It seems that some credit card bandits used my Visa debit card to charge 76 cents from a place in Kansas. I can only guess where they got the number from, but I have fairly recently received several notices from major retailers that their systems had been compromised. The reason for a tiny charge like that is possibly that the bandits were probing to see if the card number really was good, and hoping that such a tiny charge would go unnoticed.

That my card number was stolen is the bad news. The good news is that the tiny charge was flagged almost immediately by Visa’s security people, and I quickly got a phone call from my credit union’s security team.

But the bad news is that I wasn’t at my desk when they called, I was out of the office on a job. Now as anyone who follows my blog knows, if my home office phone isn’t answered the call goes to my cell phone automatically using Phone.com’s ‘follow me’ capabilities. But, as luck would have it, I was inside a building where AT&T’s signals don’t always penetrate well enough to support voice.

So the call went to my Phone.com Voicemail. Now I had subscribed to Phone.com’s computer-based VoiceMail transcription service almost instantly when it was first offered. Thus, a computer some place in the cloud “listened” to the voicemail, transcribed it, and sent the transcription to my eMail, all in a matter of seconds. And I have a smartphone set so that all my eMail can be read on the phone from wherever in the world I am, without having to fire up a computer. While the cellular signal for voice wasn’t strong enough to penetrate the interior of the building where I was located, either the data signal could penetrate or perhaps I had moved to a part of the building where signals could get through.

In any case, my eMail was downloaded to my phone, and within 10 minutes of the security folk calling I was reading the Voicemail transcript. Within another minute or two I was on the line with security (obviously not from my cell phone, given the at best spotty service where I was … actually I called via a Phone.com VoIP connection). Another couple of minutes and the card number was cancelled.

Phew. Saved by a VoiceMail transcription. Without that it would have been six hours or more before I got home to listen to my VoiceMail. By then I suspect my bank balance would have been approaching zero. Eventually I might have gotten my money back, either from the credit union or via an insurance policy I carry that supposedly covers such situations. But it could have taken weeks to collect.

The bummer, though, was that this happened just a few days before I was flying out of town to see my grandchildren and other family members, and the Credit Union said that Visa couldn’t get a new debit card to me before I left, even if I paid a pricey $25 rush fee. Oh well, I do have a MasterCard credit card, and I heard a rumor that cash and checks also still work.

Livingston, NJ (PRWEB) August 09, 2012. Recognizing the wide proliferation of cordless phones in the home and business environments today,Phone.com, the premiere provider of Virtual Office telephone services, has become one of the first Internet Telephony Service Providers (ITSPs) to introduce Panasonic Internet-enabled Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) cordless telephones as a standard product offering. These systems are ideal for small businesses that need mobility within an office, the ability to retain outstanding call quality, and the myriad of new features available from cloud-based phone services. They are also ideal for residential and home office users.

The Panasonic KX-TGP500 and KX-TPA50 are ideal complements to the Phone.com Virtual Office suite of services. The systems are expandable to six DECT 6.0 cordless handsets, can support three concurrent calls, and are standardized for high-definition (HD) voice communications. Anyone wanting the flexibility of a cordless phone yet the value afforded by Internet phone services now has a viable alternative to the old method of using an analog terminal adapter (ATA) and plugging in non-Internet-enabled devices.

“The SIP cordless phones from Panasonic allow our customers to enjoy the familiarity of existing cordless phones but with much lower phone line costs than with traditional Plain Old Telephone Service (POTS),” said Ari Rabban, CEO of Phone.com.

The system includes one handset, with the option to purchase additional Panasonic KX-TPA50 handsets.

Handsets on both phones feature calling status displays on large 2.1-inch screens with white backlight. Features include call forwarding, voice mail, call transferring and a speaker phone that reviews describe as excellent. When fully charged, the phone provides five hours of talk time or roughly 10 days of standby.

According to Panasonic’s website, the combination of hosted voice phone services like the Phone.com Virtual Office with the Panasonic cordless SIP phone system creates a “phone system in a box” that offers exceptional value to today’s smart consumers.

