However, according to a graphic elsewhere on the company’s Web site (see above), that’s still short of the service at peak times (and one would assume that, absent an outage, two days before Christmas might be one of those peak sorts of times).

The blog goes on to mention a few of the other lingering issues. “Please note that some features may not work as reliably as expected,” it said, adding that “peoples’ online status may be slow to update, and instant messages might not be delivered as quickly as they are normally. Group video calling will take longer to return to normal.”

Of course, all that is a lot better than yesterday, when the bulk of the service was down for millions of people.

UPDATE, 11:50 am: Things are looking up, according to the latest post from CEO Tony Bates. He reports that there are now about 16.5 million users online, about 80 percent of normal for this time of day. And a make-good offering is in the works. “I realise that it’s difficult to compensate you for not being able to talk to or see your friends, family or colleagues, but we’re planning to offer Skype Credit vouchers to all of our loyal paying customers to thank you for your continued support,” said Bates.

Here’s the video of his message:

UPDATE, 3:02 pm: Another dispatch from Bates, this time reporting that traffic volume is up to 90 percent of normal now, the system has been stabilized and the engineers think they know what went wrong (and it wasn’t a malicious attack). Bates also offered a few more details on the customer compensation plan. Here’s the video:

“Under normal circumstances, there are a large number of supernodes available,” Skype said in an explanatory blog post on its Web site. “Unfortunately, today, many of them were taken offline by a problem affecting some versions of Skype. As Skype relies on being able to maintain contact with supernodes, it may appear offline for some of you.”

The company says the solution is the creation of–wait for it–”mega-supernodes.”

“Our engineers are creating new ‘mega-supernodes’ as fast as they can, which should gradually return things to normal,” Skype said. “This may take a few hours, and we sincerely apologise for the disruption to your conversations. Some features, like group video calling, may take longer to return to normal.”

The company thanked everyone for their patience and said to continue following @skype on Twitter for further updates.

Update, 1:10 p.m.: Skype said in an update posted to Twitter that things are slowly getting back up and running.

“Skype is now gradually returning to normal–we expect it may take several hours for everyone to be able to sign in again, however,” it said.

A page deep in the company’s support site confirms the issue, but appears to significantly understate the problem.

“We are aware that some people are encountering difficulties signing in to Skype,” reads the company’s response on a FAQ page for those having connection issues. “Rest assured, we are working hard to fix this. In the meantime, we apologise for any inconvenience this may be causing you.”

Maybe the company was just trying to reinforce its warning that Skype is not a replacement for the telephone in an emergency:

Needless to say, this isn’t the kind of conversation the company was seeking to spark as it tries to build momentum for a pending stock offering.

Update, 10:45 am PT: A Skype representative said in an email that the company is examining the cause and extent of the outage and again apologized to users for the inconvenience. Skype said to follow its Twitter account (@skype) for updates.

BoomTown has not been much of a fan of Facebook fan pages, finding most of them sterile affairs with empty marketing messages and little in the way of real life.

But things are actually hopping if you click over to the one, located here, created for JetBlue flight attendant Steven Slater, who went loco after an encounter with a belligerent passenger, opened the emergency inflatable slide and got out of Dodge.

The JetBlue (JBLU) employee got out of jail just last night and still faces charges for his dramatic actions, which could be stringent.

But his Internet life is looking good.

The Slater Facebook fan page, which has garnered 81,856 “Likes” since it was made yesterday, is the perfect example of what social networking is–chock-full of lively comments, homemade photos and topics, such as one titled “Holy Chute!”

I personally liked many of the photos, such as the one above, which has the caption: “The story of one man who’s dealt enough nuts to nuts.”

Two others are below.

YouTube is also seeing Slater-inspired actions, mostly in the form of original “take this job and shove it” ballad videos, four of which you’ll find below.

And finally–and, of course–Slater gets a Taiwanese CGI treatment from New Media Animation that is pretty priceless.

