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Some say trends start Europe and cross the pond over to the US.  It’s true for fashion - is it true for personal communication as well?

According to a study by the EU, Europeans are turning their back on traditional landlines and instead are embracing internet telephony (also called Voice over IP or VoIP) and mobile handsets.  As Ars Technica points out, survey respondents aren’t getting landlines because of a lack of access, but rather because of a disinterest in the service altogether.

It is of no surprise to me that PSTN landlines are going the way of the dodo bird.  They are expensive, non-innovative, and lackluster.  Why should we pay for PSTN lines when a VoIP line can do all the same functions at a fraction of the cost.  If you have a quality broadband connection and QoS, VoIP can be liberating on your pocket book.

Services such as Skype show consumers that voice is just another communication mode enhanced by Internet, just as email transformed inter-office communication.  Therefore, using the net to route the calls is effective and neccesary with today’s communication infrastructure.  In Europe, where telephony termination rates (translation: voice calls are expensive in Europe) are outragously high, Skype has become very popular.  According to the aforementioned study, this is especially true in the blok states of Latvia, Lithuania, Czech Republic, Poland, and Bulgaria, where Skype usage is above 50% of European internet-enabled households.

As an additional note, Skype becomes most inviting when you can use it away from your PC.  I have used a Philips-made cordless phone that uses Skype to route calls. For my review of the Philips VoIP 841 cordless phone, check it out at Web Worker Daily.

One key advantage that Apple computers have over their PC counterparts is the inclusion of iChat.  This pre-installed and drop dead easy to use chat and video chat application is ready to go the minute you get your new Apple computer on the Internet.

To accompany the launch of their sexy Studio line of laptops,  Dell is including a new utility on their Studio line computers called Dell Video Chat which is powered by SightSpeed, a proven video conferencing application I’ve written about before.  The inclusion of this application will bring simple video conferencing amongst the new Dell users and will allow them to interface with friends, family, and colleagues who are on Windows, Linux, or Apple computers.

One competitive advantage SightSpeed brings to the table is their inclusion of Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), the standard VoIP protocol used on the internet and enabling you to make VoIP calls to almost any VoiP user on the globe.

Just for Dell, SightSpeed has a new UI just for the Studio laptops that is redesigned and slick.  Dell Video Chat includes free unlimited video, voice, and text chats worldwide to anyone else on SightSpeed and video conferencing with up to 4 people.

Are you a small business who wants to make a big impression with your phone system?  If so, check out Jazinga, the so called “No IT-guy required” phone system.  In basic terms, Jazinga gives small businesses a high-end phone system that includes features such as an automated attendant, company directory, individual voicemail boxes, and voicemail to email.  Additionally, the Jazinga box includes wireless networking, fax and email.

Many business want to install and configure their own VoIP systems to enhance the functionality of their phone systems.  Such systems are very, very expensive to install and maintain.  Alternatively, Asterisk provides an open source (free software) PBX system, but to use it you have to be a wise phone geek and have copious amounts time to invest in implementing the system.

Jazinga aims to fill this void by supposedly simple to buy, install, and maintain.  The box can use your own VoIP or standard landline for calling in and out.  Additionally, a few of the features Jazinga provides are:

• Auto Attendant - “Press 1 for John, Press 2 for Sarah”.
• Free voicemail with voicemail-to-email: have your voicemails sent to your inbox for portability.
• Music-on-hold: upload your mp3s so you can have music playing for incoming callers on hold.
• Simulanious ring: have an incoming call ring multiple phones so you never miss a call.

I just received a Jazinga box to put through its paces.  I’ll post status updates as I try out this box and will post a full review upon the conclusion of my trials.

In today’s segment of Breaking Silos: how to take get your contacts from mobile phone into Skype for Skype calling goodness.  SkypeSync makes it possible to call all your phone’s contacts via SkypeOut.  As Download Squad points out, the utility uses the SyncML standard which is used by most mobile phones these days.

To check out out, browse to zyb.com and upload your contacts to the web service.  Download, install, and open SkypeSync and use the wizard to export your contacts from Zyb and export them into Skype.  Your contacts will be visible in Skype for outgoing calls and SMS.

These types of utilities are fantastic and break down barriers of having silos of contacts in multiple places.

Note: SkypeSync is currently only available for Windows.

Andy Abramson just posted an insightful article regarding WiMax, Skype and a the potential for a Skype killer, and what telcos need to do.

I’ve been a long time user of and advocate for GrandCentral, an amazing service that was acquired by Google last year.

Since the acquisition, crickets have been chirping when it comes to GrandCentral talking, blogging, or releasing any new features.

