Fixed Mobile Convergence Comes To the Cloud

Most business professionals today are toting smartphones as well as tablets and netbooks or laptop computers. At the office, there’s a large monitor desktop computer connected to the company LAN and a desk speakerphone. The challenge? How do you make these devices part of a unified whole?

This is the challenge corporate IT departments have been wrestling with as the variety of communications devices has multiplied faster than the means to interconnect them. Many times, the best option is to print new business cards with separate listings for office phone, mobile, FAX, toll free and email. Did you get an important call on your office phone while you were offsite making a presentation? Oops. You’ll get it when you get back to the desk tomorrow. Or you can call in and check your voice mails tonight, write down the number and then call back the client when business hours resume. Just hope your competition didn’t return the call sooner.

Modern solutions to this dilemma of integrating disparate tools into a common business system include enterprise VoIP, unified communications and fixed mobile convergence. Getting wireline or network voice telephony to mesh with cellular phones has been a particularly knotty problem. The one area of commonality has been the public switched telephone network. But the PSTN likes each device to have its own phone number. What if you want one number to be able to reach you no matter where you are or what phone is handy?

Smoothstone IP Communications specializes in converging voice and data networks.
They were first to introduce a converged voice and data service over an MPLS network. One of their specialties is hosted PBX or cloud based telephony. The beauty of hosted PBX is that you no longer need make a major capital investment every few years just to expand or improve your in-house telephone system. The expensive and complex switching system is provided as a service over a SIP trunk from Smoothstone to your company.

What’s new is that Smoothstone and Sprint are now partnering to include cell phones and smartphones within the cloud-based telephone system. Users get to have a single phone number, a single voice mail, abbreviated dialing plans and sophisticated group and personal call controls that would normally be available only within the office environment.

What’s tricky about this is to maintain full QoS or Quality of Service controls to ensure that voice services maintain enterprise levels of quality regardless of whether they are being handled wirelessly or through the company’s converged voice and data network. This is where the integration of Smoothstone’s cloud services and Sprint’s 3G, 4G and Global MPLS networks seamlessly manage voice and data communications.

From a user or IT management perspective, the complexity of FMC is moved to the cloud where it is fully managed by the service providers. At the same time, Smoothstone’s other cloud based communications services are available as needed by a single office or a geographically diverse workforce.

Has your company hit a frustration level caused by yesterday’s voice and data networking solutions trying to meet today’s needs? Don’t try to re-engineer and finance a complete overhaul until you look at the options available to you with converged cloud-based voice and data network services. Check pricing and availability with a quick inquiry right now.

Pink Android Intercept Means Business

Remember the movie “Pretty in Pink” with Molly Ringwald? Gotta love the '80's. Anyway, the same title might be applied to the Samsung Intercept in its stunning satin pink case. This is not just a pretty phone, its a pretty hot business machine.

The pink Android's beauty starts with a large three inch touch screen display that gives you access to all your apps. There are thousands available through the Android Market. But unlike lesser touchscreen phones, this one also sports a full slide-out QWERTY keyboard for high speed email, instant messaging and texting to family, friends and colleagues. The email client is equipped to handle Microsoft Direct Push as well as mobile email like Gmail and Yahoo! You’ll be able to view document attachments in Microsoft Word, Excel and Powerpoint to take care of business.

Yes, you have full access to the Internet. The browser is a full HTML Web browser. You’ll be connected at 3G speeds wherever possible through the Sprint 3G network. If you want more download speed or just want to save your 3G Mbytes for on-the-go usage, you also have WiFi capability.

The Intercept is a multimedia phone that lest you send and receive picture and video messages. You’ll always have a high resolution digital camera with you. The included camera offers 3.2 Megapixel pictures good enough to print as well as send. It also works as a camcorder for capturing video at a moment’s notice. Catch the latest news, sports, weather and entertainment with Sprint TV. You can even control your home’s FrontPoint security system.

Will you be sociable using this phone? Yes, you will. Access to Facebook is built-in, as well as access to Twitter. With the real buttons on that full slide-out QWERTY keyboard, you’ll find it effortless to keep up with your social networks. Of course, you can always use the voice network, a.k.a. telephone, when you want to communicate old school.

Speaking of telephone, the Intercept allows you to “intercept” your voicemail using Visual Voicemail. Listen to your voicemail messages in any order and easily manage your inbox without actually calling in.

Another nice feature is integrated GPS that provides support for location-based services like Google Maps. There’s no excuse now for getting “lost” at lunch time and coming back late. Oh, well.

Have you been looking for a high performance smartphone that also has a flair for fashion? This may be the Android phone that you’ve been wanting. If so, you can get it FREE for a limited time when you order online with new service. Learn more and get your Samsung Intercept Satin Pink for Sprint right now.