Enjoy:

You just know those big brains at Google’s HQ in Mountain View, Calif., have already been at work on this spoof idea from The Onion: A new mobile phone service that “whispers targeted ads directly into users’ ears.”

Here’s the hysterical video on how such an advertising-blabby Google (GOOG) device might work, including a very funny emergency call. And don’t miss the perfect dig at Yahoo (YHOO) at the end.

Enjoy:

New Google Phone Service Whispers Targeted Ads Directly Into Users’ Ears

This week, I tested two keychain gadgets that aim to help by working as wireless leashes for Bluetooth-connected phones: the $80 ZOMM (zomm.com) and the $60 Phone Halo (phonehalo.com). If, for example, you finish dinner in a restaurant, leave and forget your cellphone at the table, a small ZOMM device attached to your keychain would vibrate, light up and beep to let you know you walked more than 30 feet away from your phone. Likewise, the Phone Halo beeps, but its connected phone also plays “Always Something There to Remind Me,” the ’80s tune by Naked Eyes, if one device is far enough away from the other (you set the range between five and 35 feet).

The $80 ZOMM alert you if you’re leaving a phone behind.

I preferred using the ZOMM because it works with any Bluetooth-enabled phone, while Phone Halo corresponds with software that currently only installs on BlackBerry and Android devices. (A representative for Phone Halo says it will work with the next iPhone software release planned for this summer.) The ZOMM also doubles as a speakerphone, so that when the phone rings, you can answer it using the ZOMM on your keychain rather than digging through your bag to find the phone. People who already pre-ordered ZOMMs will receive them in early May; everyone else will be able to buy them in early June. Phone Halo can be purchased through its Web site.

If you’re one of those people who doesn’t always keep your keys and cellphone in the same place throughout the day, you may grow tired of this alarm. Simply turning off the ZOMM or Phone Halo solves the problem, but you would have to remember to turn them back on before leaving a location.

Phone forgetfulness has spawned its own industry, as is evidenced by the hundreds of applications made specifically for locating and remotely clearing lost devices that run on BlackBerry, iPhone, Android, Palm (PALM) and Microsoft’s (MSFT) Windows Phone operating systems. Phone companies like Verizon (VZ), Sprint (S) and AT&T (T) sell family locator programs that can alert a system when one person’s GPS-enabled phone is in a certain location, and this could also be used to generally locate a phone. One of the features included with Apple’s (AAPL) $99-a-year MobileMe service is Find My Phone, which locates the iPhone on a map, sends a message to it or plays an audio alert on the device; this feature has been extended to the iPad.

The ZOMM, which stands for “Zachry, Olivia and Madison’s Mom,” looks like a keychain-size discus. The device was created by a mom, Laurie Penix, to solve common cellphone problems: Besides being a wireless leash to a phone, it’s a speakerphone so the phone can be answered without digging through a bag and it’s a panic button that calls local emergency services and tells help to come to the phone’s location via an automatic message.

The $60 Phone Halo

I had good luck using the ZOMM as a speakerphone. Once this device was connected via Bluetooth to my cellphone, I answered incoming calls by pressing once on the ZOMM’s center button. Built-in noise-cancellation technology tricked my friends into not knowing I was using speakerphone for calls, including one person who loathes when people answer his calls using speakerphone. While chatting through the ZOMM’s speakerphone, I tapped again on the device’s center button and sent the call to my cellphone to continue the conversation. A double tap on the center button will ignore an incoming call.

I tested holding down the device’s center button for a long time, which set off the a loud panic alarm. The company advises not doing this unless there’s a real emergency, but the alarm wasn’t as loud as I expected. A ZOMM representative says the device sold in June will have a volume measuring four decibels louder. According to the company, its rechargeable battery lasts over three days on standby and over two hours of straight talk time.