Well they’re at least blogging again.  The latest is that they are allowing a forwarding number to be used on two separate accounts.  What does this mean?  Say, for example, a married couple each have their own GrandCentral numbers and they both want to have their home number to be rung whenever either of the GrandCentral numbers are dialed.

Before this new GrandCentral announcement, this would not be possible.  Whoever tried to register the home number second would have been denied by GrandCentral.

Also, according to the blog entry, “a lot of new features are in the works and we look forward to rolling them out quickly!”

Craig, we look forward to seeing them too!

According to a recent article in the New York Times, 2007 will be the first year that consumers will spend more on cell phone subscriptions than on land lines.  I can certainly see why.  In my house we haven’t had a landline in roughly 3 years.  Instead, we’ve relied on VoIP (Sunrocket, Packet8, and now ViaTalk) for our dial tone.

However it is suprising for me to see that this is true for the mass market.

What about you guys?  Have you dropped your land lines yet?

I have many friends who are in their late 20’s and early 30’s and only have a cell phone.  If my wife didn’t feel the need for a normal phone, I would just have a cell phone as well.

(photo credit)

The Nokia N95

Introduction

To the person in the elevator, I’d describe the Nokia N95 Multimedia computer as a Swiss army knife of personal entertainment and connectivity. From the college-student to the Internet content creator to the business professional, the Nokia N95 will keep you in touch with your peeps and will entertain you all along the way. The N95 I was able to review (and sadly have to send back) is the North American version. This is an update to the N95-1 that supported the 3G networks in Europe. The new N95 has support for the US 3G network (AT&T HSDPA),more RAM, and a larger battery. The price is steep at around $600. This phone is not subsidized by any carrier, which is a good thing! I’ll post about that on a later blog entry, but basically by not bowing to pressure from US carriers such as AT&T or T-Mobile, Nokia delivers a phone that doesn’t have any features locked out.

At First Glance

Out of the box, you can tell Nokia took a lot of time in designing the N95 to wow the customer. The phone has a dual-sliding action, one side revealing the numeric keypad and the other side featuring the media controls. The gorgeous 2.6″ QVGA display is good but not great, and the screen is easily visible in direct sunlight. The phone is great to handle and has a rubberized back side that makes this phone impossible to slip out of your hand. With so many features loaded into the N95, you’d expect it to be heavy and bulky. But not so, the phone is a little thick but overall feels great in your pocket or in your hand.

The Basics

First and foremost, this is a standard quad-band GSM cellular phone. And as a basic phone, the Nokia N95 is outstanding. Call quality is fabulous both to me and the people I talk to. I used this phone on T-Mobile USA and AT&T and on my end people sounded clear and crisp. When asked how I sounded, callers couldn’t tell I was on a mobile phone. There was a slight high pitched noise for me while on a call, but it didn’t detract from the conversation at all. The address book is logically put together and allows for easy classification of my contacts. This phone had awesome battery life, even when using the advanced features such as GPS, data, and the camera. I was able to go 2-3 days between charges with moderate to heavy use. Minimalist battery life was a major complaint of the original N95.

Features

It might be take less time to describe what the phone can’t do as opposed to what it can do. Lets start with hardware. The N95 features full fledged Bluetooth 2.0 including support for A2DP; meaning it supports full stereo headphones and Bluetooth headset for making calls.

Wi-Fi (802.11G) is built in, allowing for you to easily switch between cellular data and uber-fast wifi for all connectivity. Downloading VoIP clients such as Gizmo Project or fring will allow you to make cheap or free calls when in range of a wi-fi hotspot or on a 3G data connection. I wish the N95 was a little more transparent with it’s ability to use wi-fi or the cellular data connection. The iPhone excels at this, making the hop between the two types of connections.

GPS - this one is huge. The N95 comes with Nokia Maps installed which utilizes the on-board GPS. It downloads the maps as needed and is available for many geographic locations including North America, Europe, and more. It is so great in a pinch to be able to use the GPS to find your way, a nearby restaurant, or other type of business based on where the phone is located. I can’t say how many times I used the GPS to find my way when lost, even in areas where I knew the roads. At times it takes a while for the GPS to lock on to satellites, but once connected it does a great job of staying locked on and tracking my position.

The N95 also features a high quality 5-megapixel digital camera that also shoots VGA quality video at 30 frames per second. As a person who has long had a digital camera built into my mobile phone, I thought I wouldn’t use the camera feature on the N95 very much. However the picture quality is so good; I was constantly reaching for the N95 to take some great quality digital photos and videos. With the capability to add Micro-SD cards, your storage is almost limitless. My main complaint about the camera is that when you zoom in, the picture quality suffers greatly. I’m assuming this is because the zoom is merely a digital one, meaning it only enlarges the existing pixels. Also as expected, video capture when zoomed in to any degree is almost illegible. The N95 can take video at 30 frames per second which is fantastic.

