Source: alanweinkrantz.typepad.com

I have been absent from 3Screens for a while. 

No excuses here – but some reasoning:

1.  Most of my focus has been on U-verse.  It was very compelling when it was first launched because AT&T was the first operator in the U.S. to do real IPTV.  

Without being a fan boy, I think they have done a great job in executing.  Sure, along the way there have been hick-ups, but anytime there was a problem, their customer support on the phone and when they showed up in person was first rate.  So way to go, AT&T.

I also thought it was interesting that AT&T was in the process of reinventing itself.

Other than making slight improvements there was not much more to write about, so I purposely scaled back coverage. 

2.  The other reason for not posting is that aside from my day job, I have also been populating another blog, Everywire, where I am writing about the vision of the wired home network – specifically, the new ITU standard, G.hn.

Moving forward, I am trying to look at what’s ahead, particularly for U-verse.  Here’s a preview from my Everywire blog.  Microsoft provides AT&T with the "middleware" the stuff that makes the interface pretty, let’s you go through the menu, etc.  Think of it as being the Operating System for your IPTV.  The "Contoso" name you see is a made up brand.  AT&T and other operators around the world can take all or just selected feature sets from Microsoft’s Media Room offering.  

Source: alanweinkrantz.typepad.com

Regional broadband provider, GVTC Communications has just announced that it will now be offering 40 Mbps Internet service,
the fastest broadband speed available in South Texas.

While they are not on the size or scale of AT&T, (they have about 31,000
residential and businesses lots connected to GVTC’s all-fiber network) it’s compelling to see and ask why AT&T did not step things up a bit when they just announced 24 MBPS service in my area. 

It’s pretty obvious that bandwidth hungry consumers use broadband connections for
high-bandwidth applications like accessing HD video, playing online games and
working remotely from home. Many connect multiple home computers and media
devices to a single network connection, sharing it between users.

With GVTC’s new 40 Mbps service, customers will be able to
download a standard-definition movie (2 GB) in less than a minute. The
service’s 10 Mbps upload speed will let users share large media files, from
digital photo albums to complex business presentations, in just seconds.

There is a consumer offering starting at $89.95 monthly as part of a bundled package and a business offering – $209.95 monthly as part of a bundle with
a term contract.  I suspect many home based businesses who are in GVTC’s service area will jump on this.  And for gamers and solo developers, this is a speed dream come true – and a sign of things to come.

In the company’s press release, they also take a swipe at AT&T –  by citing "rival communications providers utilize older copper wires
for the “last mile” of their networks, choking their ability to offer comparable
speeds. Many also have a shared network infrastructure, meaning users’ speeds
slow as additional people in their neighborhood log on."

This sounds good in PR speak but the realities are that not everyone is going to be able to have fiber to the home.  

Regardless, it’s good to see innovation continuing and not always coming from the original phone company.  Kudos to GVTC for stepping things up a bit.

I

Source: alanweinkrantz.typepad.com

Yes, you can get a discount from AT&T (and from other service providers) if you just ask, and manage your account by making sure that when your offers expire, you call them back to re-new or re-negotiate new offers.  

Doing this was documented last January when I was onGood Morning America demonstrating how this is done.

On December 8, one of my U-Verse discounts expired, so I called the phone company again to re-new.  So now I am good until June 13, 2010.  This will go in my calendar and I will call them yet again on the 14th of June, 2010 and do the same dance.

On January 6, 2010 another one of my discounts expires, so I will call them back on the 7th of January to see what they will do to work with me.

I really like AT&T as a company and I love U-verse.   

No, I don’t want to switch to cable or satellite, or for that matter to Hulu mostly because I really do like the experience of watching live TV and doing so in HD on a nice home theater system.

$10 x 2 = $20 = $260 per year in savings.  Add in another 33% to gross up for taxes and that’s another $85.  Add it all up and that comes to $350 just for picking up the phone, spending 5 minutes 4 times a year and doing this dance.

$10 per month may not be a big deal to one person, but if you had 2,000,000 customers (AT&T has more than 2,000,000 U-verse customers) that comes to a $700,000,000 savings in gross dollars.

Even if you don’t need or miss the $10 per month, do something good with the money. 

Manage this savings and give the $350.00 to someone in need – maybe a charity that was obliterated by Madoff.  Maybe someone less fortunate than you.  Maybe your local PBS station, your church, mosque, or synagogue.

Or, if you are not in the giving mood, take someone you love out for an amazing dinner, a night or two in a nice hotel. 

It’s the little things that add up, and just by calling the phone company, you can save like I do.

Source: alanweinkrantz.typepad.com

Yes, you can save money on your AT&T bill.  If you do what I do, you can do likewise and I believe the same principles apply for other service providers like Verizon, Comcast, DirectTV, TimeWarner, etc.

