Polycom SoundPoint IP 670 – now available for order

Aaron Rosenthal — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 23:41:25 +0000

So I just heard from my Polycom guy today that as of yesterday the Polycom IP670 phone is available for order. I had a few things to say about this phone in a previous blog here, but now that it’s available I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before we get one to play with at which point you’ll see a full review.

I’m quite surprised that the release of this phone has gone by almost entirely unnoticed. The fact that I’ve heard very little about this phone leads me to believe that there isn’t whole lot to this phone other than a color display. It seems like Polycom is really pushing theirApplications for their SoundPoint IP line which I haven’t found to be all that groundbreaking other than providing a more intuitive phone based interface for things like conferencing… nothing groundbreaking.

This is what I call groundbreaking interface>

not this>

You’ll probably see me write a blog reviewing these new Applications as there’s a lot more to talk about here than the IP670. Has anyone been working much with the Polycom SoundPoint Applications? Would love to hear your thoughts.

I hope Polycom comes out with many more pictures of this IP 670 because the only picture I could find on their website is EXTREMELY lackluster. I don’t get why they released their first SoundPoint color phone with a picture of a color screen that looks more like a DOS prompt. I’ve seen the color screen on the Polycom Microsoft Communicator phones which is quite sexy and assuming Polycom is using the same LCD screen, it should look pretty nice on the IP670. I honestly think Polycom is overdue for a re-design of the SoundPoint IP line.

I really hope the Polycom CX700 Microsoft Optimized Device will ultimately adopt the same open’ness of the SoundPoint phones once Microsoft releases their exclusive rights stranglehold on Polycom. I certainly hope that’s the case cause these phones are HOT!

Regardless of the IP670 not hitting the news hard, it should still be a great piece of hardware. The SoundPoint IP phones are rock solid and work swell with Asterisk. Polycom still has a few things to sort out with Asterisk (call barge anyone?) but overall these phones have proven more stable than other SIP phones we’ve tested like Grandstream, Snom and Aastra.

The color expansion module is a nice touch too. But seriously!!.. who took these pictures?? Polycom almost has me convinced that these color displays are only green. Something tells me they haven’t even photographed the new phones yet and just had someone photoshop some color.. aka green.. onto the IP650.

fring™ – a mobile VoIP client with SIP… among other things

Aaron Rosenthal — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 21:19:47 +0000

The eventual evolution of VoIP is going to break into the mobile market and go mainstream sometime very soon… unless networks start banning VoIP but that’s just stupid. The idea behind mobile VoIP is to make and receive voice calls over your data plan. With unlimited data plans standard with most carriers, this means unlimited calling without using up your minutes. This is a great concept but at some point most carriers will offer, just like Sprint and Helio, an unlimited anytime calling plan that is very cost competitive ~$99/month. So what then is the next great thing about mobile VoIP? I think it has everything to do with seamlessly integrating corporate IP PBX systems with business cell phones… and as mobile applications are more widely used I’m sure we’ll see some VoIP integration with mobile apps.

I just wanted to plant some ideas here but also want to discuss fring™which at the moment looks like the best mVoIP company out there. fring™ is a mobile internet service & community that enables you to access & interact with your social networks on-the-go, make free calls and live chat with all your fring, Skype®, MSN® Messenger, Google Talk™, ICQ, SIP, Twitter, Yahoo!™ and AIM®* friends using your handset’s internet connection rather than costly cellular airtime minutes.

There are other mVoIP companies like jajah but fring doesn’t charge anything for their service. As far as I’m concerned, my favorite thing about fring is that I can call my dad in Australia using the skype client from my mobile phone and it doesn’t cost me a penny!

What I really want to see is integration with fring’s SIP client and Asterisk. This would be a huge feature add for a large company using an Asterisk based IP PBX. I just sold myself. Maybe we’ll make this part of our Asterisk based IP PBX solutions…. let me get some engineers working on this pronto!

OS-VoIP | Open Source VoIP » Phones

Polycom SoundPoint IP 670 – now available for order

fring™ – a mobile VoIP client with SIP… among other things