“Phone.com’s VoIP phone service and cloud-based business phones are ideal for smaller businesses, especially for those that require mobility within an office environment. This could include medical offices, accounting firms, legal offices, manufacturing facilities, warehouses, retail stores,” Rabban suggested.

For more information, please contact Joel Maloff at jmaloff(at)phone(dot)com.

About Phone.com
Phone.com is a cloud-based phone company offering a variety of innovative and economical business and home phone services for entrepreneurs, home offices, small businesses and individuals. Powered by advanced VoIP technologies, the company offers Phone.com Virtual Office for small businesses, Phone.com Virtual Number for individuals on the go, Phone.com Home Phone Plus for consumers and Phone.com Mobile Office and Mobile VoIP. Please visit http://www.Phone.com or call 1-800-998-7087 for more information.

If you’re new to Phone.com or business phone services then you can give us a 30 day free trial.  Take some time and set up your phone service just the way you want it and play with our features.  After the free trial you can decide if you want to keep our service and even transfer your number.  Then add some of our popular upgrades like an unlimited minute extension, vanity numbers, professional greetings and voicemail transcription.

If you like what you see with us we would be happy to have you join us and if you have any questions you can call our customer service line 24 hours a day at 800-998-7087 or interact with us on Facebook and Twitter.

The bottom line is obvious: we can all complain as much as we want but it is about the “bottom line” and after NBC paid $1.2B or something like that for the rights to the Olympics they have to protect it with prime time viewing and prime dollars from advertisers. Doubt any executive could or would have done anything different.

However, the price NBC paid will probably hurt them in the long run. It is a flawed model and one that all the talented executives that negotiated these mega contracts with the IOC simply did not know how to do in a different way.

I read comments that state that only 8% of Americans are on Twitter so they don’t really know the results until they watch the 8pm East Coast show and also read that many will just prefer not to read the results online and wait for the tape delay.

Perhaps, but in the internet era it is just so wrong. I truly wonder how many viewers do not know the result of the 4*100 swim relay that took place several hours ago and that NBC will show in about one or two hours from now…

One thing I am certain of: in the long run this contract will hurt NBC. I can’t see this happening in Rio2016 (the next summer games) or even in Sochi2014 (the next winter games).

TVs will all have internet build in them. Everyone will know the result and the ability to “delete” all videos of the events will not work nor will the ability to prevent live viewing from other sources. I watched the entire opening ceremony Friday afternoon after a two minute search online (I hope the site I used wont give my laptop a virus but it seemed quite legit and the broadcast was a great quality broadcast from BBC One).

In the bigger picture what is happening is not so different from what the VoIP industry did to traditional telecom in just less than 15 years. In 1997 through 1999 no one at AT&T, MCI or Bell Atlantic expected VoIP would do what it did to this mighty industry. In 2000 Lucent Technologies, Nortel and Alcatel still sold billions of dollars worth of switches (and the above mentioned carriers paid nicely for them). I don’t need to write what happened to these companies. OK I am not saying the IOC will end up like Lucent (a company I was once a very proud employee of) and also not that NBC will end up like MCI but big changes are going to happen.

We already watch TV in a different way  than we used to with most shows set to record by our DVRs. We already skip ads and I think the ad revenues for NBC in two and four years must hurt. I am hardly an ad expert and did not do any major research to back this up but I assume the Comcast executives that bought NBC are working on something different.

Most important, I can’t believe that in the United States in 2012 we are the only place in the modern world where we can’t see Olympic events live. Can’t see that continuing.

Then there are the self-admitted Nerds like me. I’m puzzling over the seemingly contradictory signals coming out of London about the use of wireless broadband connectivity, and thus broadband applications such as VoIP, in and around the games.

It seems that the use of personal wireless access points has been outlawed at Olympic venues. In other words, the emerging genre of devices that use 3G/4G cellular signals as a form of backhaul for a user’s broadband-based devices, from laptops to ATAs, are verboten. In other words, no virtual phone line from your seat in the stadium, although we wonder how they detect someone who smuggles in an ATA to use in their private suite or box.