The Phone Halo is a small, black rectangular gadget that also hangs on a keychain, but the company suggests attaching it to other things you don’t want to lose, like a digital camera or even a kid’s backpack. Unlike the ZOMM, the Phone Halo lacks a speakerphone. Its free, corresponding app isn’t yet available in the BlackBerry App World or Android Market stores, so users must follow in-box instructions to download it from a URL using a mobile browser. I did this without trouble, but the process isn’t as simple as it should be and could intimidate some people.

Settings within the Phone Halo software allow for a phone to be locked as soon as it’s out of range, and will record the GPS coordinates of the lost item from the place it was last connected to Phone Halo. The phone’s alert can be changed from “Always Something There to Remind Me,” though I thought this song was clever enough to want to keep. Its rechargeable battery is estimated to last about one week, but this varies depending on how often Phone Halo is used.

The Phone Halo was developed on the belief that if you lost your phone, you’d want your friends and social-network contacts to know so they could help you find it. The app let me select people from my BlackBerry Contacts to determine who would be contacted via email should I lose my phone, and I also opted to allow the device to notify my Twitter followers if my BlackBerry was lost. This was useful when I left a cellphone at a party and didn’t know it; a friend saw the tweet and found the phone. In reality, the buzzing wireless leash alert—along with the email and tweet notifications—went off more than desired whenever I moved the phone away from the Phone Halo or if my phone’s Bluetooth turned off. Tweets and emails included specific details including the exact date and time my phone was “misplaced.”

If you don’t want to lose your phone in the first place, consider a wireless leash like the ZOMM for its multifunctionality. If all else fails and you really need to find your phone, this additional ultra high-tech method usually works: Grab someone else’s phone and call it.

Write to Katherine Boehret at mossbergsolution@wsj.com

The Touch resembles the iPhone, only thinner, with the same multitouch screen, fast Web browser, iPod media player and ability to run almost all of the 35,000 apps in Apple’s App Store. It doesn’t have a camera, or a few other iPhone features, and it can’t connect to cellphone networks, relying instead on Wi-Fi for its Internet connection.

The Touch has caught on: Apple recently indicated that it has sold 16 million of them. One reason for the popularity is that its freedom from a phone company eliminates pricey monthly bills. But the Touch can’t easily make voice calls right out of the box. So this week, I tested ways to make the Touch even more like the iPhone: apps that use the Internet to make phone calls.

Three Apps to Test

I successfully tested three apps that can be downloaded free of charge from Apple’s App store — Skype, Fring and Truphone. Skype gave me the best connection, and my friends wouldn’t have known I was using it unless I told them. (Skype’s app is popular, with 2.8 million downloads in just four weeks.) Fring and Truphone let users make calls using Skype’s service within their apps, and they also run other programs like AIM and MSN Messenger. But Fring’s phone calls didn’t sound as clear, and I had technical difficulties with Truphone.

The downside to using these apps on an iPod Touch is that you must be connected to a Wi-Fi network. For a lot of people who work and live in areas surrounded by wireless networks, this won’t be a problem most of the time. But in those moments when mobility comes into play — like driving in a car — you’ll miss having a steady line through a phone carrier. You also can’t use these apps to make 911 emergency calls.

Another negative is that third-party applications can’t run in the background on the iPhone and iPod Touch. This means you can’t use a Touch for browsing the Web or reading email while waiting for a call from a friend via Skype or Fring. Fring offers an option that emails you when friends call or message, so you can sign on and call them back. Truphone has built-in voicemail. Skype doesn’t currently offer a notification feature.

(The next version of the iPhone OS is supposed to include notifications, which could improve the usability of these apps.)

The Touch comes in three models: an eight-gigabyte version for $229; a 16-gigabyte for $299; and a 32-gigabyte for $399. Because the Touch doesn’t have a built-in microphone, you must use something like the iPhone Stereo Headset, which costs $29 and has a microphone in its cord.

