I have finally reclaimed my youtube account after having lost the password and no longer having access to the email account that I set it up with.
youtube.com/nypj will become a secondary/backup/mirror account
youtube.com/nyphonejacks.com will become the main youtube channel and will hopefully have videos added sometime after this weekend.
Sent from my BlackBerry® by Boost Mobile
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Unlimited prices
[For the latest update on cell phone rates click HERE]
[per-minute plans HERE] (old)
$45
Page Plus Unlimited Talk n Text + 20MB
Search Amazon.com for page plus phones
straight talk unlimited talk text web
Search Amazon.com for straight talk phones
$50
net 10 talk only?
Search Amazon.com for net 10
t-mobile Unlimited Talk & Text* with 100 MB data
Search Amazon.com for tmobile prepaid
boost mobile unlimited talk text web **$5 off every 6 months until your bill reaches $35 for on time payments
Search Amazon.com for boost mobile
$60
virgin mobile unlimited talk text web
Search Amazon.com for virgin mobile
AT&T $60 Unlimited Talk & Text
Search Amazon.com for go phone
$70
t-mobile Unlimited Talk & Text* with 2GB data
Search Amazon.com for tmobile prepaid
$75
AT&T $75 Unlimited Talk & Text + 200 MB Data
Search Amazon.com for go phone
$94.99
Verizon unlimited talk + text **blackberries and smartphones are $30/mo for unlimited data
Search Amazon.com for verizon prepaid
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Clear mobie intneret $25 per month
Clear has mobile internet, with or with out a contract - at the same price, does not make much sense, because what would the motivation to sign a contract with the potential for an early termination fee if you did not have to.
Any how, Clear is offering 2 versions of their mobile WiFi unit. The Spot, and The iSpot. Both devices sell for $100. The different versions both offer unlimited internet connection for several devices, however one device costs $45 per month, while the other costs $25 per month.
The $25 per month price is for the iSpot, which is for "iDevices" only (meaning that they only support apple devices such as iPod, iPad, etc. It is not designed to connect with a laptop, or other non-apple products. A quick internet search shows that the device is using MAC filtering to prevent non-apple products from using this service. With Google you can figure out how to spoof your MAC address and use an iSpot with your laptop (or other non-apple product)
Or you can always just opt to pay the $45, it is only $5 more per month than Virgin Mobiles mobile internet.
Any how, Clear is offering 2 versions of their mobile WiFi unit. The Spot, and The iSpot. Both devices sell for $100. The different versions both offer unlimited internet connection for several devices, however one device costs $45 per month, while the other costs $25 per month.
The $25 per month price is for the iSpot, which is for "iDevices" only (meaning that they only support apple devices such as iPod, iPad, etc. It is not designed to connect with a laptop, or other non-apple products. A quick internet search shows that the device is using MAC filtering to prevent non-apple products from using this service. With Google you can figure out how to spoof your MAC address and use an iSpot with your laptop (or other non-apple product)
Or you can always just opt to pay the $45, it is only $5 more per month than Virgin Mobiles mobile internet.
NO 4G service yet - despite the hype and advertisements.
Being in the communications industry, I do not know how I allowed WiMAX, and LTE to slip by me unchallenged as 4G technologies. While they do have the ability, and will likely be upgraded to conform to the ITU standards of 4G, NO carrier currently has a 4G network. Not Clear. Not Sprint. Not Verizon. Not AT&T. And certainly not T-Mobile, who has been promoting "the largest 4G network".
T-Mobile has made upgrades to their GSM/HSPDA network, and have made a number of their towers HSPDA+. Upgrading to a HSPDA+ network, depending on the hardware installed on the network can be as simple as a software upgrade, and in no way constitutes the revolutionary changes that require an incremental change of the generation of the device or service.
HSPDA+ is more accurately a 3G+ technology, and FAR, FAR from being a 4G technology, regardless of how it stacks up to other so called 4G providers (as there are currently NO 4G carriers)
While AT&T and Verizon are going to be building out an LTE network, when they first come on line they will not truly be 4G, but are capable of obtaining 4G speeds within a year or so after they go on line. AT&T will have the advantage at building out their "4G" network, because LTE is the next evolution of GSM. Verizon however will have to build an entire network along side of their current network, and maintain 2 networks. They also will likely have to offer LTE/CDMA phones to prevent customers from reaching a dead zone while they build out their new network. (LTE is backwards compatible with GSM, so ATT will only need to maintain one network)
If HSPDA+ was a "4G" technology, then ATTwould have upgraded to such a network already, but since it has no potential to ever become a 4G technology, ATT opted to bypass the upgrade to HSPDA+ and save their investment capital to build out their LTE network.
Now onto the Clear/Sprint WiMAX 4G claim. While the network does not currently obtain the speeds required to qualify for 4G, like LTE it is an entirely new network that carriers need to build out, which in my opinion should qualify it as 4G, or at least PRE-4G. Also it will be able to be upgraded to the speeds required to qualify as 4G within a year or so.