That news emerged over the past week when Olympic authorities published a list of prohibited items that can’t be brought into any Olympic venue. There, along with the expected items such as guns, knives, explosives, illegal drugs, and so on is a ban on “Personal/private wireless access points and 3G hubs.” The Olympics powers-that-be add that “smart devices such as Android phones, iPhone and tablets are permitted inside venues, but must not be used as wireless access points to connect multiple devices.”

Just why the ban has been imposed is not stated. As I write this, various queries to Olympic authorities as to why the ban was imposed have gone unanswered. One theory is that there’s a fear that local networks will become overloaded if too many try to use the available bandwidth.

But then there’s another theory. It seems that British telecom giant BT has a contract under which it has installed 1,550 access points at various Olympic venues. Use of those access points for BT subscribers, or customers of companies with roaming agreements with BT, will be free. But most international visitors will have to pay.

Meanwhile, in sharp contrast, just outside the stadiums in London’s fashionable West End there’s a brand new free Wi-Fi service. The Westminster City Council and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea hired BT rival network provider O2 to run the system which will “allow many people to browse the web, check their email and use VoIP solutions throughout the Olympic Games,” according to publicity for the free service. “”The addition of free Wi-Fi to some of our most popular landmarks is crucial in helping to maintain (London’s) reputation” said Mayor of London Boris Johnson.

So … let the (VoIP) games begin.

It took no more than a quick look at their ratings to reveal what almost any VoIP user already knows – the traditional landline is fading fast. Consumer Reports rated 25 phone service providers. Five of the seven companies at the bottom of the list are traditional landline providers. Six of the seven companies at the top of the list are VoIP companies. No, make that seven out of seven – the magazine lists Verizon, number four on its list, as delivering phone service over fiber and skips the highly salient detail that it uses VoIP protocol over that fiber.

The Consumer Reports article focuses almost entirely on home phone services – it doesn’t rate Phone.com or its competitors who focus on VoIP business phone service, for everything from the small office/home office (SOHO) market to small enterprises. Personally, I consider that an oversight given the large number of at least part-time telecommuters and those who work out of home offices (such as myself) who probably read the magazine.

But Phone.com does offer home phone services, so I decided to do a little comparison myself. I took Consumer Union’s top rated “pure play” VoIP provider (i.e. a company that does not provide its own broadband or TV service) and compared it to Phone.com (actually I did skip one top-rated VoIP provider because they don’t provide small business service). The price they charge comes to $311.88 per year, and only if you sign a one-year contract, which Consumer Reports advises against if at all possible. That compares to $238.56 for highly similar VoIP home phone service from Phone.com, no 12-month commitment needed.

I also couldn’t resist peeking at the small business plans available – it does cost more to buy VoIP business phone service, but you get more, starting with two lines of service. At Phone.com, including an unlimited calling extension and those two lines, the price per year is $381.12.  A similar configuration at Consumer Reports’ top-rated pure play VoIP company is $599.88, and I noted that Consumer Reports figures that company’s pricing “above average” in value.

A final point I found of interest, was that Consumer Reports said 24 percent of those it surveyed don’t have home phone service at all – neither VoIP or conventional landline. The obvious conclusion is that those folks rely on their cell phones exclusively, and I know from experience that even includes some small business users, particularly “road warriors.” That’s all very well and good, but such a decision comes with what I consider some really significant caveats. The first is that you better not be making international calls on those cell phones – not at the up to $4.99 per minute cell phone carriers charge for what should be an 11 cents call. The second is that only one member of a family, or of a small business team, can get a call. But people may be calling to speak to anyone available. The solution, I constantly recommend to people, is either sign up for virtual phone service where calls to a single number can be redirected to many other numbers, or get at least basic VoIP service, which similarly allows redirection of calls.

Stuart Zipper is currently a contributing editor to Communications Technology, a high tech business journalism consultant and freelancer, and the past Senior Editor of TelecomWeb news break.

This means that next time you get a call about refinancing your home or lowering your car insurance, you can just dial *9 and never hear from those people again.  Keep in mind this will only work for callers with exposed caller ID.  