Skype Plans

Free Skype accounts, which can be used for making calls with all three apps, take just a few minutes to set up. And calls from one Skype user to another are free. Skype calls to landlines or cellphones are relatively cheap. Skype Credit, a pay-as-you-go plan, charges 2.1 cents a minute in the U.S.; Skype Subscription is a flat monthly fee that costs $2.95 when used for calls made to and from the U.S. A monthly fee of $5.95 gets you unlimited calling to one country, and $12.95 a month pays for unlimited calls to 42 countries.

The Skype, Fring, and Truphone apps let you easily import contact names and numbers from your iPod Touch. They also enable instant messaging between you and your friends. Delightful sounds indicate incoming messages and calls, and these can be heard even when the headset isn’t plugged in — as long as you put the Touch down without closing the app.

I had the most success with the Skype app. My Skype-to-landline calls sounded perfect to my boss on the other end. Skype-to-cell and Skype-to-Skype calls sounded good, but weren’t always as clear; I used my Skype account to call a friend in New Orleans on her Skype account, and I heard echoing a couple times during our 30-minute chat. Skype says this could be attributed to the fact she was on a laptop.

Fring calls made using Skype — to landlines, cellphones, and other Skype contacts — weren’t as good as the Skype app. Friends’ voices sounded slightly shaky and muffled. This kind of thing isn’t the end of the world in a quick chat, but could be a real burden during an important call. Fring offers a long list of add-ons, letting you sign in to various accounts all within the same app. These include Skype, MSN Messenger, ICQ, Google (GOOG) Talk, Twitter, Yahoo (YHOO), and AIM.

Technical Difficulties

Truphone calls to landlines and cellphones sounded a bit fuzzy. Truphone is a service unto itself, like Skype, with free calls between Truphone users, pay-as-you-go plans and monthly plans. Like Fring, Truphone enables use of other programs within its app, like AIM and Yahoo Messenger. And it includes free voicemail. But the app didn’t always work for me.

A feature in all three apps lets you call an automated voice test line so you can hear how you sound before calling others.

These iPod Touch apps aren’t perfect, and the next version of the iPhone OS may let them can run more productively in the background. But making calls from the iPod Touch is a pretty cool experience when it works well, and free or low-price plans are an attractive alternative to cellphone carriers.

Edited By Walter S. Mossberg

• Email us at mossbergsolution@wsj.com. Find this and other columns and videos online free at the All Things Digital Web site: http://solution.allthingsd.com

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090428/ipod-to-reach-out-and-touch-someone/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090415/displaying-contacts-without-a-code/ http://allthingsd.com/20090415/displaying-contacts-without-a-code/#comments Wed, 15 Apr 2009 22:30:02 +0000 Walter S. Mossberg http://mailbox.allthingsd.com/20090415/displaying-contacts-without-a-code/ Here are a few questions I’ve received recently from people like you, and my answers. I have edited and restated the questions a bit, for readability.

---

I saw your recent review of ICE, the emergency medical information app for the iPhone. But my iPhone is set up to require a passcode to get to the home screen and run apps. Is there any way to display emergency contacts before a person enters the passcode?

There are some apps that allow you to customize the wallpaper of your iPhone or iPod Touch by adding a few lines of text that can be seen before it’s unlocked. One, called Close Call, displays a red cross and, next to it, an emergency phone number, and one brief line about, say, a key allergy or medical condition. The app is free, and is from a company called Polka, at polka.com.

I installed VMware Fusion on my Mac so I can run a virtual Windows XP computer on the Mac. When in the virtual Windows environment, I use security software. If I have the Fusion program shut down completely when I am not using it, will my computer be vulnerable to Windows security threats?

The vast majority of viruses, spyware and other malicious software is designed to run on Windows and cannot run natively on the Mac’s built-in operating system. So, while you are wise to use security software in your virtual Windows PC, any malware it misses won’t be able to run when Fusion is shut down. While even a virtual PC can get real viruses, this faux PC just disappears when Fusion is shut down, and so does all its software, including viruses.

