Having discovered the advantages of á la carte VoIP pricing, I pondered how to extrapolate my experience for general discussion while avoiding the pitfalls of interpolation and abridgement. The Reference Book of Rates, Price Indices, and Household Expenditures for Telephone Service published by the FCC’s Wireline Competition Bureau provides a rough estimate of wireline telephone expenses averaging $45 per month in 2007, based on market research by TNS Telecoms. This isn’t too far from my own experience with residential VoIP plans which have tended to average about $35 monthly, including additional fees and charges, which can be significant: on BroadVoice’s “Unlimited World” plan, for example, “Taxes & Surcharges” account for about 35% of the monthly total. Based on these data, I use an estimated $35-$45 for generic comparison of monthly residential phone bills, or an average average of $40. As I designed our current, á la carte plan, I surmised that after discounting business use, the residential remainder was unlikely to ever exceed $30 in a single month. As the plan took shape, however, I realized that intelligent planning could lower that even further; somewhere in the neighborhood of a $20 monthly average would certainly exemplify what custom VoIP plans can offer, and half the average isn’t a bad talking point.

Though less obvious, another great feature of á la carte or “on demand” plans is scalability, if I suddenly find myself needing to host frequent call-in conference calls between a customer, their overseas manufacturing division, regional sales reps, and myself, the only change I’ll see on my invoices will be in usage. I am not aware of any “unlimited” residential plans which offer unlimited channels (simultaneous callers). With currently just three phone numbers, my setup is small enough, and with just enough complexity to provide a good example.

I use one number for my consulting, which has separate extensions, voice mail, etc.; I have a fax number for the luddite crowd, and a home number associated with a family voice mail, options for the caller to forward the call to my wife’s or my mobile phone, and a ring group which includes a line in my office. I’ll use an even usage split for comparison; for although Codefix Consulting has its own phone number, those who know me well tend to call my home number rather than risk my having a life outside of work.

My primary VoIP provider is VoiceMeUp.com and I have two DIDs (phone numbers) ($4.95 ea) and a prepaid, on-demand plan which bills 30/6 at $0.0185/min. My backup provider is CallWithUs.org who bill $0.0125 in whole minutes; while I hadn’t originally intended to acquire a DID through CallWithUs.org, I found one for $6/mo which includes 3000 free inbound minutes and couldn’t pass it up. My base VoIP price is therefore 4.95 * 2 + 6 = $15.90 plus usage, or $7.95 on an even split. Theoretically this leaves me with just over 650 minutes before exceeding my $20 target, but this doesn’t account for incremental billing, free VoIP to VoIP calls, and other variables which impinge cost.

It’s now more than a month since I dumped Broadvoice, ergo September’s charges and complete usage data are available for a real world comparison against a $40 average, a $35 example, and a $20 target. As it turned out we made no outbound calls on the (secondary) CallWithUs.com trunk and didn’t exceed the 3000 inbound minutes, so all billable usage was on the VoiceMeUp.com trunk which makes accounting easier. September’s total was 9.95 + 6 + 23.38 = $39.28 or $19.64 per split which helps validate my “less than $20 phone bill” theory. Our total usage was 36h 7m 33s (2167.55 min) or nearly 1,100 “home” minutes and more than 2,000 unused inbound minutes– how much do you talk?

Like many others, when I set up my first Linux PBX I knew little about VoIP providers and with few sources of reliable, current information, I made a decision based on name recognition, perceived value, and minimal research. Like many others, I looked for companies who advertised a BYOD plan under the false assumption that said companies would have a clue regarding said devices, despite the cautionary warnings which politely explained that BYO, as used here, means “unsupported”. Like many others, I signed up with BroadVoice believing I had a pretty good deal; in fact, among similar plans offered by cable companies and Vonage, BroadVoice compares rather well.

By the time I started to suspect BroadVoice of stockpiling probiscus laden mammals and bleach, I had already paid setup fees and number transfer fees, and chagrined the thought of early termination fees, more number transfer fees, and a potential three to seven week transfer period. Rather than add to the copious corpus of BroadVoice complaints, I thought I’d focus on what to avoid when choosing a VoIP provider.