This feature is active and available on all our calling plans.  If you accidentally block someone you can just dial *9 again and unblock them.  If you want to block or unblock a call after it’s over you can easily go to your control panel.  Select Settings then Call Blocking.  Select the number you want to unblock from the Spam Caller List and click on the Trash Can image all the way to the right of the number.  If you want to add a number to the blocked list you can click Block all the way to the right of the number under the Recent Calls list.  

We’re here to support you, so if you have any questions about how to use our service feel free to call our customer service line 24/7 or even better drop us a line on Facebook or Twitter.  Don’t forget to Like or Follow us.

Up to now Androids biggest problem in my eyes is that it’s heavily fragmented. One company put this skin on the vanilla version of Android, another company put another skin on and so on and so forth. At which point developing for Android meant developing for all different handsets that just ran on the same basic operating system. With Ice Cream Sandwich or ICS this is all going to change. Google is reigning in the manufacturers and skin developers. I’m not exactly sure how companies like HTC will be able to keep their Sense UI (their skin) or if it will make it obsolete. Either way this is a win for some developers, like our Phone.com developers who won’t have to make a slightly different version of our Mobile Office app for the different Android handsets any longer.

Developers won’t have to build in to an app the unique differences for each different handset model, in turn saving them many hours of time developing. This will obviously be a big money saver for companies paying developers as well as making the lives of hobby developers much easier. It should also save on having to buy so many different handsets to test apps on.

Google I/O is always an interesting event and this year was no exception. Attendees got an unreleased 10.1 inch Samsung Galaxy Tab as well as numerous other goodies like an invite to the new Google Music Beta service. All in all Google and Android are taking big steps forward and I think developers are going to really benefit from Ice Cream Sandwich which is expected to launch in the 4th quarter of this year.

A business phone may seem like an added expense, a luxury, but it may be the sticking point between success and failure- especially when you are in business by yourself. No matter what business youre in, the most important thing is to demonstrate to your customer base- and your prospects- that their needs are your number one priority. Its pretty simple really- if your customers feel important to you and believe you will strive to meet their needs, they will gladly give you their loyalty– and their money.

For a solopreneur, being available to every one who needs you, when they need you is sticky business. Surprisingly, a business phone can be a piece of the picture of providing great customer service. Some providers, especially VoIP providers, offer package deals that provide a whole lot more than a simple phone line.

You can choose a business package that gives you the features of a virtual office. Need a customized menu for your callers so they get the details they need? No problem. How about personalized greetings so they know they reached you and they matter more than an automated voice? You can even set up automatic call forwarding, so if you do happen to step away from your desk, your calls will follow you home, go to customized menu options, straight to voice mail or to your cell, wherever you need them to go so your customer is served the best.

With the right virtual office business phone plan, you can access all the familiar features you love, like caller ID and call waiting, plus add the power and personalization of business benefits likes customized greetings, conference calling, hold music and call routing features so your customers get exactly what they need and you can take care of all the rest of your business as well.

Virtual Office even gives you the option to obtain 1-800 toll free numbers, vanity numbers and Global Numbers which can help your customers reach you easily and without any extra cost to them. Virtual Office voicemail boxes are never full and the text voicemail features allow you to read transcribed voicemail messages or receive alerts via text message. With Virtual Office by Phone.com, you will never miss a message again.

With unlimited extensions you can grow your business and add dedicated extensions for all employees. Business phones can be added to any extension without any equipment to purchase or maintain. Each extension is given their own dedicated voicemail box with personal call forwarding settings. Calls are routed through an automated service that also has an option for Dial-by-Name Directory. These features project an image of professionalism to clients and prospective clients alike without having the financial burden of hiring a dedicated receptionist.

Call recording is a free feature that allows you to record your calls at anytime for quality assurance. Calls can be played back in the Call Logs section of your account. Virtual Office support all click to call buttons, widgets that allow your website visitors to place a call without having to dial your number.

For a complete list of Phone.com features click here.

Virtual Office has a variety of affordable business phone solutions that will bring your company the reliability that you depend on for your business phone service. They offer free Customer Support 24 hours a day 7 days a week and comprehensive online resources that guide you through the features. Obtaining Virtual Office is easy, just sign up on Phone.com and you can be using your new phone service today!