But simply because Windows-based malware can’t run on the Mac’s OS, that doesn’t mean you don’t have to be careful. You can still be tricked by false email and Web sites into giving up personal information.

• You can find Mossberg’s Mailbox, and my other columns, online free of charge at the new All Things Digital Web site, http://walt.allthingsd.com.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090415/displaying-contacts-without-a-code/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090325/some-favorite-apps-that-make-iphone-worth-the-price/ http://allthingsd.com/20090325/some-favorite-apps-that-make-iphone-worth-the-price/#comments Thu, 26 Mar 2009 01:02:03 +0000 Walter S. Mossberg http://ptech.allthingsd.com/20090325/some-favorite-apps-that-make-iphone-worth-the-price/ Despite all the economic misery, the past nine months have been a little like the heady days of the early 1980s when the personal computer was just getting rolling and new software programs were popping up like weeds.

That’s because we have a new computing platform, the modern hand-held computer, which is also attracting new software and new functions in droves.

The leader in this phenomenon has been Apple’s iPhone, though I expect that this year a few competitors will also begin to attract loads of apps, or widgets. These are small software programs, easily downloaded and purchased, that often connect to the Internet to perform a specific function.

We’ve seen this before, on a smaller scale, with third-party software for the original Palm (PALM) platform, for Windows Mobile, and, to a limited extent, for the BlackBerry. But these new apps can be far more sophisticated, and they are appearing at a much faster rate.

iPhone’s App Store logo

To give you an idea of the scale of this phenomenon, in just the nine months since Apple (AAPL) opened the iPhone App Store, around 25,000 apps have been published for the iPhone and its close cousin, the iPod Touch. And there have been 800 million downloads of these apps, according to Apple. That’s impressive.

So, this week, I thought I’d present minireviews of some of the apps I find myself using most often, in no particular order. You may have an entirely different list of favorites. I am not saying these are the best apps on the iPhone, only that they do their jobs and make the device much more useful for me. All can be found in the app store, by searching on their names.

Tweetie ($2.99): There are many apps for using Twitter, but I use this one. It not only does a great job of showing me the social network’s short, but numerous, postings, but also makes it easy to track topic trends, to post my own entries, and to conduct and save searches.

Facebook (free): This official iPhone app from Facebook covers the core functions of the full Web site. It allows you to view and upload status messages and photos, to check in on your friends, to manage friend requests, and to handle the service’s internal email and chats.

Kindle (free): This is Amazon’s iPhone software version of its $359 Kindle e-book reader. It lacks some of the fancier features of its hardware counterpart, like the ability to create notes or to look up words. But it gives you rapid access to any Kindle e-books you’ve bought, helps you buy new ones and makes the e-books easy to read on the iPhone. It can be used without a hardware Kindle, but if you have both, Amazon (AMZN) will synchronize the two devices so each knows the exact spot where you left off reading on the other.

ICE (99 cents): This app, whose name stands for In Case of Emergency, puts a big Red Cross-style icon on your iPhone’s screen. When the icon is tapped, the app displays your name and contact information; the names and info for your doctors or other emergency contacts; and lists of your medical conditions, allergies and the medications you take. I keep it on my iPhone’s home screen.

Easy Wi-Fi ($2.99): If you hate typing in all the log-in information for the commercial Wi-Fi hot spots to which you subscribe, this app is for you. It automates the process so you have to press only one button. For each of the networks you use, you have to type in your log-in info only once. After that, Easy Wi-Fi will do it for you.

ReaddleDocs ($9.99): A number of iPhone apps allow you to synchronize files with a PC or Mac, but ReaddleDocs stands out. It has too many features to list here, but my favorite is that you can simply send an email with an attached file to a special email address Readdle provides and, very shortly, that file will appear on your iPhone. There, it can be stored and read (though not edited). You can organize your files in folders, and even send them to others. The app works with Microsoft Office files, PDF files and more.

