Posted by Scott Laird
Tue, 07 Aug 2007 16:45:00 GMT
One of the things I really like about my Nokia E61 is that it’s not just a cell phone, it’s also a VoIP phone. It includes a SIP client that works with Asterisk, mostly, so I’m able to get by with just one phone at home–incoming calls headed to either my cell number *or* my home number ring to the same phone. Which is great.
Except it all stopped working when I upgraded to the latest E61 firmware a couple months ago. I re-created my SIP settings, but the phone just wouldn’t register with Asterisk. Deleting and re-creating the settings didn’t make much of a difference, and eventually I decided to put off debugging it and wait until I had more time.
So, this morning I spent about an hour and a half trying to fix the phone. I re-configured it using several different configs that I found on line, and none of them worked. They all just generated “Registration Failed” messages on the phone. So I turned on SIP debugging in Asterisk, but it wasn’t very helpful–it didn’t show the phone trying to register at all. So I fired up tcpdump and discovered that the phone wasn’t actually sending any SIP requests at all–it was failing locally without ever talking to the network at all.
So I did a bit more digging, and found a Nokia forum comment that suggests that the upgrade from firmware 2.x to 3.x corrupts the SIP settings, and simply deleting SIP configurations won’t fix it. The poster recommended deleting SIP connections before upgrading, and then re-creating them after.
That isn’t an option for me anymore–I can’t downgrade the phone back to 2.x–but a simple backup/restore cycle (using the built-in backup to memory card option) fixed everything. It took about 10 minutes, but my E61 is now registering with Asterisk again.
Tags asterisk, nokia, sip | 3 comments
Posted by Scott Laird
Fri, 08 Jul 2005 23:50:28 GMT
Darn it, I think I’ve fallen in love with another unreleased phone.
This week, it’s the Nokia N91. It was announced a couple months ago, and isn’t supposed to ship until late in 2005. It’s going to be marketed as a “music phone,” but I think the specs more or less speak for themselves:
- 4 GB hard drive
- 802.11g
- Bluetooth
- 2 MP still camera, 352x288 video capture
- Series 60 3.0 software
- Video player (MPEG4, Real, H.263)
- GSM/EDGE/WCDMA (3G) support
- FM radio receiver
- mini-USB jack (can act like USB mass storage device)
- phone keypad and music controls, but no keyboard
- battery life: 12 hours music playback, 3-4 hours talk time, 7-ish days standby time
You can get more details from Nokia’s own flashcrapular site.
It’s not a small phone by any stretch. It’s very slightly smaller then a Treo 650–4mm narrower, 1mm thinner, 16g lighter.
The thing that I find so fascinating about the N91 is that it can replace practically every device that I’ve been cramming into my pockets:
- phone
- iPod–the N91’s not as nice as the iPod photo, but for light use, it’ll probably be good enough.
- pocket camera–much better then my T616 (which is worthless as a camera). 1600x1200 is big enough for web photos and the occasional whiteboard photo at work. If the shots are anything like the N90 sample shots then I’ll be happy.
- organizer (it’ll sync with the Mac once Apple tweaks their list of supported Series 60 devices). It’s not quite as capable as the Clie that I’m still dragging around, but it’ll probably be good enough.
- USB flash drive (you’ll need a mini-USB to USB zip cable, but they’re small)
- video player (er, well, if you don’t mind watching on a 2” screen)
- photo album – if the iPod photo can do it, why can’t the N91? Their screens are basically the same resolution.
The other thing that fascinates me about the N91 is its SIP support. The specs list support for JSR-180, which is SIP for J2ME apps. There are rumors online that the demo N-series phones have native SIP support in the phone UI. That’d let me use the N91 as a cordless phone when I’m at home or at work, which is just one more thing to like about it.
Of course, there have to be downsides–the camera doesn’t look as good as the one that comes with the N90 (but the N90 doesn’t have 802.11 or the hard drive). It doesn’t have the N90’s video-conferencing camera, either (that’d be cool with SIP). It’s kind of big. It doesn’t have a keyboard (although external bluetooth ones will work). It won’t ship until the very end of 2005. The specs don’t list 850 MHz support, although they’re clearly marketing this to the US, so presumably there will be a US model with 850/1900 MHz support. Finally, the price: at least $700 US before subsidies, possibly closer to $900. So, frankly, it’s probably too expensive for me to buy, but I’m going to be really tempted. Since Palm is rumored to be saving the next Treo for Spring of 2006, the N91 may not even have any competition for “Cool Phone of the Year” in my mind.
Posted in Phones, Toys | Tags n91, nokia, nokian91, phone, series60, sip, voip | 26 comments
Posted by Scott Laird
Fri, 08 Jul 2005 18:35:26 GMT
I want to see a combination VoIP/MVNO double-play. That’s one company that sells cellular service (using someone else’s network), sells VoIP service, and integrates the two services.
There are two specific scenarios that seem obvious:
They sell the customer mobile phone service and VoIP service via an ATA or SIP hardphone. This would be great for people who have turned off their home phone service while continuing to pay for some form of Internet access. One number would ring both devices, the first one to pick up wins. Outgoing calls would have the same caller ID from either device. Alternate products would be family plans with multiple phones, each with their own number, then a shared number that will ring all devices; and centrex plans for small businesses, where the company provides both VoIP desk phones and mobile phones.
They sell the customer mobile phone service and act like a SIP client. This way the customer can integrate their mobile phones directly into their existing phone system. Ideally, the MVNO’s SIP gateway will register and unregister with the SIP PBX as the phone gains and loses service; this will let the PBX do the Right Thing with voicemail, and also enable a number of other services.
Personally, I’d love to buy services like this. I’d prefer GSM phones, simply because the most interesting phones are almost always GSM-only. Accoring to Cellular News, there are at least three GSM MVNOs in the US right now, using both Cingular and T-Mobile’s networks, so this is certainly possible.
On the hardware front, several companies seem to be providing GSM/SIP gateway equipment:
It’s possible that Earthlink will be rolling something like this out soon–they’re building a MVNO, and they share at least one board member with Bridgeport Networks. They seem to be concentrating more on EV-DO then anything GSM-related, though.
There seems to be a huge push in the cellular industry to integrate SIP into their networks, so something like this will be possible sooner or later. My current contract with Cingular is up in 6 months; it’d be nice if someone has something on the market that I can buy by then.
Posted in Phones, Asterisk | Tags asterisk, gsm, mvno, phone, sip, voip | 2 comments
