technology, networking and IP telephony
Posts tagged VOIP
Voice Pulse – IP Phone Service
0September 12, 2009
With AT&T CallVantage soon to be canceled I had to go searching for an alternate solution for my home phone service. I contemplated going with Verizon’s Triple Play since I already have Verizon FiOS Internet and Verizon FiOS TV but in the end I decided to go with Voice Pulse.
I ordered the service online and it took about a 11 days for the Linksys PAP2 to arrive. I had to call four days after I placed the order to find out the status since there was no email message informing me that the equipment was back ordered).
The installation of the Linksys PAP2 was quite easy. I just connected it to the Verizon Actiontec router and plugged the RJ11 jack into my phone. Within seconds I had dial tone from the Linksys PAP2. I didn’t need to make any changes to the Verizon Actiontec router although it might be necessary later to apply some QoS settings.
It took 7 days to port my original AT&T CallVantage phone number to Voice Pulse. Prior to porting my phone number I just setup CallVantage to forward all calls to the temporary number assigned by Voice Pulse.
There are an amazing number of call routing and call filtering features including telemarketer block which promises to block automated and computerized dialing services used by a vast number of telemarketing companies.
So far the service has been great and very reliable. And would you know that I actually received a phone call from Voice Pulse confirming the port of my home phone number. And I even spoke to an actual human being that I could clearly understand. Did I mention that they called me?
If you have reliable Internet broadband and your looking for a good Internet phone provider you won’t go wrong with Voice Pulse. Voice Pulse will also provide you with SIP trunks for your Asterisk deployment.
Cheers!
Nortel 6100 Series WLAN Handset I2C Battery Issue
0September 3, 2009
Nortel has released a technical bulletin notifying customers of an issue with the Nortel 6100 Series Wireless LAN handsets running software release 2.x (build 115.019 or earlier) when the phones are paired with battery packs that are manufactured around or after January 2009.
The phone will hang up displaying an I2C error when it first boots up. You can read all the details in the Nortel technical bulletin;
Nortel WLAN Handset 6100 Series Battery Error: “I2C” Battery Issue (Software Rls 2.x Fix – Build 115.021)
While I’m at it I should probably mention that Nortel has released software 115_021 and 115_022 for the Nortel 6100 series WLAN handsets. I personally had an issue with 115_021 after I upgraded a 6140 handset. The ear speaker wouldn’t work at all, not after resetting it, not after switching batteries, not after praying over it. I could place and receive calls and the speaker phone worked fine but I couldn’t even get dial tone out of the ear speaker in the handset. After upgrading to software release 115_022 the problem has not re-occurred.
In addition Nortel has also released v2.4 of the Handset Administration Tool (HAT). This tool allows you to configure the 6100 series phones through the cradle from a USB port. This tool is a godsend for those of us that remember configuring every phone by hand through the dial pad (you trying entering a 128bit WEP/WPA key through a dial pad and not get it wrong).
You can download the new software and the new version of HAT from Nortel;
http://support.nortel.com/go/main.jsp?cscat=SOFTWARE&poid=18281
Cheers!
Update: September 4, 2009
I went back and tested 115_021 software with another 6140 handset and had no problems. I also went back and downgraded the original 6140 handset I tested with from 115_022 to 115_021 and had no problems. I’m guessing it was a fluke of some kind.
Asterisk with Nortel i2002 IP Phones
12February 22, 2009
I was feeling under the weather this weekend and found myself confined to my bedroom and basement. With all the idle time I spent a few hours setting up Asterisk. I was looking at two goals, first examining the basic functionality that Asterisk provides and the second was testing the integration between Asterisk and a Nortel i2002 IP phone using the UNIStim (chan_unistim) protocol driver.
For anyone that isn’t familiar with Asterisk; Asterisk is the world’s leading open source PBXi, telephony engine, and telephony applications toolkit. Offering flexibility unheard of in the world of proprietary communications, Asterisk empowers developers and integrators to create advanced communication solutions…for free.
I started by building a CentOS 5.2 server within a VMware environment which was easy enough. I then downloaded the latest Asterisk release (1.6.1-rc1) and compiled the source files. Within no time I had the basic Asterisk installation up and running. I hacked away at the unistim.conf, and extensions.conf file and before long I was making test calls across my private branch exchange between two softphones (X-Lite) and two Nortel i2002 IP phones.
Asterisk is an incredibly powerful solution and can really empower SOHO and small Enterprise networks. The feature support within Asterisk is very impressive and includes voice mail and conferencing. Digium actually manufacturers a number of telephony products based on Asterisk and are very appealing to some businesses. There are also a number of growing service providers which can be used to connect Asterisk over the Internet to the PSTN network without the need for dedicated hardware. I was very impressed with the solution.
Cheers!