Of course, there are many other free and low cost smartphone and cell phone models available to you. Visit Cell Phone Plans Finder and check out today’s cell phone specials.

Speed tests: How fast is Sprint 4G with the HTC EVO?

Here's a great article give you some idea of how fast 4G will be on the Sprint.

Speed tests: How fast is Sprint 4G with the HTC EVO? – Android and Me

T-Mobile 4G in the Puget Sound!

After installing Android 2.1 on my HTC Dream / T-Mobile G1 (Thank you Cyanogen) I noticed that I now sometimes have an H where it shows my data connection type in the Android notification bar. The H data connection symbol seems to only appear when I'm in a 3G data location and using a data intensive application.

The H data symbol = 4G data speeds! (aka HSDPA on T-Mobile)

Upon closer inspection it looks like T-Mobile quietly finished rolling out it's 3G data connection late last year, which means it's time to start working on 4G!   See this DailyTech article on the 3g roll out.

So what does all this mean for us?  3G got us all to 3.6 Mbps downlink rates.  4G data speeds will double that of 3G and will hit up to 7.2 Mbps.  The next step will then be 4G+ or HSDPA+ and apparently is currently in best testing only in Philadelphia.  HSPA+ will bring download speeds of up to 56 Mbps and upload speeds of up to 22 Mbps!

In Jan, 2010 people in the Seattle / Puget Sound area have been noticing the H data connection symbols and have reported faster data speeds as seen here at the XDA Forums.

I've read in the past that any and all Android phones will be able to use T-Mobiles brand of 4G because these increased speeds are really an improvement on older technology. This goes for the phones and the equipment that used on the cellular towers that currently run the 3G network.

With just a flip of a switch T-Mobile can "magically" make every 3G tower a 4G connection!

If you're in a location where you currently get 3G speeds and have an Android phone get to work upgrading your OS you might just have access to 4G speeds and not even know it!

According to Wikipedia T-Mobile has announced that it will begin to roll out 4G+ in their top tier markets sometime in 2010.  It looks like this is already happening but it appears that the Nexus One would be the only phone that T-Mobile has officially given access to the 4G network seeing as it runs Android 2.1.

At launch next month the HTC EVO will only have 4G speeds in under 20 cities total.  The closest cites to me would be Tacoma and Seattle.  Hopefully at work in Renton I'll be able access the 4G network from Sprint.

So there you go kids, a free 4G data speed upgrade for Android phones on T-Mobile that's available RIGHT NOW!  Who says that the Sprint EVO is the only phone that gets to have all the 4G fun?  It looks like if you have Android 2.1 and a T-Mobile phone you get 4G before before the 1st official 4G phone ever comes out in the U.S.!

On that note I'll get back to you all next month when I have a Sprint EVO in hand and can give everyone more feed back.

Free Cell Phones Galore

I’m looking at two Web pages full of cell phones, 26 of them in all. They’re supported by wireless service from the major cellular carriers, including AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon. These phones are of all different types and retail prices, but they have one important thing in common. They’re free of charge.



Oh, sure. Every cell phone store has a few dog phones that they can’t move, so they offer them free to get shoppers in the place. They’re usually something that went obsolete last year. How is this any different?

Well, let’s take look and see what kind of free phones you can get. Do you like BlackBerry phones? I see a BlackBerry Bold 9700 Black, a BlackBerry Curve 8520 Black and a BlackBerry Curve 8900 Silver. Take your pick. You can get them free when you order your phone with AT&T wireless service at the same price you’d pay anywhere else. Oh, they won’t give you a free BlackBerry? Then you better come to Cell Phone Plan Finder and check out the Free Phones page.

Here are some more BlackBerry deals. Get the BlackBerry 8530 in black or violet with Verizon Wireless service. Or choose the BlackBerry Storm 9530 Black, the BlackBerry Storm2 9550 Black or BlackBerry Tour 9630 Black. They’re all free when you order them with Verizon Wireless service.

The DROID ERIS by HTC is a popular smartphone. It’s free. So’s the Motorola DEVOUR Silver, the Nokia Nuron 5230, The T-Mobile Sidekick LX Brown, the Motorola Cliq XT with MOTOBLUR and the Motorola BACKFLIP with MOTOBLUR. All free.

Some other favorites include the LG Neon Blue, LG Xenon Red, Samsung Strive in black or purple, LG Rumor 2 in black titanium, vibrant blue or orange. How about a Samsung M330 Silver, Nokia 2720 Black, Samsung M240 Silver or Nokia 2720 Blue. They all have one thing in common. They’re free if you know where to get them. Here’s a hint: Cell Phone Plan Finder.

You’ve been craving a new cell phone. Why pay when you can get it free. Plus by ordering online there’s no standing in line or waiting around while your phone is activated. These phones are shipped free to your door, ready to be used. So what are you waiting for? Shop and compare free cell phones now, because free is soooo much better than paying.