Written by Mark White on October 19th, 2009
An item on my to-do list for the past year or more has been to learn all about VoIP; as of this afternoon I’m pleased to say that I’ve learned enough to at least make a functioning office VoIP service work!
I’d purchased “Asterisk – The Future of Telephony” via Amazon.com early last year, my primary motivation being to work out if an all-VoIP setup was feasible for a small technology business. When the time comes for us to move offices I wanted to see if it’s possible to leave the traditional (and, in Australia, overpriced) fixed telephony network behind. It’s been around 8 weeks since I started playing around with Asterisk in my spare time, and frustratingly it soon became an obsession. The only way I managed to keep my sanity was from reading through the waves of postings on the ‘net from folks who have embarked on a similar journey, so I wanted to devote this and some future blog postings to documenting some of the challenges I faced, and most importantly how and what I did to get it working. Click to continue »
Posted in Business, Mobile, VoIP | No Responses »
Written by Mark White on October 14th, 2009
Hong Kong has long been one of my favourite cities in the world, and it’s been terrific to be up here for the past week working with the Catalist Group and meeting prospective investors and customers. On the mobile front, however, I’m temporarily experiencing life as a “Normob”: or to clarify, as a normal mobile user.
I first became aware of Normobs via Chris Kettle and some other friends who attended a mobile event in the UK where the term was bandied about. But this week I’ve experienced life first hand as one, and I’m reeling from confusion.
Unlike some countries – Australia and Singapore, for example, Hong Kong doesn’t have major identity requirements in order to provision prepaid mobile access; it’s primarily walk into a store, pay HK$100 (around A$15) and walk out with an activated SIM card. Text and voice work fine, and the rates aren’t bad either – HK$0.10 per minute for local calls (around 1.5c) which has enabled me to call into our VoIP service just fine. But mobile data? Forget it.
(This is despite the HKCSL prepaid packaging advertising mobile broadband as one of the benefits of the prepaid service – an anomaly which was confirmed to me by one of the retail assistants, who just shrugged when I pointed to the packaging with a “but it says here that…..”).
So here I am, with…..voice. And text. Only. Like it’s, I don’t know, 2002 or something.
I can’t hit the Google search portal, or mobile Facebook. Or use Google Maps, or Gmail. Most of the Symbian apps on my E51 are utterly useless sans data access and I’ve found myself with spare time on the MTR wishing my handset would do something. Anything. But it’s now just a mobile phone.
And I’m, temporarily at least, a “Normob”.
Posted in Mobile, Uncategorized | No Responses »
Written by Mark White on October 13th, 2009
I was bemused this morning to find that my Gmail inbox had turned evil:
My Evil Inbox
Not that I’m particularly superstitious, mind. Regardless, it was disconcerting!
Posted in Uncategorized | No Responses »
Written by Mark White on October 12th, 2009
I’ve posted here periodically about my enthusiasm for Blackberry, specifically the Bold 9000 that I’ve had since the beginning of the year. One of the reasons I held on to my old 7100 for so long was that I was waiting for Telstra to release a NextG Blackberry, which they finally did. And then I was mulling over whether to get the Bold or the Storm, a decision which was ultimately made for me by Vodafone’s exclusivity with the Storm in Australia.
Of course, during this period I didn’t use the 7100 as a primary device – at least I hadn’t for quite a while. Instead I’d revolved through the Locatrix handset de jour – whether it be an iPhone, N95, or whatever – as my primary handset. The Blackberry was only a secondary device, for the sole purpose of e-mail. And then in February I migrated to the Bold as my sole device, and its been mostly a happy marriage.
However I have been travelling so much this year and – quite belatedly – working with local SIM cards to reduce roaming costs wherever I can. This has meant, however, that I’m accumulating a shed full of “other” numbers which I maintain active, and use whenever I’m in the relevant country. This week, for example is a HKCSL 3G prepaid service, which I’ve had in my trusty E51.
Ironically, this has meant that I’m back to a dual-device personality – being as attached to e-mail as I am, the Blackberry is usually in my pocket. But locally working with the Hong Kong number – we’ve got an office DID here now, so its how I’m connecting with the team in Australia to save money – I’m carrying and using a second phone. As a primary device, this week, anyway.
So ironically, it’s Black to the future – despite my passion for the Blackberry solution, it’s still not meeting every use case I come up with.
So any plans for dual SIM devices, Research in Motion?
Posted in Business, Mobile | No Responses »
Tags: Blackberry
Written by Mark White on October 4th, 2009
Forthcoming, I promise.
I’ve been somewhat distracted in the past few weeks; there’s no one specific area that’s had me swamped, just the general pressure of the business – it’s a tough commercial environment, in case you haven’t noticed – and optimistically planning for a new phase of growth in 2010.
There have been however a number of topics I’m keen to write up: one is my recent endeavors with SIP, VoIP, and Asterisk in particular (I’ve become a big fan). I also want to put up a post about some of the “initiatives” I’ve seen from so-called “leading” VCs in Australia lately.
On a serious note, Mother Nature has given the South Pacific, India and Indonesia an absolute battering in these past few weeks, and my thoughts are with those who have friends and family in peril, pain, or uniquely challenging situations as a result.
And finally, I want to start bragging about a number of initiatives we’ve been cooking up in the labs of late, which is one of the things fueling my optimism for the next calendar year.
So its Sunday night, October 4th, and I’m going to plan a blog entry each day this week. Stay tuned.
Posted in Business, Venture Capital | 1 Response »