The Nokia N95 shines as a media playback device and supports virtually all audio and video media types. The screen can be viewed either in landscape or portrait mode. In landscape mode, the 2.5 inch widescreen display shows tv and movie media in wide-aspect mode. The screen is a little small, but perfect for one person to view a quick tv show or video podcast. I downloaded some beta software from Nokia to be able to push media from my Mac onto the N95. It wasn’t as seamless as using an iPod with iTunes, but wasn’t too difficult at all. I had podcasts and music from iTunes on the N95 in a snap and was off to the races rocking with my tunes and media.

The N95 can also be used to output video and audio to a TV. An amusing part of my review was when I plugged headphone into the 3.5 mm jack, the N95 asked me if the new device being plugged in was 1) headphones, 2) TV-Out Cable, or 3) a Music Stand. Pretty cool. The speakers that are onboard the N95 sound awesome (for mobile phone speakers) and in a quiet room you can definitely use them to play your podcast or music.

Messaging

The Nokia N95, because it boasts the Symbian S60 operating system, is stellar at messaging. You can open Word, PowerPoint, and Excel documents and the N95 does a great job of formatting these types of documents for the N95’s screen. Also the N95 supports IMAP4, POP2, and SMTP e-mail accounts. Microsoft Exchange users will be happy to know the N95 will support Microsoft Exchange Server synchronization, giving you access to your company’s email system.

Performance

As stated above, call quality was impressive on the Nokia N95 MultiMedia computer. However it should be noted that the device feels a bit sluggish at times. I’m not sure if it is because the N95 lacks in hardware or if Symbian is a sluggish application stack, but there is a noticable lag when you hit a key or especially when trying to launch the camera to take a photo. Also, when loading media there is an annoying lag that can’t be missed.

Conclusion

There are a few caveats (as there are with ANY electronic device), but overall the Nokia N95 is the best mobile phone on the market and the best phone I have ever used. I have tried many different types of phones including Treos, Motorola Windows Smartphones, BlackBerrys and more. I have to say the Nokia N95 packs so many features and ties them all together that it makes my head spin. There are so many uses for this phone that it pains me to have to send the review unit back.

No matter if you are a business user, Internet content creator, or high school student; the N95 is a great platform to stay connected with your friends, co-workers, and family. The openness of the Nokia/Symbian platform means you can do virtually anything with your phone that you want. There are many 3rd party applications for Symbian and the list grows every day.

Apple has drawn criticism because the iPhone is a great piece of hardware and with the right software it is capabale of so much. Imagine being able to use an application like Skype to make VoIP calls or being able to use an IM client on your iPhone. With the N95 you can do this already. Gizmo Project is built into Symbian and there are many IM clients available for free download (not to mention countless other tools). You can take great looking video with the N95 or shoot awesome photos and directly upload them to the web without having to hook up and sync with your PC. This upload can happen either by wi-fi or the cellular network.

I would whole-heartily suggest the N95 to my friends. The steep cost is made up for in features and openness.

What are your thoughts?

When I’ve spoken about the Skype phone before, I was operating under an assumption. I thought the skype phone would be dual mode. That is, normal cell phone calls would go out over the normal GSM network (like every other GSM phone call), and calls to skype contacts would go out over the 3G network basically as a data, VoIP driven call.

However, news comes this morning from Markus Gobel that this isn’t the case. It turns out that 3, the European cell phone company that carries the skype phone, is merely running iSkoot. iSkoot is a service that acts as a proxy between a normal phone call and the IP network that skype runs on. So basically when you make a call to your skype friends on the new phone, it’s a normal call back to the cell tower, then iSkoot carries it over to the skype network.

This is disappointing because I thought skype was finally moving ahead with making mobile headway and allowing users to use skype on the go. There’s a service I’ve been testing called Fring that works on a Nokia N95 that allows me to do skype calls and skype chats; all over the DATA network, not a GSM call. It works great on 3G and on Wi-Fi but I’ve found that over edge it’s not the greatest connection for a voice call.

According to what I’m reading, 3 UK is going to release the skype phone on Monday, October 29.  I wrote about this before and I’m very excited that this news broke today.  I think skype is poised to cause ripples in the cell phone market, first in Europe, and hopefully North American is next.

The handset will also feature a 2 MP camera and support for video playback.

Hat tip to The Register.