The Telco Strikes Back

In an attempt to stem the flow of phone subscribers away from their telco business (1.2 million to the cable companies in 3 years), Montreal's Bell has introduced a couple of new features to it's landline and cell phone clients. One new service "... allows landline customers to access their voice mail messages through any internet-connected computer. The service can also alert customers to new messages by automatically sending an e-mail or text message to their mobile phones." On the cell phone side of the equation, Bell has a new offering that "converts text messages into voice on landlines... which can be listened to on a landline by the receiving customer or sent to voice mail." Of course these new features will cost you... between $3 and $13 per month depending on your phone plan. Somethings will never change! CBC story here.

Crackberry generation

Are we all becoming addicted to technology? This CBC article asks "Are cellphones and the internet rewiring our brains?". I know that I, for one, have multiple e-mail accounts for different purposes and at least a few of them are checked obsessively! This is an interesting read...

Ads on your cell phone

Is nothing sacred? Looks like Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft, and AOL are lining up to serve us ads on our cell phones. With a number of start up purchases and some home grown applications the big guys are seeing big bucks in our small screens. Business 2.0 has the story here.

That thumb drive speaks volumes!

Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) provider Vonage has introduced the V-phone, a bright orange 256 MB thumb drive complete with Vonage Talk Software pre-loaded, a detachable stereo earpiece/microphone, and your own Vonage phone number. The beauty of this little device is that there is no need to install the software on your PC, or restart your machine to use it. Just plug the device into any available USB port, assuming the PC being plugged into has a high speed connection, and start calling! Considering I paid $99 as an upgrade to my Dell PC a couple of years ago for my 64 MB USB drive, the $29.99 (ca) price tag seems reasonable. There is of course a requirement to subscribe to a Vonage service plan, which start at $19.99 (ca). You can compare that to your current phone service and make your own decision whether or not it's worth the expense, and of course there are other VoIP services such as Skype to consider but this little device does have it's merits. If nothing else, there are 250 MB's of free space to store your MP3's on...

Sounds like a great solution for road warriors and students wanting to stay in touch with home, at $20 a month for 500 minutes the return on investment should be decent..."Dad, my marks are good. Can you send money?"