1.  Call AT&T and ask them to review your bill and tell them that you need to save money.  Depending on your service area and depending on the day you call, there will generally be some type of  special offering.  

2.  Ask for something for free to keep you as a customer.  Do your homework.  I just got 3 free months of HBO, just for asking.  Shop around with offers from competitors and tell the person at the other end that you have a competing offer.  Make sure it’s true and make sure it’s comparable and / or better than AT&T’s offering.

3.  Have a set goal of 20%.  Assume you are spending $100 per month on your service, a $20 savings may not seems like a lot, but when you add it up, it comes to $240 per year.  When you calculate what it takes you "earn" $240, based on your tax bracket, it could be a gross amount of $300 per year or more.

4.  As a rule, AT&T’s offerings expire – and expire automatically every six months.  AT&T is not going to call you to remind you to renew your offering.  Remember, they expire.  So, put your expiration date in your calendar and call them the day after your offer expires and tell them you want to renew, or get another savings offering that is equal to or better than your present offer.  

AT&T is a terrific company with a great service offering, but I think they are dumb for not reaching out to customers when service offerings expire.  It would be a real PR coup for them, but someone inside AT&T who makes the decisions to do otherwise.

Give it a try and remember that your milage may vary.  Be diligent and be prepared to cut them off and move elsewhere if they don’t save you money.  The cost of replacing you as a customer is high.  It’s called customer acquisition.  

If you get a call center agent who does not budge, ask for customer retention and try this approach.  Let me know how it goes with a comment on this blog or an email to:  alan at weinkrantz dot com.

Source: googlevoiceblog.blogspot.com

Military families face dozens of challenges every day. The life of a military spouse and a military family is never easy. It’s a life of sacrifice and patience, but it’s also one of pride and patriotism.

To help families better stay in touch with their loved ones, this Veterans Day we’re partnering with Blue Star Families to give priority Google Voice invitations to the families of U.S. service members involved in the organization. Blue Star Families is a group of military spouses from all over the country who work hard to educate civilian communities and leaders about the hardships faced by military families.

Military families encounter unique challenges and frequent separations, so staying in touch is vitally important. With one Google Voice number, families won’t have to worry about missing calls from service members abroad.

Google Voice can make communication one less worry for these families, and hopefully bring them a little bit closer to their loved ones.

Posted by Jason Toff, Associate Product Marketing Manager

Source: googlevoiceblog.blogspot.com

Google Voice is all about enabling choice: which phone you pick up your calls on, where to review your voicemail messages, how to send and reply to text messages, etc.  So when it comes to your phone number, it was logical for us to also offer a choice of which number to use with Google Voice.

Previously, when you created a Google Voice account, we asked you to select a new Google phone number. This allowed us to offer features like call forwarding, screening, and recording.  But we know not everyone wants to start using a new phone number, so we’ve been working on another option for people who are willing to trade some features for the ability to keep their existing number.

We’re excited to announce that you now can get Google Voice with a Google number OR with your existing mobile phone number. If you choose to use Google Voice with your existing number, you won’t get some features (like call screening and recording), but you’ll still get many others — including Google voicemail:

More specifically, if you sign up for Google Voice with your existing number, you’ll get:

• Online, searchable voicemail
• Free automated voicemail transcription
• Custom voicemail greetings for different callers
• Email and SMS notifications
• Low-priced international calling

If you decide to also get a new Google number, you’ll get all of the above PLUS:

• One number that reaches you on all your phones
• SMS via email
• Call screening
• Listen In
• Call recording
• Conference calling
• Call blocking

If you already have a Google number, this new feature should also help with the transition to your new number, as you can now forward unanswered calls to your mobile phone to your Google Voice account.  This way, people who still call your old number will reach the same voicemail as people who call your Google Voice number.

If you already use Google Voice, you can add Google voicemail to any mobile phone you’ve linked to your account.  If you’re not using Google Voice yet, you can request an invitation or ask someone with a Google Voice account to invite you.  When you receive the invitation to sign-up, you decide whether you’d like to use Google Voice with your existing number or get a Google number.

Posted by Pierre Lebeau, Product Manager

Source: googlevoiceblog.blogspot.com

Voicemail transcription is, in my opinion, one of Google Voice’s coolest features.  That’s why I’ve saved it for my last Google Voice tip.  When someone leaves you a voicemail, Google Voice transcribes the message and gives you a variety of ways to access it.  The transcription process is fully automated, so sometimes the text isn’t perfect, but it’s usually enough to give you the basic idea of the message.

If you’re a Gmail user, you can enable a voicemail player to show up underneath each voicemail notification you receive in Gmail by turning on the Google Voice player in mail lab. You can also set up your Google Voice account to send SMS notifications of the transcriptions to your mobile phone.