Quordy ($2.99): There are thousands of games for the iPhone and Touch, but Quordy is the one I turn to most often. Much as in Boggle, it requires you to form as many words as possible from a random screen of letters in a set time period. You can challenge others, either nearby or over the Internet, to play the same game board you did and compare results. Or you can just play solo.

Google Mobile (free): Sure, the iPhone has a fine Web browser with a built-in Google search box, but this app makes searching in Google (GOOG) even easier, with instant search suggestions, searches based on your location, and even the ability to enter search terms by speaking them rather than typing them, though I find the voice feature unreliable.

If you own an iPhone or iPod Touch, the App Store is what makes your device worth its price. It’s the software, not the hardware, that makes these gadgets compelling.

Find all of Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos online, free, at the All Things Digital Web site, walt.allthingsd.com. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090325/some-favorite-apps-that-make-iphone-worth-the-price/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090210/loud-and-clear-mobile-calls-for-seniors/ http://allthingsd.com/20090210/loud-and-clear-mobile-calls-for-seniors/#comments Wed, 11 Feb 2009 02:44:06 +0000 Katherine Boehret http://solution.allthingsd.com/20090210/loud-and-clear-mobile-calls-for-seniors/ My grandmother, a college graduate and former reference librarian, recently walked out of an electronics store in frustration. She compared the techie conversations that were going on around her with people speaking in a different language. And she isn’t alone.

Though it isn’t always obvious, the technology industry sees senior citizens as a target demographic — especially where cellphones are concerned. Mobile phones could act as valuable lifelines in health-related situations and, at the very least, provide an easier way for relatives to keep in touch. Major cellphone carriers offer models that they say are easier for seniors to use thanks to big buttons and large screen fonts. But some companies go a step further. GreatCall Inc., for example, designed its Jitterbug cellphone specifically to appeal to non-techies, including — but not limited to — senior citizens. It shirks phone extras like Internet access for simplicity and includes a concierge service that does things like remotely adding numbers to the phone so users don’t have to do it.

This week, I took a look at a cellphone that was designed specifically for senior citizens: the ClarityLife C900. It’s the first cellphone from Clarity (clarityproducts.com), a division of Plantronics Inc. (PLT) that specializes in telephony (landlines and other products) for people with hearing loss. The cellphone incorporates features that are useful for someone who may be hard of hearing or using a hearing aid.

The C900 is a bulky slider phone with a top half that slides up, revealing a number keypad below; number keys each measure a half-inch square. This might be a deterrent for seniors who want their phone to look hip or slip easily into a pocket. But Clarity says the phone’s deliberately large size makes it easier to hold and use, and accommodates a roomy 2.5-inch screen.

I found the C900 relatively easy to navigate with sensible on-screen commands, though there were a few times when I couldn’t back out of a screen and had to close the slider to start over. Friends’ voices sounded loud and full when heard through this cellphone, though it lacks a speakerphone, which my grandparents could use for calling relatives and singing “Happy Birthday” together.

The $270 ClarityLife C900 has oversized buttons and a red emergency button on the back that, when pressed, calls five contacts.

The C900 costs $270 — a steep price because it’s “unlocked,” or not tied to any one carrier, but according to Clarity’s research, senior citizens don’t like to get into long-term contracts like two-year deals. This unlocked model will work on any GSM network, like T-Mobile or AT&T (T), but buyers must take the phone to a carrier’s store to get it set up and working. The phone also could be added as one of the lines in an existing family plan.

People who would rather save money than avoid contracts can get the ClarityLife for $185 tied into a one-year service deal with T-Mobile. These monthly service prices range from $19 pay-as-you-go (20 cents a minute) to $99 for unlimited calling.

