Small Business Tech

Time for Summer Vacation

Yes it is that time for the family summer vacation. These really stress me out, but we need to get away as a family. We did not take a summer vacation as a family last year, because of an illness and ultimately a death in the family.

The stress is whether anything will break while I am away, and will I have cell phone or Internet access to address the problem. I have been checking T-Mobile coverage maps, and it appears that I will be in coverage areas during weekdays. By the way, T-Mobile has the most usable and responsible coverage maps of any cellular carrier. If there is an problem feel free to file a support ticket or call me.

We were initially going to fly, but we opted for what I call "The Great American Road Trip." It is just a more fun and relaxed way to travel. You do not need to worry about TSA checkpoints, schedules, or crazy weather delays. I get to keep my shoes on.

We will be visiting Atlanta, Knoxville, Smokey Mountains, and maybe one more east coast city between August 1st and the 9th. Highlights of the trip include Georgia Aquarium (Atlanta), The Blue Plate Special (Knoxville), Sister-in-law's house, Dollywood (theme park), and all that Smokey Mountain tourist trap stuff.

Labels: cell phone, Cellular, family, T-Mobile, vacation

Sprint Drops Abusive Customers

You may have seen this story in the mainstream press in the past week. As Paul Harvey would say Jon Stokes of Ars Technica has the rest of the story.

Labels: cell phone, Cellular, Sprint

Continuing with T-Mobile HotSpot @Home Service

I have found a problem with the phone book on the handset. As I have written about before, I had some difficulties in synchronizing the contacts from the my.T-mobile.com web site to the handset. I have discovered that none of the telephone numbers transfer from the site to the telephone. The problem appears to be a mapping issue. The site offers phone numbers such as Work 1, Work 2, Mobile 1, etc. The handset only has the fields of Work, Mobile, Home, etc. Since none of these match up then the numbers are unable to transfer to the handset. One bright spot is that any numbers entered into the Samsung handset do transfer to the online database.

We are going to begin using the one other handset that is available for the HotSpot @Home service, the Nokia 6086. This handset is a bit larger than the Samsung T409, but it offers a music player, expandable memory, and an integrated FM radio.

I will keep you up-to-date if any other issues that develop as well as how the Nokia handsets function. If you are interested in using this or other T-Mobile services be sure to contact my corporate representative. I am unsure if he will do so for anyone, but he did waive the activation fee for our service. Here is Richard's contact information...

Rich Kling

T-Mobile USA

Business Account Executive

4640 East Colonial Drive l Orlando, FL 32803

MOBILE: 407.970.0203 l FAX: 407.264.8779 l

Business Care: 1.800.375.1126

Richard.Kling@T-Mobile.com

Labels: cell phone, Cellular, HotSpot, T-Mobile

Day Three With T-Mobile HotSpot @Home

I tried the Sanford municipal wifi this morning. The phone attempted to connect, but there was no luck in making a connection. I am did not have my notebook computer with me, but I would guess that a terms and conditions page exists on the network. Many government wifi networks display a page of terms and conditions to which you must agree to connect to the network. I would not be out of question that the network also does not allow a VOIP usage of their network. I know that Seminole County government wifi outlets do not allow use of the Google Docs & Spreadsheets web site.

I have been attempting to use the online phone book feature on the my.t-mobile.com web site with some limited success. It has been difficult to transfer the correct telephone numbers from Outlook to the web site. I blame Outlook because the program has options for mobile phone and car phone numbers, and the T-Mobile web site does not know which the grab for a valid number. A little data clean up helped clear the situation. The value in uploading contact information to the web site is that it will synchronize with the handset and vice-a-versa the handset with the web site.

Labels: Cellular, HotSpot, T-Mobile, Telephone, VOIP

Day Two With T-Mobile HotSpot @Home

This was the first day using the service outside of the home. Really worked well. The wi-fi in the office worked as expected. We work in a concrete and steel building with just one wireless access point so coverage can be spotty. The phone seems to switch over to the T-Mobile network on a shorter radius than when a notebook computer or PDA indicates connection issues. I understand why the handset is eager to switch to the T-mobile network on the edge of wi-fi signals. Voice over the Internet requires a good, consistent access speed to work well. I would design it towards the conservative side for better customer performance as well.

