mvoip

This is a topic near and dear to our hearts here at EQO.  As you may well know, the FCC is auctioning off a chunk of the 700MHz spectrum previously used for analog TV channels 53-59 (those channels will now be digital).  The FCC is doing this so they can make billions of dollars and their interest, as far as I can tell, is purely financial.  The 700MHz spectrum is ideal for wireless in that signals travel further and penetrate obstructions better.  The owner of this spectrum could set up low cost, high service availability, and fast wireless network that could change the face of the American wireless industry, which is generally considered a laughing stock compared to the rest of the modern wireless world.

The front runners to win this tasty bit of frequency are Verizon (evil) and Google (awesome).  Verizon would likely use the spectrum to buoy their own position in the USA by offering services only slightly better than those of their competitors with little to no improvement in usability or feature innovation.  On the other hand, Google is rumored to be planning a free (ad funded) and open wireless network that would turn the wireless industry on its head.

I'm surprised at how little press this is getting considering the magnitude of the implications, but then maybe I'm just a dreamer.  In any case, the auction begins and, sadly, we can't follow it, but Engadget will tell you all you need to know.  We should know the results in a couple of months and favorite to win, based on no personal bias whatsoever, is Google.

Long live Googletel!

Chris
EQO Customer Evangelist

The EQO Symbian Beta is here! This version differs from our J2ME version in that it is built natively for Symbian Series 60 3rd edition phones. The Symbian version offers many improvements over the J2ME version, but is also still a little rough around the edges being a beta and all. Since you are all my great friends, feel free to use my promo code "chrisr" for some extra sign up credit.

Get started on our Symbian Beta page and learn all about it. If you do decide to give the Symbian Beta a try, check out our Symbian Beta Forum for the latest news and bug reports. Users that fill in our Symbian Beta Survey will have a chance to win an EQO iPod Shuffle!

Supported Models:
3250, 5500, 5700, 6110 Navigator, 6120, 6121 classic, 6290, E50, E51, E60, E61, E61i, E62, E65, E70, E90, N71, N73, N75, N76, N77, N80, N81, N82, N91, N92, N93, N93i, N95

Cheers and thanks for testing!

Chris
EQO Customer Evangelist

Google Alerts brought me a wonderful post this morning coming from the "Emerging Trends: Cell Phones" blog today.  Becky describes how EQO works and how she sees it fitting into business organizations.  If you want a third party take on EQO and how it might help you, give this one a read.

Cheers,

Chris
EQO Customer Evangelist

The second EQO Support video follows in quick succession! The Mobile Strikes Back was actually shot before A New Hope, but we had to do Episode IV again because the first one was so bad. Peter Chandler edited this video in no time and did a fantastic job, considering he taught himself video editing earlier this week. This time we are going to show you how to make cheap EQO Out calls. We call London (the EQO UK Office masked as Harry Potter) for only $0.026C a minute. Enjoy.

Chris
EQO Customer Support

The first EQO Support video is here! Episode IV: A New Hope, where we show you how to make EQO to EQO calls. This is a Peter/Chris production and take note, we have no prior video experience, so this is more like Peter and Chris amateur support videos. Please forgive the poor quality of our first effort and please feel free to leave constructive comments on how we can do better. Thanks to Mike for helping us work the camera. And the joke about Geoff being stormtrooper #4 is that he loves Starwars and we think his Nokia 5300 looks like a stormtrooper. Anyway, this is the first installment of an epic six part series, enjoy.

Chris
EQO Customer Evangelist

Rumours surrounding the existence of a phone from Google and the potential imminent release of the coined GPhone are widespread. Today, I came across a new one, the rumor that Google has been working on their own mobile operating system for a couple years and are now shopping it around to find the right ODM. Intriguing indeed, I can only hope they've done well since mobile OS's are no picnic. I'm wondering if we are going to see something amazing like what Apple did with the iPhone or are we going to see a software maker dive into the device market and flop hard? What two years ago seemed like a good idea might now like look like a giant waste of time, what with the progression the wireless market has made and all. I hope they deliver a hit, but by the looks of the yucky GPhone pictures floating around I can't see them blowing me away like the iPhone did.

Chris
EQO Customer Evangelist

Here it is, the first edition of EQO Polls. I was going to make the question "What EQO Community guy do you like the most? Chris or Peter", but I didn't want to publicly embarrass Peter that badly.

Instead, I look to the iPhone. We at EQO have been following the iPhone unlock saga with much interest for we are in Canada and sadly still cannot use our iPhone as a phone. Do we risk destroying our precious gem with misappropriated solder? Do we wait for the software to be released? Do we acquire a pricey TurboSIM? Please let us know.

Chris
EQO Customer Evangelist

News that AT&T is again crippling a new device, this time the Blackberry 8820, vexes me to the utmost. In fact, I'm the new mayor of Angertown. If you buy a brand spanking new Blackberry 8820, which you would probably pay something like $400 plus plan for, expecting to use WIFI and GPS without trouble, think again. To use Wifi you have to subscribe to an Edge data plan. AT&T is making sure you pay them for using the internet no matter what. And to use GPS you have to subscribe to TeleNav for $10 a month, even though you could use a free GPS service at your leisure. Angertown, population me, is accepting new residents.

Chris
EQO Customer Evangelist

If you've been following EQO, you may well know that we moved away from our mobile Skype product and built our own mobile VoIP network, which we launched this past May. Our decision to drop Skype is looking better and better all the time, especially today. When I got to work yesterday morning I was surprised to see that Skype wouldn't sign in to my account, then I read on Techcrunch that Skype was going through a massive outage. They've been down ever since, disappointing VoIPers worldwise no doubt. If you check their website, Skype have cleverly made the page title "Take a deep breath" and they are continually posting updates regarding their status. You can check their heartbeat blog for the latest status. Knowing what my life would be like right now if we were still operating our Skype product, I really feel sorry for the iSkoot guys right now...

Chris
EQO Customer Evangelist

We at EQO received some fantastic news today! Our co-founder and Chief Software Architect Jeff LaPorte has been named to the Technology Review Top 35 Innovators under 35 list for 2007! I am of the opinion that this prestigious honor is well deserved by Jeff. In addition to being a Customer Evangelist, I also work for Jeff as a Solutions Architect here at EQO. I experience his brilliance first hand every day. He always has an innovative solution to any given problem that always fits the bill. His greatest accomplishment is in building the EQO Service and in delivering Mobile VoIP to regular everyday handsets, which we hope will leave a lasting impact on the wireless industry.

I am not just sucking up to the boss here, this is an amazing accomplishment that Jeff has earned. He joins many other illustrious winners on this years list, most notable of whom are Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook and Kevin Rose of Digg. We hope that Jeff joins them in changing the world. Jeff's EQO Service has amazing capabilities that EQO Mobile hasn't even touched yet, so stay tuned and you'll see Jeff's innovation firsthand.

Chris
EQO Customer Evangelist