Next week Jeff Pulver’s HD Communications Summit will be hosted by Orange at their R&D Center in Paris. We’re very excited to find out what other telcos are working on as the HD momentum grows.
Over the next few years, the mobile industry is likely to face some competition from city-wide wireless broadband and new carriers springing up to take them on in their own space. For the carriers, the move towards next-generation broadband with technologies like LTE and WiMAX make streaming HD video to mobile handsets an attractive proposition. 3G video can be great if it’s all you’ve got, but a confused mess of a blur is often what you see. Given the quality on my laptop using Skype is super-awesome… it doesn’t help me believe in the future of HD video on handsets.
- What’s the purpose ? I only use video when I sit down and talk to someone… they have WiFi there!
or maybe:
- I don’t use video! What an awful idea!
Clearly, WiFi is a much cheaper alternative to current mobile data plans. But with mobile HD voice and video, you’re on the go with your contacts, with a bright high-definition touchscreen display. The warm fuzzy next-door feeling you have with Skype.
For those, like me, with an allergy to video: it is not only human connectivity that you can benefit from. Applications living in the cloud can receive and deliver, process, interpolate, and create streaming video. This creates a wealth of possibilities once it is accessible to a large community.
Posted by Tim Behrsin |
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Jonathan Christensen of Skype announced in March 2009 at eComm the royalty free licensing of its super-wideband codec, SILK. To this end, all Skype calls to +883 iNum numbers are now available in high definition.
Skype’s user base of 480 million users brings HD calling to all of iNum’s partner networks. From retail users to enterprises, call centers to call conferencing services and not forgetting the plethora of innovative voice applications available through Voxeo: using iNum they can all be reachable from Skype’s new HD platform.
High definition is made possible because such calls do not travel over the PSTN, ensuring end-to-end wideband capability. The PSTN supports 8,000 audio samples per second, whereas the new SILK codec supports between 16,000 and 24,000 samples per second. This greater sampling rate enables the caller to hear more detail in the conversation: regional dialects and subtle consonantal sounds are represented more clearly on a HD call.
Background noise however is also more easily picked up, and this is why HD requires a better quality microphone and speaker set than traditional PSTN telephony. For HD to work, all components on the voice path need to support high definition.
Posted by Tim Behrsin |
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iNums are so easy to use from IM clients and partner networks, that it seems a shame not to have the same ease of use in countries where the local carriers are yet to open access. It’s easy to store and call iNums in your cell phone’s contact list using the pause key when dialling a number. This makes calling iNums on the road just as easy as it is from your laptop or desktop.
On a Nokia phone, hold down the ‘*’-star key for 1 second, and a ‘p’ will appear. On the iPhone, press the ‘*’ key and then the ‘pause’ button at the bottom of the screen. The list of access numbers is available on the iNum.net website:
http://www.inum.net/what-is-inum/inum-partners/
For example, to dial the iNum +883 510 000 000 091 for a cell phone which is normally used in California, you would store the following contact on your phone:
+12132213799p883510000000091
Since your cellular plan includes free minutes, and this is a normal local, geographic telephone number, the call to the iNum will be included in your standard contract. Soon though, you’ll be able to dial the iNum without even this access number!
Posted by Tim Behrsin |
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The iNum networks gets to support high definition voice as of today.
With a growing number of endpoints and service providers that are supporting HD voice calls the timing is right for iNum to become a key identifier to address HD endpoints over disparate networks.
G.722 is the first HD codec to be supported and other codecs will be added later this year - stay tuned…
Posted by rullens |
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iNum numbers will be used this whole week to enable wireless texting and calling to Burning Man participants.
This has been done in partnership with the OpenBTS project, and one of the purposes of this partnership is to showcase how iNum can be used to quickly and cost-effectively connect regions that need it, for example when a natural disaster or a war isolate a region from the rest of the world.
We first met David Burgess at eComm where he introduced us to the OpenBTS project. Thanks David for your tremendous help and efforts in getting this launched !
Burning Man is a huge event gathering 50,000 people and taking place in the middle of the Nevada desert. For more info, see www.burningman.com
OpenBTS is an open-source project forming the basis of a new type of cellular network. It basically allows the deployment of a VoIP and Asterisk based wireless network. For more info, see openbts.sourceforge.net
UPDATE: see daily updates and pictures on the OpenBTS blog: openbts.blogspot.com
Posted by rullens |
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Great feedback from Pete Wylie at FierceVoIP, Nadeem Unuth at About.com and Gary Kim at TMCNet about the results of our survey, showing that 70% of the people have lost contacts as a result of changing their phone number….
Amongst other things, this survey confirms the pressing need for global telephone numbers, which is what iNum intends to deliver.
UPDATE: further feedback from Ted Stevenson at VoIP Planet and Robert Poe at VoIP Evolution
Posted by rullens |
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Hong Kong just got closer …
Dial 58080177 from Hong Kong and get connected to the iNum world !
Of course the long term objective is to provide direct dialing to iNum numbers without the need for access numbers, but this is a start…
The complete list of access numbers can be found here.
Posted by rullens |
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This week we assigned the 15 millionth iNum number !
We have been quiet on this blog for the last couple months, but nonetheless actively working on supporting the growing iNum user base and preparing for the launch of some exciting features (more to come on that later).
The iNum reachability is also increasing month after month and a first incumbent operator has opened up its network to iNum — an important first step towards global reach.
Posted by rullens |
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Callcentric just announced several enhancements to their service, including the support for iNum.
You can now obtain a free iNum number and call all iNum numbers for free through Callcentric.
To get your free iNum number, go to http://www.callcentric.com/coverage/international_phone_number and select ‘iNum’ in the list of countries.
Posted by rullens |
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As of today the iNum network supports presence and IM (instant messaging).
This means that, if the feature is supported by your iNum provider, you will be able to see whether an iNum is available or not, and you will be able to send messages to an iNum in addition to simply calling that number.
The first IM client to be fully tested for presence and IM is Google Talk. And this is how it works:
From Google Talk, add a contact in the format 883510012345678@inum.net (where 883510012345678 is the iNum you want to reach). You can then view the presence of this iNum, make free calls and send free messages to the iNum, if supported by your iNum provider.
Most of the iNum providers do not support that feature yet since it has just been released today, however they have now started to implement it. Please check with your provider to see whether the feature is already supported.
Posted by rullens |
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