Next Generation of SRG Telecommunications

A few times the in recent years we have given consideration to migrating our phone network to VoIP. The first time was when we moved into our offices at 1801 13th Street. We decided at the time we had to many other expenses with the move that the huge cost of a new phone system was not merited. We gave it further consideration when we upgraded our data/voice carrier to Level3. Again, the huge cost and lingering VoIP issues forced us to reconsider. At this point the plan is to ride out our existing contract with Level3 (3 years) at which point we will make a huge step forward with fixed/cellular convergence. This means that when you are in the office or at home or any place with a free wifi signal, you would use your cellular handset to make VoIP calls. Everywhere else it would function as a normal cell phone. Imagine the day when every SRGer would have their own cell phone. Pretty cool! I found an interesting article about cellular/VoIP convergence. Check it out!

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Three great new tools

Over the past week I've discovered 3 amazing new tools.

The first gives you VoIP functionality. Callwave offers a free service where you can see all of your voice mails throug their website and listen, delete, save, and even reply all through an easy to use web interface. The only thing this tool does not do is convert your voicemail to text. I'm sure this feature will be coming soon. Check it out!

The next tool is called Zamzar (submitted by Sara Garland). This is a free online file conversion tool. Simply provide an email address, upload your file, chose what format you want it converted to. . .and within an hour you will receive a link to download you converted file. This tool will make PDFs, convert .mov to .mpg, and it may even make you coffee if you ask nicely. Check it out!

The last tool is kind of the inverse of the first tool. Jott let's you use your cell phone as an speech recognized email gateway. Once you get an account setup you can load all your contacts and start sending email via your cellphone using speech recognition. Simply call the toll free number, speak the name of your contact, dictate your message, and send it off. Jott automatically (and with surprising accuracy) converts your speech to text so it can be read by the recipient. Check it out!

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