I read that the handset would not connect to WPA secured access points besides the service included router, but that was proved false today. I have been on a WPA secured wireless network through out the day.

One problem that I need to research. I have a wireless email address which I forwarded to my soon-to-be-former Verizon handset and my T-Mobile phone. It sends messages triggered by my email server, because I need to know when certain people email me. The T-Mobile messages through the day have been very delayed a couple of times. I need to see if the server is delaying a send or if it is T-Mobile's problem.

I am going to attempt to use the Sanford municipal wireless network this evening or in the morning. Tomorrow evening we get to test T-Mobile's system capacity when we attend the Pepsi 400 NASCAR race at Daytona. In is usually impossible to call out at a Daytona feature race. I guess half of 250,000 fans holding their phones up when the cars pass overbooks the frequency spectrum.

Labels: Cellular, HotSpot, T-Mobile, Telephone, VOIP

Day One With T-Mobile HotSpot @Home

We opened the boxes this afternoon and got started with setting up the router. I setup the wireless router using the web interface using WAP encryption for the wireless signal. The only difference in the web interface was the different model number. Everything else is exactly the same in the WRT-54 family of wireless routers.

Next it was installing the handset battery and SIM card. Powered up and attempted to connect. I tried the single-button setup that is available on the front of the router, but that did not work. On the next attempt I setup the handset manually. I received an error message that there was an ISP/DNS error. I am impressed with the good descriptive error messages. This is where I ran into a couple of problems.

1. The T-Mobile router is in second place behind a Vonage branded Linksys router. For some reason, the T-Mobile router was unable to obtain an IP address from the Vonage router. This is strange because the T-Mobile router is replacing another wireless router. I setup the T-Mobile router with a static IP.
2. I had forgotten that I use a manual DNS address on my routers. I really like the OpenDNS service, so I needed to find and add those addresses.

The process seem to go much better after those small issues. The phone logged onto the wireless network without any issue. I did a couple of test calls by calling the home phone and then walking out of wireless network range. The switch was completely imperceptible by myself or the family member on the other end.

The Samsung T409 handset is very easy to use. For the first time in my life I was able to call someone, place them on hold, call a second party, and connected the two calls. I was then able to release one of the callers. I have never been able to figure this out on any cellular or home phone. The on screen directions on the T409 make it a very easy process. The only phone easier for conference calling is a Siemens' desktop Optipoint phone.

The my.T-mobile web site enabled me to upload all of my Outlook contacts into an online address book that was then transferred to the handset in a few minutes. A recommended addition that I would make would be the ability to tie the phone list into a Gmail or Yahoo contact list. Any changes to the phone address book in the future will automatically be transferred back to the site. Sadly, the changes cannot be synchronised back to Outlook.

Day one went well. I plan on trying the phone out on some different wireless networks such as the free municipal network here in Sanford in the coming days. I will update as we continue.

Previous posts about T-Mobile HotSpot @Home
Signed Up for T-Mobile HotSpot @Home
Vonage May Fall as Well

Labels: Cellular, HotSpot, T-Mobile, Telephone, VOIP

Vonage May Fall As Well

As I referred to in an earlier post, we are leaving Verizon to try the new T-Mobile HotSpot @Home offering. We were planning on keep one Vonage line for the kids, but they want in on the T-Mobile plan as well. We are going to test the reliability of the HotSpot @Home service then get the kids signed up. It could be no more home phone for us.

Google Enters the Phone Business

Google has acquired GrandCentral Communications. They made the announcement this week on the official Google blog.

GrandCentral Communications provides tools so that you have one telephone number. The service then will locate you by trying your home phone, cell phone, or work phone. It also has features such as personalized voice mail greetings based on the caller. I used a service similar to this for many years, but ultimately gave it up due to cost. My provider could only provide toll-free telephone numbers which resulted in expensive per-minute call rates. It would route calls to different telephones based on a schedule that I could setup via their web site. There are other players in this field, which I think is a key tool for any single or two person business.

