Thoughts of A Lively Mind

Question on legality of 3pcc VoIP call in India « Gokul Blog — A conversation on VoIP, IMS, Cisco and Just about Anything

Basically, let’s say that I have a Soft PBX making calls to two mobile endpoints and then connecting them ( A typical 3pcc call). Is this legal in India? The reasoning behind banning the VoIP termination on TDM was that the existing licensed vendors were loosing out which would make sense in this case as well. So is there a legal section that bans this as well?

Either way, the service isn't gonna be free - the thing about voice is someone has to pay for the call. In this case its the guys providing this Soft PBX service who would have to establish two outgoing calls to connect the two endpoints - that alone might make such a service unviable in India unless they negotiate heavily for minutes.

Technorati Tags: VoIP in India, Soft PBX, 3pcc

India had 30 million internet users in April, six million more than it had a year ago, according to a survey released on Friday, and 20 million of these users are on the Net daily. These are the findings of Juxt Consult Pvt. Ltd, a Delhi-based Internet research firm.

Interestingly, the survey found that the Internet users who accessed the Net from home spent more time surfing the Net than watching television, reading newspapers or listening to radio.

The Hindu Business Line : Mobile phone calls within buildings account for 60%

According to estimates made by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), about 60 per cent of all mobile phone calls are actually originating or terminating when the subscribers are indoors within buildings such as offices, homes or hotels.

Technorati Tags: TRAI, Telecom, 3G, femtocell, picocell

BSNL provides this service to their current employees and staff at DOT (probably above a certain grade) and to retired staff from BSNL and DOT. However, the treatment of these subscribers - who often times pay a bill anyway as the free service is for a limited number of calls - is usually not even as good as for regular paying customers. I have frequently seen lines being left in an in-operable condition. So the problem is universal, when subscribers pay they should get the service they are paying for.

In general, what exasperates subscribers (including yours truly) the most is that to keep their numbers looking good, BSNL support staff regularly close complaints even if the underlying problem is not fixed. Subscribers waiting to hear back on their complaint find out a few days later that the "complaint was closed as the fault was rectified" and have to re-file their complaint to get it addressed.

The Tribune, Chandigarh, India - Himachal Pradesh Edition

It is also difficult to understand the rationale behind providing free services to employees of the Telecom Department when the BSNL fails to provide proper services to the people paying for them!

Technorati Tags: BSNL, DOT, India

ETel Coverage: IVR That Reads Your Mind - O'Reilly Emerging Telephony

Great idea, wish more IVR systems would be built around these concepts. To a certain extent, I have seen this already working with banks in India. For example, when you get through the authentication prompt the IVR immediately informs you of your available balance and the last major transaction that was successfully completed. Not everyone implements such nice features though.

Its possible that IVR platforms are already geared to deal with such usability tweaks. I wonder if the guys at Amdale have built this into their PowerConnect platform.

Technorati Tags: IVR, telecom, usability

Typical dual-mode 3G phones have at least these antennae:

• 3G antennas for 850, 1900 and 2100 MHz to support tri-band 3G
• 1800 and 900 MHz for the other two 2G frequencies
• 2.4 GHz - one antenna for Bluetooth/WiFi - multiple once 802.11n is adopted

Communications Innovations - Antenna Overload

So, where are they all going to go? As mobile gadgets get smaller because of greater chip integration, the problem just gets worse. Furthermore, antenna positioning forces some unpleasant design compromises. For example, if you put the antennae around the edge of a laptop screen, you can't have a continuous metal frame around the screen, so your laptop becomes less robust. So, although it may not be immediately obvious, the number and size of antennae required by future mobile devices may thwart designers' ability to use new technology such as more-integrated electronics and flexible screens to make gadgets even smaller.

One company known to be working with SDRs for base stations is Vanu.

Technorati Tags: sdr, antenna, wifi, bluetooth, 3G, wimax

Reading the recent post about the poor state of voice mail, I realized that this is a perfect example of how bad the carriers are at innovation. This problem can be solved quite easily, without requiring a major overhaul of either voice mail systems or handsets.

• Voicemail access is currently sequential (remember the iPhone announcements from Steve regarding their breakthrough feature for random access to voicemails?)
• It is heavily dependent on Interactive Voice Response systems (IVRs)

• BSNL (India's largest telecom company) Chennai's Voicemail system has been offline for over one year on their wireline network - no official reasons for why
  
• Airtel's voicemail system has a great feature where you get an sms with direct access to the voicemail in question. However, it has a retarded problem where when a caller attempts to leave a message, they hear: "after the beep <beep> thank you for using Airtel" - it doesn't even let you leave a message!!!
• Not yet sure about Hutch (soon to be Vodaphone), my voicemail service is yet to be activated
• Most of the service providers I have used (either as a customer or when leaving a message for one of their customers) have issues with the IVR system that handles voicemail being jammed

• Use MMS to deliver the voicemail directly to the customer - no more IVR to retrieve voicemail - only for callers to leave messages
• Properly implement random access to voicemails via direct dialing to the voicemail in question
• Work with handset manufacturers (like the Apple - Cingular/AT&T effort) to integrate voicemail directly into the messaging interface

Customers and callers would actually begin to use voicemail (specially in India where the population is averse to talking to a machine - they would much rather hang up or leave one of those famous "missed calls"). Also, IVR systems would not be jammed as much, reducing the cost impact of maintaining and upgrading them.

Technorati Tags: voicemail, ivr, cellphones, iphone, india

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