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Is the Skype outage really a big deal?

Skype's service appears to be up and running again for the most part, after software issues Thursday prevented millions of Skype users from signing on to the IP telephony application.

Skype officials say the outage was not due to a cyberattack or network upgrades. Instead they attributed the issue to "a deficiency in an algorithm within Skype networking software. This controls the interaction between the user's own Skype client and the rest of the Skype network."

As of 11 a.m. GMT Friday, the company said that the software had started to stabilize. Some users have … Read more

Software glitch silences Skype service

Skype users got a proverbial dead line when trying to dial out, or receive, a call on Thursday because of a software glitch with the VoIP service, according to a notice on Skype's Web site.

The notice begins: "Some of you may be having problems logging into Skype." So it's not yet entirely clear how many users are being denied service. The engineering staff at the Internet phone company expects to have the problem resolved within the next 12 to 24 hours, which would put a fix in place sometime Thursday or as late as Friday … Read more

Vonage flounders amid slowed subscriber growth

Internet Protocol telephony player Vonage is still hanging on, but the company, which has been mired in a nasty patent battle with Verizon Communications, is teetering on disaster as it struggles to sign up new customers.

Vonage said Thursday during its second-quarter conference call that it has completed the necessary work-arounds for the Verizon patents that a court found it infringes, but the legal drama has cost the company dearly in terms of recruiting new customers.

Jeffrey Citron, the company's interim CEO, told investors and analysts the company had substantially completed deployments of work-arounds for two of the three … Read more

Phonevite does party invites by phone, not email

Phonevite is a new free invitation and RSVP service that turns your Web browser into a personal assistant of sorts, letting you call a large group of friends, family, or contacts without having to spend all day on the phone. Instead Phonevite provides an asynchronous solution, giving you an easy way to record a personalized invitation message using your computer's microphone, and send it out to a list of hand-picked phone numbers. From there you can send out the "invitation" right away, or schedule it in for a later date.

When an invitation goes live, Phonevite will … Read more

My so-so Ooma setup experience

I spent about 90 minutes Monday night trying to set up an Ooma, a phone system that piggybacks both on your broadband Internet connection and land line. My experience: it was a pain to install, but now it works pretty well.

I've griped to acquaintances about how ordinary folks have had to become first system administrators and now, with broadband and multiple computers per household, network administrators. Setting up a review model from Ooma raised these hackles anew.

There was nothing seriously newbie-deterring like command-line utility, or even setup software. The Ooma system setup had two other afflictions instead. … Read more

VoIP goes Hollywood

What do Ashton Kutcher and voice over IP technology have in common?

Kutcher, best known for his role on That '70s Show and MTV's reality show Punk'd, is "creative director" for a Silicon Valley start-up called Ooma, which has developed a device that will allow users to make free VoIP calls to any phone in the U.S.

The company, which has $27 million in funding, officially announced itself Thursday.

Unlike Vonage, which requires users pay a monthly flat rate for domestic calling, or Skype, which charges users a low-cost fee to make or accept calls … Read more

More iPod-friendly products from Sony

Sony's taken the wraps off two more iPod-compatible home audio products: the ICF-C1iP clock radio, and the ZS-S2iP boom box. The ICF-C1iP clock radio is available in black or white and offers an adjustable backstop for accommodating various sizes of 'Pods in the built-in dock. Otherwise, it's a pretty standard feature set for the clock radio category--adjustable brightness control; AM/FM radio; wake to iPod, radio, or alarm; and wireless remote. Personally, i think the clock's digital display--along the bottom of the iPod dock--seems like it would be too easily obscured, but maybe I just have too many books on my nightstand. … Read more

SunRocket closes its doors

SunRocket, a voice over IP provider, told employees on Monday that it's shutting down, according to several reports from former employees.

The company's Web site is still up, but its customer service line has this recording: "We are no longer taking customer service or sales calls. Goodbye." An internal memo from Sonya Jefferson, director of routing and carrier services for SunRocket was posted on the GigaOm blog earlier Monday.

"Unfortunately this email contains very bad news. We have just been informed that any and all last ditch efforts to keep operations running as well as … Read more