Customer (Dis)service
In a word, BroadVoice’s customer service is atrocious. If I want to feel marginalized and ignored I can go to the Dept. of Motor– no, on second thought, the DMV has really become much better in this area. BroadVoice’s operating principle seem to be protecting it’s own interests, even at the expense the customer’s. Read the terms and conditions carefully.

One of my more dissatisfying experiences with BroadVoice wasn’t actually covered in the terms and conditions I read: to order a second trunk their system required me to create a second account which I found bizarre but acceptable. The trouble I had was when they informed me that in addition to the credit card information I had already submitted on their encrypted website, I was now required (i.e. only for the secand account) to submit copies of my credit card and driver’s license via unencrypted e-mail or fax– in other words, a ready made identity theft kit. When I admonished them to provide some means of secure transfer, I received a response which inexplicably stated:

Please rest assure your information is protected, and locked away. You are in no way at risk of idenity theft as you may think.

Right. Naturally. Sure. (Does your multivitamin include enough irony?)

Number (De)porting
BroadVoice claims that as a service provider they are not governed by FCC local number portability (LNP) rules, which is why their terms & conditions state:

1.10 Number Transfer on Service Termination
BroadVoice may, solely at the Company’s discretion, release any telephone number that was ported in to BroadVoice by you and used in connection with your Service to your new service provider, if such new service provider is able to accept such number, upon your termination of the Service, and provided (i) your account has been terminated; (ii) your BroadVoice account is completely current including payment for all charges and disconnect fees; and (iii) you request the transfer upon terminating your account. BroadVoice will not transfer or release telephone numbers that it has assigned for use in conjunction with your Service.

Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics
The 800lb Guerilla at the VoIP party is the unlimited residential plan. To use a more topical phrase, advertising a VoIP plan as having unlimited minutes is a bit like putting lipstick on a pig; someone has clearly tried to make an attractive offer, but it isn’t what we are supposed to think it is. Somewhere in the terms & conditions is a section which redefines “unlimited usage” as “normal usage” or some similar distinction, along with the actual number of included minutes as well as overage penalties. In the case of BroadVoice, the overage penalties on an unlimited plan can be quite steep.

In the end, I can give credit to BroadVoice on two significant points; they may be ill prepared, but their recognition of the tech-driven evolution of business models yields a significant advantage over a company like Vonage. While putting on a friendly face with flashy ads, retail deals, and quality customer service, Vonage hamstrung itself with a business model that prohibits technical innovations such as Asterisk by depending on closed systems and customer lock-in. Even if Vonage weren’t at the wrong end of a double-barrelled patent infringement lawsuit, the mobile VoIP market would still be a likely refuge for the misfortunate company.

The other laurel is for BroadVoice’s cancellation procedure; not the termination fees or the porting issues, but the actual account closure was as simple as a written request via e-maill. Each account was closed within 24 hours of my request and final charges were applied not long after (2 or 3 days as I recall). I consider myself fortunate in not having to suffer through any more customer (dis)service simply to put BroadVoice behind me.

The first Ogg-friendly music player I purchased was a Neuros II; this was late in 2004 and hardware support was fairly new as the Vorbis codec didn’t reach 1.0 until 2002. Then, as now, the best place for information on Ogg-friendly devices was XiphWiki. I recall being quite impresssed with Neuros’ willingness to open up the device specifications and embrace the Open Source community, unfortunately the device suffered from a number of design flaws that no amount of firmware hacking could ever resolve. Ultimately the combination of charging problems, a design plagued by awkwardness and bulk, and the manufacturer’s shift to focus on newer devices doomed the Neuros II to my technology junk drawer.

