Source: alanweinkrantz.typepad.com

Source: alanweinkrantz.typepad.com

Starting  the day before President McCain – I mean, President Obama gets to take over the reins of our country, U-verse TV customers will receive up to 30 new HD channels at no additional charge as part of their existing HD service subscription, depending on their programming package.

AT&T has just announced additional HD programming with  more than
30 new HD channels and new international programming packages for
Chinese, Polish, Russian, French and European-sports audiences.

With the additions, U-verse TV offers more than 75 HD channels — exceeding the HD channel lineups offered by the major local cable providers in every U-verse market.

The newly added HD channels include several regional sports networks, premium movie channels, and popular national sports, news, women’s, shopping and lifestyle networks. (Refer to the full list of HD channel additions at the end of this release.) HD service is available for $10 a month with any U-verse TV programming package. All U-verse TV packages include HD-ready equipment, and four of the five packages include an HD-ready Total Home DVR. Total Home DVR is being rolled out to all U-verse markets by the end of this year.

U-verse TV is also introducing more HD options on Nov. 10 with a new HD Premium package. Featuring Universal HD, MGM HD and Smithsonian Channel HD, the new tier can be added to an HD service subscription for an additional $5 a month. More channels will be added to the HD Premium package in the future.

AT&T is also expanding the ethnic programming available on U-verse TV with several new packages for its diverse customer base including:
 
·         Mandarin Package, featuring CCTV-4, CTI-Zhong Tian Channel, Phoenix InfoNews and Phoenix North American Chinese Channel, for $35 a month. CTI-Zhong Tian Channel can be ordered a la carte for $12 a month, and CCTV-4, Phoenix InfoNews and Phoenix North American Chinese Channel are available a la carte for $10 a month.
·         Polish Package, featuring TV Polonia and TVP Info, for $25 a month. TV Polonia can be ordered a la carte for $20 a month.
·         Russian Package, featuring RTR Planeta and Channel One Russia, for $25 a month. Each channel is available a la carte for $15 a month.
·         TV5MONDE, featuring programs from France, Belgium, Switzerland, Canada and Quebec, for $10 a month.
·         Setanta Sports, featuring exclusively live European and international soccer, rugby and other sports, for $15 a month.

The new international packages are available starting Nov. 10 and can be added to any U-verse TV core programming package.

As part of this month’s expansion, U-verse TV customers also gain access to several new standard definition channels: The Outdoor Channel, NASA TV and, as part of Paquete Español, WAPA America and V-me. Paquete Español features 24 Spanish-language channels for $10 a month with any U-verse TV core programming package.

THE FOLLOWING HD CHANNELS ARE BEING ADDED TO THE AT&T U-VERSE TV LINEUP:
 

@Max HD
5StarMax HD
ActionMax HD
Comcast SportsNet Chicago HD
Comcast SportsNet New England HD
Encore HD
Fox Business Network HD
Fox News Channel HD
FSN Detroit HD
FSN Florida HD
FSN Midwest (Kansas City) HD
FSN Midwest (St. Louis) HD
FSN Ohio (Cincinnati) HD
FSN Ohio (Cleveland) HD
FSN Prime Ticket HD
FSN South HD
FSN Southwest (Dallas) HD
FSN Southwest (Houston) HD
FX Network HD
FX Network HD – West
Hallmark Movie Channel HD
HBO Latino HD
HBO Signature HD
HBO Zone HD
HBO2 West HD
Lifetime Television HD
Lifetime Television HD – West
MoreMax HD
Outdoor Channel HD
OuterMax HD
Planet Green HD
QVC HD
Showtime 2 HD
Showtime Extreme HD
Showtime Showcase HD
Speed HD
SportsSouth HD
SportsTime Ohio HD
Starz Comedy HD
Starz Edge HD
Sun Sports HD
The Travel Channel HD
ThrillerMax HD
TMC Xtra HD
Weather Channel HD
Wmax HD

Photo courtesy of AT&T

Source: www.voip-news.com

Travelers from Israel who will be going abroad needn’t worry about leaving their mobile service behind. Outsmart Ltd. and Cellcom Israel have joined forces to launch Plu & Talk service. The service allows travelers to use their laptop as a mobile phone unit, making and receiving calls and sending and receiving SMS messages.