The hearing-related features on this cellphone include a 20-decibel speaker and a way to notify people of incoming calls using simultaneous ringing, vibrating and a flashing green light. All the buttons on the device make loud noises, including those that control volume. The C900 is also hearing-aid-compliant, meaning it won’t cause static interference when held up to an ear with a hearing aid.

The C900 has a large, red button on its back side that, when enabled and pressed, automatically calls and/or sends text messages to a list of five emergency contacts until it reaches someone. These contacts are notified via an automatic dialing system and must press “0″ when they answer to accept the emergency call so the system knows that a real person picked up, instead of a voicemail or answering machine. Five postcards with instructions come with this phone, and can be mailed to emergency contacts so they know what to do if they receive an emergency call from the C900 phone. Users could potentially add “911″ to their list of emergency callers.

Most people will likely use the C900 in its closed slider position, revealing just four buttons at a time. These oversized buttons can scroll through contacts, call friends and end calls. A feature called “Top 10″ lets users add their 10 most frequently called numbers in the order they prefer, which is a refreshing change from the alphabetical listing that most phones use.

The C900 accepts and sends SMS, or text messages, and comes loaded with nine canned text messages including the ominous, “I don’t have much time.” An extremely loud chime sounds when messages are received or sent.

Other helpful features include a hard button on the phone’s top edge that opens an alarm-clock function, and a button for an ultra-bright, built-in flashlight. This could come in handy, though it must be held down to stay on.

Clarity says that the C900′s battery life lasts for three hours of talk time or 150 hours in standby, and that it takes one hour to fully charge after the phone’s first-time-use four-hour charge. I left my fully charged C900 powered off for a couple weeks and it still had a full charge when I turned it back on again. This could be really helpful for people who forget to charge their phone, but want to grab it to take along on a trip.

A phonebook entry titled “Customer Care” comes preprogrammed on all ClarityLife C900s. This number is answered by Clarity’s customer-service team, people who are trained to consider a caller’s specific issues, such as hearing or memory loss. The representatives speak slowly, avoid tech jargon, and can use an amplifier to make their voices louder and easier to hear.

The ClarityLife C900 is expensive, but this phone’s hearing-targeted features will be appreciated by many seniors, as will its oversized buttons and easy-to-hold size and shape.

Write to Katherine Boehret at mossbergsolution@wsj.com

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090210/loud-and-clear-mobile-calls-for-seniors/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20080410/sms-alert/ http://allthingsd.com/20080410/sms-alert/#comments Thu, 10 Apr 2008 11:30:17 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/20080410/sms-alert/ Well, it’s about time. With 48 billion text messages sent every month in the United States and one of every eight American households using only mobile phones for communications, it’s finally occurred to the federal government that a nationwide cellphone alert system might be a good idea.

And so yesterday the Federal Communications Commission announced plans to develop an emergency-alert system that would broadcast SMS messages to cellphones and other mobile devices wherever a crisis occurs. The Commercial Mobile Alert System, as it’s been dubbed, will deliver three different types of text alerts to mobile phone subscribers: presidential alerts concerning terrorist attacks and whatnot; imminent threat alerts warning of natural disasters; and Amber Alert child abduction warnings.

Sounds like a nice comprehensive program. Too bad you won’t see it for another two years, at least. Unless you happen to live in a region like Contra Costa County in Northern California, where a tech-savvy local government is already hard at work on its own geographically targeted emergency alert system.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20080410/sms-alert/feed/ 1 http://allthingsd.com/20080228/t-mobile-service-ties-cellphones-to-home-with-some-sacrifices/ http://allthingsd.com/20080228/t-mobile-service-ties-cellphones-to-home-with-some-sacrifices/#comments Thu, 28 Feb 2008 00:01:00 +0000 Walter S. Mossberg http://ptech.allthingsd.com/20080228/t-mobile-service-ties-cellphones-to-home-with-some-sacrifices/ The poor landline home phone is getting less and less respect. Increasing numbers of people don’t even have traditional landline phone service anymore. These folks prefer to rely on their cellphones, which can be cheaper to use and carry a number that travels with a person instead of being locked to a house.