I am unsure if GrandCentral was open to the public prior to the Google buyout, but at this point GrandCentral is only available as a beta for select users. They will probably expedite opening the service under the Google umbrella. I am curious how Google will integrate this into their total service package.

Signed up for T-Mobile HotSpot @Home Service

We are going to give it a try. The premise of this service is that our new wireless phones will operate on the normal T-Mobile network away from home. When we are at home they will connect with the T-Mobile branded Linksys wireless router to provide phone service via our Internet connection. I have seen some good reviews from a test of the system in Seattle, and I am excited to try it out. Supposedly the phones will connect to any wireless hot spot, but the free Linksys router is designed to reduce telephone battery usage.

The entire catalyst to change from Verizon Wireless has been the poor service that we get at home. We can only use our wireless telephones outside of our house. Even then we cannot stand on the north side of the house. I must admit that elsewhere the network is flawless. I have never been to any part of the country where I lost my Verizon signal entirely. I once stayed in a cabin in a deep valley at the edge of the Great Smokey Mountains National Park, and I still had five bars. We could actually see a cell tower out the back window. I assume that it was Verizon.

I hate to leave Verizon because we have been a customer since they bought our provider in the late 90's. Does anybody remember the Primeco character, Primetheus? We are probably going to cut back to just one Vonage line as well. Our total savings should be $25 per month, and we will end up with one extra telephone line in our home.

Delivery of our equipment is scheduled for this week. I will take you through setup and initial use. Incidentally, I only live about 4 miles from a T-Mobile corporate store, but I had the equipment shipped because my T-Mobile corporate rep saved me $70 on the activation fees.

Labels: Cellular, HotSpot, T-Mobile, Telephone, VOIP

Summertime and the Lightening is Dangerous

I hope that you are enjoying a good summer, but we need to remember that we are in the thick of lightening season. You should take all recommended precautions to protect yourself from lightening, but you should also take some precautions to protect your computer and data. According to the National Lightning Safety Institute nature's light show causes nearly $2 billion dollars in just computer and data damage every year in the United States.

Most of us think of lightening entering a building via electrical lines, but there are other ways as well. I am have seen lightening enter on telephone lines, television cable, and direct entry into a building. I have personally witnessed lightening enter a structure on three occasions. Once I changed my shorts, we found widespread damage in each case though out the buildings. Oddly enough most of the damage was not via the electrical lines, but actually via computer network cabling and telephone lines. I believe it is because these systems are never grounded as well as the electrical system in a building.

There are some steps that you can take to limit the damage:

1. Install a GOOD surge protector on each piece of electrical equipment. You need to look for more than a power strip. A good surge protector should cost between $40 and $80, and it must include replacement value insurance for your equipment. Locate a surge protector that includes protection for phone, cable, and/or data lines as needed. Do not forgot the small but expensive devices such as your credit card machine and postal printer.
   
2. I also like to plug my cell phone into a surge protector. I know that chances are slim for damage, but I would hate to have to replace an expensive PDA/phone due to an errant spike. The same goes for notebook computers. I generally go on battery on my notebook computer during a storm.
   
3. Check the current surge protectors once a year. Be sure that the target equipment is still plugged into them, and if they have an indicator light check that it is illuminated.
4. Protect computers and servers with uninterpretable power supplies (UPS). Even small electrical interruptions can wreak havoc with software including Windows and Outlook. If the outage catches the computer at just the wrong moment, corrupted data could prevent your computer from restarting. Connect the UPS to the computer using the USB cable and install the software if included. Most units on the market will shut down Windows based computers before the battery runs out of charge. Check the batteries every six months by testing via the included software. Servers and mission critical systems should be checked on a monthly basis.
5. Avoid placing computers and servers on the same electrical circuit as appliances and air conditioners. These devices can cause low voltage on the circuit when they start.

You might be thinking - why not just unplug electrical devices. That is the surest way to protect against damage, but many times we forget or a storm sneaks up while we are away from home or the office. With the low-cost of today's protection it is best to purchase the proper equipment and insurance.

Labels: lightening, surge protectors, UPS