The next portable Ogg player I bought, iRiver’s IFP 899, had a number of laudable features. I like the small size since I generally want to listen to, rather than look at my music player, so it’s usually stuck in a pocket. Not surprisingly, most of its bulk was to house the power supply: a single AA battery. I tried both rechargeable and disposable AA batteries but my cheap chinese rechargeables perform better in high drain devices. The disposables worked nicely, each battery was good for about 35 hours of playtime. Ogg support was limited (96-224kb/s) and a firmware update was required to mount the device as USB storage. The biggest downer was that the UMS firmware doesn’t sort the files (or sorts by inode, if you prefer) so the tracks are played in the order by which they are transferred to the device. There are a few ways to work around this, but in the end it remains an annoying flaw and joins the other outcasts in my junk drawer.

The new product I referred to in part one is Cowon’s iAUDIO U3. Like the other two players, the U3 uses flash storage, but it sports a full color screen and even plays tiny little pointless movies It has an internal rechargeable battery but some checking has indicated that replacement does not require sending the unit back to the manufacturer. The U3, I’m happy to report, seems to meet or exceed my four basic requirements for a portable audio player, and I haven’t even flashed the firmware.

I have music on my mind. I’m listening to Voodoo Child (ten point bonus if you know how this relates to Doctor Who) and thinking about my next portable music player. Like most geeks, the first question I ask about any digital music device is, “does it play OGG?”

Generally superior to MP3, Ogg Vorbis is a must for any lossy digital music collection, but it’s not the only feature I look for in a music player. I use four basic criteria to judge music players:

Ogg Support
The level of Ogg support varies quite a bit between vendors, so I always check reviews and the XiphWiki list of portable players. Any product noted for complete Ogg support gets a second look. Be wary of vendors with unenthusiastic Ogg support.

Flash Media
I prefer flash to hard drive storage; I can be rough on my toys so flash media’s lack of moving parts gives it a leg up in durability. There is a trade off in storage capacity, but I find one or two gibibytes sufficient. To score full marks here the product also needs fast USB transfers.

User Replaceable Battery
The way I buy electronics, battery replacement isn’t usually an issue, but I firmly believe that any product intended to last more than a year or two ought to have batteries replaceable by the user. Forcing us to send our toys back to the factory for such minutiae is a crime punishable by poor sales.

Design
A bit of an optimist, I’m still amazed at the appallingly stupid design choices that continue to show up in products, I categorize both subjective and objective judgments here, ranging from the merely unpleasant to outright unusable.

Part two of this article will apply these criteria to music devices I have owned, as well as a new product on it’s way as I write this.

A funny thing happened in Chicago, I was there for YAPC:NA and avoided having to check luggage at the airport by cramming everything I would need into a garden variety nylon backpack. On the last day of the conference, I noticed that my backpack had torn at the seam near it’s laptop compartment. Noting the irony of circumstance (Perl is known as “the duct tape of the Internet”), I went off in search of some duct tape to keep my newly ventilated bag together. Naturally the duct tape worked, my makeshift repair even survived an airport search, but I still needed a new bag. (NB: Individually wrapped Lactaid pills can set off metal detectors).

I had decided that I was willing to pay for quality and after much online searching I decided the bag I liked best was Oakley’s Kitchen Sink Pak. It’s 3.8 lbs of pockets, attachment points, tie downs, and just plain cool; so cool, in fact, that everybody was out of stock.

While trying to locate a Kitchen Sink pack, I began to consider alternatives, chiefly the Python XM from Booq. I already own a
Vyper laptop sleeve, so I started comparing: although slightly different dimensions, both bags are approximately the same size and weight, (Python ~ +0.2 lbs, -0.5″) and the Python is only about $15 more.

Ultimately the choice came down to durability: which bag could endure the abuse to which I planned to subject it? Without physical access to the bags I decided the easiest durability test would be to compare the warranties. To my surprise, Oakley’s $175 pack comes with a mere 90 day warranty. That’s right, they guarantee that their quality bag will get you through the next three months. So what does the extra $15 buy from Booq? A lifetime repair warranty.

There’s nothing like a company that’s willing to stand behind their products. As much as I like the bells and whistles on the Kitchen Sink Pack, I truly believe that Booq makes the better bag. Judging by their warranty, Oakley think so as well.