Jimmy Atkinson over at VoIPNow.org has put together a pretty nice list of the Top 100 Telecommunications Blogs.

I was lucky enough to make the list (twice) for my work here at Smith On VoIP and for our corporate blog, VoIP Insider.

What is interesting is that I was listed in the “corporate” blog category whilst many of my peers who also hold high positions within their respective companies were in the general “VoIP” category.

I never fancied myself a suit, but maybe my friends are right and I have become too “white collar.”

This just came through on my Twitter feed.

Seems fellow blogger and Voice 2.0 entrepreneur Pat Phelan has partner with a number of other companies to release TwitterFone a speak to text service that allows Twitters to “speak their Tweets”. According to the press release issued today,

“Twitterfone improves upon Twitter by allowing us to make a voice call which is turned into text and sent out to our network of friends. This only costs the price of a local call, no matter how many it is sent to.”

Not only is this a great service for die hard Twitters around the world, I believe that this service will make Twitter a more usable service for the mainstream, since making a call is a more common way that folks communicate with one another. In addition, this is another awesome example of why platform providers should be offering API’s up to third party developers.

TwitterFone is a win for Twitter, those who use it as well as Pat and company. Man, voice enabling these social platforms is becoming serious business.

Update: Seems that TwitterFone has received over 500 sign-ups in the first 30 minutes of the launch.

Update 2: I got my invite from Pat, take a listen to my first TwitterFone tweet.

I have been thinking about whether or not to write the post ever since I heard the tragic news that a toddler had died due to his parents ill-advised or lack of regard for the proper administration of a VoIP line. After some recent side chatter amongst friends, I felt it necessary to voice my feelings on this.

First off, I feel for the family. The death of a toddler has to be one of the worst things a family can go through.

But on the other hand, VoIP is not to blame here. Nor is the service provider. At the core, it is the parents of the toddler. As Andy Abramson writes, “The unfortunate death of a toddler in Canada is making VoIP out to be the culprit when in reality technology kills the same way as a gun. It comes down to people.”

Yes VoIP service providers need to do a better job of educating consumers that when you move locations, you need to update your location via your account management portal (or leverage heartbeat technology), but at the core, it comes to down to user, the parents, to make sure that they are educated as to the positives and negatives of VoIP.

Think about this. If a toddler dies as a result of drowning in a pool (unsupervised, feel in, etc), does it make pools evil? Is the pool to blame? Is the company that installed the pool to blame for the death? Pools come with warning stickers (as does VoIP service) for a reason - bad things could happen if the pool is not properly utilized. If you choose to ignore those warnings or do not fully intend to abide by them, then if the worst occurs, you have no one to blame but yourself.

I know I come across as insensitive here, but the reality is that with anything in life, at the end of the day, you are responsible for the outcomes, not technology or the companies providing it.

One of the phone systems that I have been playing with over the last few months is Windows based 3CX phone system from the UK based company of the same name.

I have known about the 3CX system for quite sometime, having first come across the company while doing some searches on YouTube. Now, I come across a ton of products every week. My office and home are litter with them. However, most do not hold my attention for more than a few days, like the 3CX system has.

The reason?

It is windows based and very easy to use.

Before I get into the nitty gritty of the review, let me preface this by saying that will I can be dangerous with code if given the chance, I am not a programmer and very much do not want to be one, so I am biased towards systems that are built for the average technologist (or employee).

3CX Overview

3CX Phone System for Windows is a software-based IP PBX based on Windows. From the get-go this is one of the most important differentiators of the product as it “feels” like any other windows product that millions of business users are use to. In addition, because the phone system is software, it can run on an existing PC (if you are a small company) or you can run it on a dedicated Windows server.

The 3CX phone system comes in three different flavors:

• Small Business Edition - From $595
• Pro Edition - From $995
• Enterprise Edition - From $1650

Each of the three versions contains a standard, yet robust feature set including auto-attendant, call forwarding, call parking, call pick-up, called id, voicemail, voicemail to email, ring groups, hunt groups, Outlook and SalesForce.com integration, support for most SIP based ip phones and the popular voice codecs.

3CX Pros

It was one of, if not the easiest install and configuration I have done to date (as it relates to phone systems). From the initial download on the website, install and configuration, consisting of having two ip phones registered, a basic auto attendant and a VoIP provider set-up, it took all of 40 minutes. That is fast.

What made the install so easy was that it was Windows based (so I could download it right to my PC) and with their intuitive web based interface setting up extensions, provisioning phones, creating an auto-attendant was painless. Although I did not set-up a POTS line or integrate the system with Outlook, I did spend some time “playing around” with those configuration settings and they were straight forward as well.

For many, simple isn’t sexy, but when you don’t care to spend days (or weeks) configuring a phone system it sure is!

3CX Cons

The 3CX systems greatest Pro is also one of it’s downfalls (depending on who you are). Since it is built to be simply and easy, it does not have a ton of bells and whistles. Certain must haves such as find-me-follow-me and call queues (available with paid version only) are not currently available.

Although I did not integrate the system with an analog gateway for PSTN connectivity, I can tell you (based on previous experience) that configuring an analog gateway isn’t always easy. This has the potential to be a pain point for those who are less than savvy (Unless you are using a Patton gateway, in which 3CX automatically creates configuration files
which can be uploaded to the gateways. This makes configuration of gateways with 3Cx a snap). In addition, because it is Windows based, there are not any PCI cards that I know of that can be used as an alternative to an external gateway.

Overall Impressions of the 3CX Phone System

Honestly, it was tough to find much wrong with the software. It is easy and simple to set-up and maintain, it has a pretty robust feature set, supports a wide variety of hardware and is very affordable. Software aside, 3CX provides excellent support and the organization is very visible and accessible. Furthermore, their forum provides a wealth of knowledge.Now, if you are an enterprise looking for a phone system, this isn’t for you, but if you are an SMB without an IT staff (or one that is not VoIP/Linux savvy) this is an excellent solution for you.

Pal Alec Saunders sent me a note a minute ago about breaking news from JAJAH.

It seems that the voice 2.0 provider has signed up their 10 millionth customer. Now, I know what having 60,000 customers is like, but 10 million! That’s a serious customer base.

In addition to news about their 10 millionth customer, JAJAH has also opened up their platform for third party developers. Coined as JAJAH Managed Services, the services are described as, “a turnkey telephony service, with everything from network services to billing incorporated in the package.” More importantly, however, Yahoo! will be utilizing the JAJAH platform to provide voice services for their 97 million Yahoo IM users.

I haven’t checked out the program myself yet, but from the sounds of it, it should prove to be a great move for the folks at JAJAH.

Hey Jeff, if you are still reading can you drop me a line?

I would like to chat with you about a couple of things and can’t seem to locate your email/phone number and scouring the web for it has proven to be unsuccessful.

If anyone else can get me in touch with Jeff, please feel free to assist as well.

I was just thinking that it has been awhile since there has been a different voice on here. Posting has been light of late and I am sure there are lurkers out there who have some really interesting things to say.

Anyone out there interested in a guest post?

Contact me if you are interested in writing a guest post.