You might notice that some of the words in transcriptions are grayed out. This is an indication that we’re not as confident about these particular words.

Heather and I hope that these "newbie" posts have helped some of you get your feet wet with Google Voice.  Even though this is the last in our series, that doesn’t mean you can’t continue to share feature suggestions and interesting use cases.  Share your Voice insights in the Google Voice Help Forum, and remember, the Google Voice Help Center is packed with useful information.  Happy calling!

Posted by Carol and Heather, Googlers

Source: googlevoiceblog.blogspot.com

There were some conflicting reports yesterday about Google Voice voicemails being searchable online, so we wanted to clarify how Google Voice works.

Google Voice lets you access your voicemails online from your inbox. Your account is password-protected, like any other Google service, and its content cannot be read by anyone unless you choose to share the information in your account.

Google Voice can also send you an email notification when you have a new voicemail. The link points to a web page that displays only that particular message. The web address for that unique message is virtually impossible to guess.

However, if a user copied that unique URL from their email notification, and published it on a public website, then typical search engines, including Google, could have indexed it. Very few people chose to do this: of the millions of voicemail messages left on Google Voice, only 31 messages were made publicly searchable by users.

Nonetheless, three weeks ago, we decided that even if a user chose to include this unique URL in a public website, it would remain unsearchable. Since we implemented that change, no new messages have been indexed.

If you want to publicize a Google Voice message on your website, we provide a special embed code for this purpose. Visitors will then be able to listen to that particular message, but the message itself will remain unsearchable.

Posted by Vincent Paquet, Sr. Product Manager

Source: googlevoiceblog.blogspot.com

(Cross-posted from the Official Google Blog)

Since the debut of Google Voice, our early users have shared lots of feedback that has led to some exciting new features, like the ability to receive SMS messages via email and the option to change your Google Voice number. But one of the most frequent requests we’ve received is for the ability to share Google Voice with friends and family.

Starting today, we’re beginning to give out invitations to Google Voice users.  If you currently use Google Voice, over the next few weeks, you’ll see an "Invite a friend" link appear on the left-hand side of your inbox.

We’ll be rolling out these invitations gradually, so don’t worry if you don’t see your invitations immediately. We’re initially giving out three invites to each account, but we’re planning to provide more invitations in the future.

If you don’t have an account yet, you can request a Google Voice invitation at google.com/voiceinvite.

Posted by Craig Walker and Vincent Paquet, Product Managers, Google Voice

Source: googlevoiceblog.blogspot.com

When we launched Google Voice, we offered free calling to the continental US. We’ve just expanded this to all 50 states by adding free calling to Alaska and Hawaii.

You can initiate free calls to Alaska and Hawaii from your inbox online, from our mobile apps, or by dialing your own Google Voice number from one of your phones and selecting option 2 to place a call. You can also forward calls to your Google Voice number to Alaskan or Hawaiian phones for free.

Please note that Google Voice is only available in the US, and you’ll need a working US phone to setup a Google Voice account.

Posted by Vincent Paquet

Source: googlevoiceblog.blogspot.com

This week, I’d like to talk about a Google Voice feature some of you may not have heard about: custom greetings. With custom greetings, you’re able to record personalized voicemail greetings that only play to a specific group of people or to an individual. This feature is completely optional, but once you use it, you may realize how helpful and fun it can be.

Instructions for creating a basic custom greeting can be found in the Google Voice Help Center, along with tips for recording custom greetings for "different groups or individuals in your contact list.".

I’ll give you examples of how I’m using custom greetings, but these are just a few ideas — perhaps you’ll be able to think of other creative ways to take advantage of custom greetings.

General default: "Hi, I can’t get to the phone right now, so please leave your name and a message. If you don’t leave a message, I probably won’t return your call. Thanks."

Friends: "I might be in, I might be out. Leave a message and you might find out!

Grandparents-who-only-speak-Chinese: "爺爺奶奶你們好。對不起我現在不能接電話。請給我留言，我等會兒給你們打回來。謝謝！"

I can also imagine custom greetings being incredibly useful if you own a business. You can have a "professional" greeting associated to your business contacts and perhaps some important business partners would even have a custom greeting that includes emergency contact information.

Now that you have a bit more insight on custom greetings, be creative and record yours today. If you encounter any issues, search first to see if another user reported it in the Google Voice Help Forum; if you don’t see the issue, ask users for help in the Problem Solving section of the forum.

If there are other features you’d like to see in Google Voice, please leave your suggestion on the Google Voice Suggestions page.

Posted by Carol and Heather
Googlers

Source: alanweinkrantz.typepad.com

Yesterday’s announcement by AT&T offering a great site where you could watch online shows was just a tip of the iceberg.  Here’s 25 Places to Watch the Fall TV Season Online