“The business segment is characterized with customers who are aware, and make use of, all other low-cost communication alternatives while they are abroad.” said Jacob Bros, CEO of Outsmart. “The Plug & Talk(TM) service enables Cellcom Israel to offer its customers a superior solution compared with the other alternatives. We are proud that Cellcom Israel has selected our solution to offer their customers and are happy to cooperate with Cellcom Israel, who is among the first operators in the world to offer this service.”

Plug & Talk uses VoIP communications and is based on Outsmart’s Smart Convergence Platform. It’s preloaded onto a USB device.

“Outsmart’s Plug & Talk will allow our customers traveling abroad to make and receive all their phone calls and access all phone services over the computer, while still using their same Cellcom Israel number,” said Adi Cohen, VP Marketing of Cellcom. “Our strategy is to provide our customers with a holistic set of advanced and affordable services both when they are at home or when they travel abroad. Outsmart’s Plug ‘n Talk(TM) service fits very well with this strategy and we strongly believe it will be a very successful service.”

Source: snapvoip.blogspot.com

VoIP IP Telephony @ http://snapvoip.blogspot.com
There are bunch of photos and a report over at CNET, UK explaining about Skyqube found at CeBIT.
It will route and forward calls and messages made to your mobile phone or landline via SkypeOut to another number anywhere in the world. But you will have to leave your cell phone behind and your PC on! No Last minute calls from Airport! Or you have to ask your wife, husband,* to remove the sim from your phone and insert it into Skyqube and and attach the skyqube to your network! and turn on your pc………

See more photos and a write up following the link below.

Links;
Qool Labs SkyQube brings Skype to your mobile

Source: snapvoip.blogspot.com

Cisco yesterday announced several updates to its branch office-ready Integrated Services Router (ISR), adding into the mix modules for WAN optimization and application acceleration, a tunnel-less VPN based on Group Encrypted Transport (GET) technology, and a new services engine.
The addition of a tunnel-less VPN, also called the GET VPN, eliminates the trade-off between data encryption security and routing intelligence, according to Inbar Lasser-Raab, director of product marketing.
Further more Cisco added a new set of voice, video and collaboration services into the ISR to give customers lower cost and more secure communications, along with increased availability and enhanced applications. New services include Session Initiation Protocol trunking; consolidated voice, video and data on a single primary rate interface; secure Survivable Remote Site Telephone on Call Manager Express; integrated voice XML; and session border control.

Links;
Networking news at searchnetworking.

Source: snapvoip.blogspot.com

Do you still remember that printed telephone book and the yellow pages? I bet you sure do. It is holding that broken ….. Whatever up. Yes, for years online technologies have disrupted the importance and the revenue of yellow book and it services.
But Yellow pages plan to disrupt the disruptive services with YELLOW PAGE e NUMBER.COM (YPe.Nu).
"Now yellow page users can simply input a participating business phone number into their Internet browser and the YELLOW PAGE e NUMBER Zap-Blast system push’s the phone number to the business web or e-mail site." to quote from their news letter.
Well it is for you to decide if you are going to dust out that phone book and dial or type the number of a company that you want to connect to. As for me I might well go to Google or Yahoo and do a search for what I am looking for and reach the company as well as it’s competitors. I think it is easier for me to remember the website or do a search based on the company name or something closer to it than remembering 1-888-677-5268.YPe.Nu. So get over it, yellow book is dead as it used to be. It might live a little longer if the thick book is transformed in to a some sort of directory or a search site. But that is already there at google, yahoo and good old dmoz.org, the grand farther of all directories.