Many others keep their landline-phone service grudgingly, only because it is needed for things like fax machines. But even they often use their cellphones at home, because their friends and family members dial their cellphone number routinely, and their personal phone books are inside their cellphones.

But there is a big drawback to using a cellphone at home, especially in a large house: You have to schlep it around with you from room to room. By contrast, landline phone service can be used via either cordless or corded extension phones. Now, T-Mobile, one of the big U.S. cellphone companies, is rolling out a new system that it hopes will make cellphone service at home more convenient and even cheaper to use.

The service, being introduced this month in two test cities, Seattle and Dallas, allows you to use a cellphone account with any corded or cordless home phone, with multiple extensions, for just $10 a month. That very low price gets you unlimited domestic calls.

This new T-Mobile service, tentatively called Talk Forever Home Phone, is likely to be available nationally in a few months. It works via a special Wi-Fi wireless router that you must buy, with a two-year contract, for a one-time charge of $50. The router, which can either replace or supplement your existing wireless router, is essentially a stationary cellphone that marries an in-home Wi-Fi network to the T-Mobile cellphone network.

I have been testing the new system and found that it worked well, and it was extremely simple to set up and use. For my tests, I used a cordless phone supplied by T-Mobile, which included a base station and one extension handset. I was able to make and receive calls all over my home in exactly the same manner, and with exactly the same quality, as I do with my normal cordless landline service.

While T-Mobile is selling this cordless phone as a $60 option, it isn’t necessary for use with the new $10 service. The only new hardware that is required is the special Wi-Fi router.

However, there are some significant downsides to the new T-Mobile service that might make people think twice about dumping their landlines. For one thing, it doesn’t work with fax machines, home-security systems and other devices that rely on dial-up modems. Also, unlike landline phones, it doesn’t automatically transmit your home address to 911 emergency centers. You have to manually supply that address to T-Mobile during signup, and the company then sends it to your local emergency center.

Another downside: You must be a T-Mobile cellphone customer to buy and use this $10 monthly home service, and your T-Mobile plan must either be an individual plan costing at least $40 a month or a family plan costing at least $50 a month.

Finally, while you can transfer your current landline phone number to this new service, it cannot share your existing T-Mobile cellphone number. So people who are used to calling you on your cellphone will still do so, and you will still have to race for the cellphone or carry it around to receive those calls. You also can’t transfer your cellphone’s address book to the new home phone.

The special router is made by Linksys and looks very much like a typical Linksys router, except for the fact that it has two standard telephone jacks in the back and slots inside for T-Mobile SIM cards, the same kind that are inside a T-Mobile cellphone.

You can use the special router as a replacement for your current Wi-Fi router, but I just plugged it into an existing port on my old router, inserted the SIM card, and then plugged the cordless-phone base station into one of the phone jacks. It worked immediately, and didn’t affect or degrade my existing Internet service.

In addition to enabling the phone service around my house, the router was also usable by my computers for Internet connectivity, though it doesn’t support the new, fast “n” flavor of Wi-Fi.

This new system is not a so-called voice-over-Internet-protocol phone system, such as Vonage. It doesn’t carry your phone calls wholly over the Internet, but merely uses the Internet to get them to the T-Mobile cellphone network, which then carries the calls as if they had been made on a cellphone.

T-Mobile says the system will work fine even if you don’t have T-Mobile cellphone coverage at your house, because the call doesn’t rely on the cellphone network for its first leg and only is routed to the cell network once it reaches a T-Mobile switching center.

If you are a T-Mobile customer and can live with this system’s drawbacks, the $10 monthly fee may be hard to resist. But this new system is far from a perfect replacement for landline phones.

• Email me at mossberg@wsj.com. Find all my columns and videos online, free, at the new All Things Digital Web site, http://walt.allthingsd.com.

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