs them more than they charge you already.
D) They have a higher profit margin on the extras this is eliminating.
etc, etc.
Frankly, this is just normal competition. You might as well say that cheap long-distance plans will force local phone companies to raise their prices...
I always hate hearing this bs idea, though. It's a poor attempt to rationalize trickle-down/voodoo economics, and is sadly taking root with many of the less intelligent individuals in this country.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
I dunno, you're getting ripped off?
Looks like WMO2 only does messaging. I want something in the same form factor as a Cisco VIC-2FXO that lets me connect to the cellular network the same fashion that this card lets me talk to land lines.
I suppose an external device that was cellular on one side and FXS on the other would do the trick
I am very easy to get along with, but I don't have time to waste being nice to people who are being stupid. -Theo
> Looks like WMO2 only does messaging
That's it's common application (and what I use it for), but according to the docs, you can also place voice calls with it and have access to call setup/completion info. If you get the right cable, it has a voice plug on it (the DB15 on the unit has DB9 serial, microphone and speaker pins).
So, you need to plug the WMO2 into an FXS(O? -- I'm not into VoIP) port, and have the computer control both pieces of hardware at once... i.e. receive the call on cellular, place a VoIP call, and a manage call completion. The WMO2 would be plugged into the VoIP gear as it were a regular telephone.
You could also go the other way (although I have no idea why you'd want to transfer a VoIP call to the cellular network).
Not the most elegant solution, but definately workable with COTS hardware.
Oh -- and you can run the WMO2 off the 12V line of your PC's power supply if you're trying to make something small. You can also extend the antenna easily, since it's just a coaxial connection to a whip.
Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
I just realized "regular telephone" carries some caveats. "Regular telephone handset" would be more like it. I'm not sure the WMO2 would be happy if your VoIP gear threw 48VDC at it.
That said -- there must be software VoIP which can work from sound card inputs. I'll bet you could plug the WMO2 microphone/speaker signals into your sound card and have a WMO2+software solution with no extra hardware.
Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
I do a lot of work with Cisco equipment. There are a variety of voice capable routers but lets use the one I have in my office for testing as an example.
The device is a Cisco 1750-2V. It has onboard ethernet, one slot for a WIC (data), one slot for a VIC(voice), and one slot that can be either data or voice. I have a VIC-2FXS and a VIC-2FXO available. The FXS device provides ring generation - that 48 volt battery you mentioned. The FXO device acccepts ring generation and can be used to connect a telco analog line to the VoIP network.
There are other interfaces available - VIC-2E&M which is a phone system to phone system trunking interface, T1 and E1, etc, but those are not relevant for this dicussion.
I'd like to have a device that could be hooked to either the FXS and accept the 48 volt ring or the FXO and provide a 48 volt ring, with the 'other side' being a cellular network. You describe a method to make the product work with a PC and that is an interesting hack, but I want to make money with it promptly.
Think about how cellular is these days - free calling on net. Imagine an office with ten guys packing phones from the same carrier - they can call each other for free but they burn minutes when they have to call the office. If you have an FXS/FXO to cellular device you'd be able to take advantage of the free on net calling.
Cell companies *won't* provide this because it would eat into their revenue. Given that they make money when calls terminate off their network it will take some enterprising hardware hacker to build and market this device.
I am very easy to get along with, but I don't have time to waste being nice to people who are being stupid. -Theo
The device you describe is very interesting -- and you're right -- using a PC is a very hackish solution. But for the basement hacker, it's doable today (well, in a week of evenings assuming you're competent C programmer familiar with the termios interface and Asterix or something similar).
:)
> Given that they make money when calls terminate off their network it
> will take some enterprising hardware hacker to build and market this device.
If there are any enterprising hardware hackers out there, Wavecom makes a 'WISMO' module which (I think) is available as a single ASIC that does everything I've described the WMO2 as doing. That would make a good starting point -- it's a full GSM phone on a chip with I/O lines instead of buttons and a screen. I'm not sure how the voice side is handled, but I'm pretty sure the chip encodes/decodes it as audio instead of just fobbing off the GSM data stream.
(googling..)
Hey, the WISMO Quick looks pretty interesting -- it's not an ASIC but it's tiny and designed to be plugged into a slot. There is also a CDMA version!
It's 58 x 32 x 6.5mm and weighs 11g. That's uh, about 2.25 x 1.5 x 0.25 inches and less than half an ounce for you 'mericans out there.
Let's see.. Definately does voice, has a 60 pin board-to-board connector with microphone and speaker i/o, pins for a GSM SIM, and seems to support the same AT command set as the WMOD2 (serial interface from 300 to 115.2kbps). So in theory, you could prototype/POC with the WMOD2 and a PC, then scale down to a WISMO Quick-based embedded device.
Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
If I got the soldering iron out my roomie would dial 9, 1, and have his finger hovering above the 1 button
I am going to talk to this hardware guy I know and see if we can make an FXS to WISMO converter
I am very easy to get along with, but I don't have time to waste being nice to people who are being stupid. -Theo