Since November 2008, Angelos Varvitsiotis, have had a very interesting Open Hardware project going on: A simple USB-to-FXS device.

On February 25th a milestone was reached: A finished "dongle board" was produced. Even if the hardware is "ready", it does not mean that it is working. On top of this, the Asterisk channel driver needs to be written.

Given his non-hardware background - the writeups are understandable even for another software guy like myself. I have learned a lot with regards to DIY electronics.

Even if this is a hobbyist project, there could be really be some real-world usages for the result of the project. I am thinking about making really cheap hardware available for emerging countries. In my opinion, communication is THE single reason for emerging countries to heighten their income per capita. Without means of making communication work - we will still only be patching the problem, not fixing it.

If you have never looked at Angelos' blog, please do.

The other day, the CEO of VoIPtel - mr Jan Bjørkhaug, visited my office to tell me about some exciting development from ATCOM. ATCOM is a producer of various VoIP equipment, and I am very found of their IP0x line of PBXes. VoIPtel is the European distributor of ATCOM products.

Last year I had the chance to talk directly to representatives from ATCOM and gave them my feedback on the lack of modularity in their IP0x-line.

What I heard the other day is nearly good news: Modularity - and a steel chassis. No more plastic, no more either-this-or-that regarding BRI, FXO or FXS. Actually - we still will have to make a choice - but it's much easier now.

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Some time ago I did a posting about VoIP Supply announcing that they would begin to sell a IAX phone. At the time of release, they had a contest where one could win one of these phones. Usually I am not very into contests, but when someone asked me nicely if I was willing to write a "Why is IAX {cooler,better,more suiteable} than SIP", and submit this to their contest, I did oblige.

Given that VoIP Supply is one of the few companies around that I consider myself to be a fan of, I had no problem doing this. VoIP Supply are very good, and if they did ship their hardware with Euro-type power adapters I would probably be buying most of my stuff from them. Unfortunately they do not.

Now back to the Citel C-4110 VoIP Supply sent me back in May 2009.

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I have for quite some time considered the Nokia E-series to be one of the best devices around. Very nice feature set for my cell phone usage pattern. A quite good VoIP stack. My only gripe is that the GUI for the VoIP client is a bit painful.

For me, my Nokia E65 is my Black Hawk.

I will not rehash the details of Nokia's current drop of sales in the first half of 2009. Others have done that to lengthy details.

So what can Nokia do to fly again?

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Steve Mosher posted to one of the OpenMoko mailing lists about scrapping the planned GTA03 device and instead doing something they call "Plan B" or "Project B". Whatever this "B" is, only OpenMoko know.

Even if the company have good reasons to scrap the new device (reason quoted is "3X the needed development resources compared to Project B"), such news, and the current economic climate may be a indication of the beginning of the end to OpenMoko. Another indication that this may be the end to the company is speculations that they have laid of most of their Linux staff.

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Grandstream is soon going to release the GXV3140 IP Multimedia Phone.

This is more than a telephone. It is a multi-communication unit. It seems to do everything you will need regarding communication.

This is not a review of the GXV3140. My experience with Grandstream so far is the BudgeTone series and extensive visits to their CeBIT Hannover booth for the past years.

This is a post about the crossover between telephony and something else.

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Smith on VoIP notes that WiFi Phone Sales Up 60%…They Still Sucks.

For sure the current crop of VoIP WiFi handsets are for the technically inclined. After trying out several such hand sets over the last year I am not very impressed - or amused - on how utterly bad it is possible to create a user interface to configure VoIP AND the WiFi connection.

Actually - configuring WiFi+VoIP on the Nokia cell phones are even worse.

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