. Not Sprint. Not Verizon. Not AT&T. And certainly not T-Mobile, who has been promoting "the largest 4G network".T-Mobile
has made upgrades to their GSM/HSPDA network, and have made a number of their towers HSPDA+. Upgrading to a HSPDA+ network, depending on the hardware installed on the network can be as simple as a software upgrade, and in no way constitutes the revolutionary changes that require an incremental change of the generation of the device or service. HSPDA+ is more accurately a 3G+ technology, and FAR, FAR from being a 4G technology, regardless of how it stacks up to other so called 4G providers (as there are currently NO 4G carriers)
While AT&T
and Verizon are going to be building out an LTE network, when they first come on line they will not truly be 4G, but are capable of obtaining 4G speeds within a year or so after they go on line. AT&T will have the advantage at building out their "4G" network, because LTE is the next evolution of GSM. Verizon however will have to build an entire network along side of their current network, and maintain 2 networks. They also will likely have to offer LTE/CDMA phones to prevent customers from reaching a dead zone while they build out their new network. (LTE is backwards compatible with GSM, so ATT will only need to maintain one network)If HSPDA+ was a "4G" technology, then ATT
would have upgraded to such a network already, but since it has no potential to ever become a 4G technology, ATT opted to bypass the upgrade to HSPDA+ and save their investment capital to build out their LTE network.Now onto the Clear/Sprint
WiMAX 4G claim. While the network does not currently obtain the speeds required to qualify for 4G, like LTE it is an entirely new network that carriers need to build out, which in my opinion should qualify it as 4G, or at least PRE-4G. Also it will be able to be upgraded to the speeds required to qualify as 4G within a year or so.
Saturday, November 6, 2010
The importance of redundancy
Weather building a VoIP system, or a data network that requires minimal down time it is always important to build in redundancy into the design and implementation of your network.
I recently had an encounter with Bank of America a multi-national company, which shall remain nameless, who had a system failure and was unable to assist me because of this failure. In the business that this company is in, I found this to be extremely disturbing that a single point of failure could bring this company to its knees until the trouble was isolated and resolved.
When building a VoIP network, if you are using a hosted PBX provider the only redundancy that you need to take care of locally is internet connectivity. A multi-WAN router with multiple internet connections, and battery back up power should be all of the on-site redundancy that you need to keep a single point of failure from bringing all of your phones down.
For data networks, redundancy gets a bit more complicated, and expensive. Multiple servers, constantly mirroring each other, as well as redundant internet connectivity, and redundant power sources (battery back up, diesel generators) should be implemented. For national, or multi-national companies redundancy should not stop at a single data center location - multiple data center locations should mirror each other, to prevent a natural disaster or other catastrophic loss of one or more data center from losing any data.
What needs to be considered is not the up front cost of creating or maintaining this redundancy, but what the cost of failure could be upon the business, or its clients. The loss of data, or the ability to retrieve, or input data into a system, even for short periods of time can result in not only immediate financial losses, but also lead clients to consider going elsewhere to conduct business.
A failure in the evening, weekends, or holidays may not immediately be discovered by the company until the beginning of the following business day, and then may even take some time to have the system back and running to full capacity. If that system is accessible, or used by clients or customers during these off hours they will have no way to access the information stored on that system until the system is fully restored, which in turn can cause them to have financial losses, or lost business/customers as well. It trickles down from one customer to another, and the customers who have a financial stake in your network always being available to them will look elsewhere for the services that you provide, and these are likely the larger clients that you want to retain as customers.
So remember:
Redundant internet connections
Redundant power sources for all network/servers
Redundant servers
And for larger companies:
Redundant data centers
This is not the place to cut corners and attempt to shave a few dollars off of your operating expenses, a failure could end up in loss of revenue and customers, and even potentially bankrupt or put you out of business.
I recently had an encounter with
When building a VoIP network, if you are using a hosted PBX provider the only redundancy that you need to take care of locally is internet connectivity. A multi-WAN router with multiple internet connections, and battery back up power should be all of the on-site redundancy that you need to keep a single point of failure from bringing all of your phones down.
For data networks, redundancy gets a bit more complicated, and expensive. Multiple servers, constantly mirroring each other, as well as redundant internet connectivity, and redundant power sources (battery back up, diesel generators) should be implemented. For national, or multi-national companies redundancy should not stop at a single data center location - multiple data center locations should mirror each other, to prevent a natural disaster or other catastrophic loss of one or more data center from losing any data.
What needs to be considered is not the up front cost of creating or maintaining this redundancy, but what the cost of failure could be upon the business, or its clients. The loss of data, or the ability to retrieve, or input data into a system, even for short periods of time can result in not only immediate financial losses, but also lead clients to consider going elsewhere to conduct business.
A failure in the evening, weekends, or holidays may not immediately be discovered by the company until the beginning of the following business day, and then may even take some time to have the system back and running to full capacity. If that system is accessible, or used by clients or customers during these off hours they will have no way to access the information stored on that system until the system is fully restored, which in turn can cause them to have financial losses, or lost business/customers as well. It trickles down from one customer to another, and the customers who have a financial stake in your network always being available to them will look elsewhere for the services that you provide, and these are likely the larger clients that you want to retain as customers.
So remember:
Redundant internet connections
Redundant power sources for all network/servers
Redundant servers
And for larger companies:
Redundant data centers
This is not the place to cut corners and attempt to shave a few dollars off of your operating expenses, a failure could end up in loss of revenue and customers, and even potentially bankrupt or put you out of business.
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Added many videos to my youtube account.
[youtube.com/nyphonejacks has been reclaimed and will become my main youtube channel going forward]
I have been pulling all of the videos off of by blackberry of horrible Verizon conditions that I have come across in the course of my work. I still have a bunch of files to convert and post up onto youtube, which should be complete in the next few days. If you are interested check them out http://www.youtube.com/nypj
I have been pulling all of the videos off of by blackberry of horrible Verizon conditions that I have come across in the course of my work. I still have a bunch of files to convert and post up onto youtube, which should be complete in the next few days. If you are interested check them out http://www.youtube.com/nypj
New NET 10 plans
Net 10 has two new plans:
$50 unlimited
$25 - 750 minutes
once again, it appears that NET10 has become the choice for one of the cheapest pre-paid cell phone plans...
$50 unlimited
$25 - 750 minutes
once again, it appears that NET10 has become the choice for one of the cheapest pre-paid cell phone plans...
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