VoIP: Voice over internet protocol

Voice over internet protocol or VoIP is beginning to come into it's own. The promise of cost savings over traditional phone lines is driving this technology into the mainstream. Leveraging your existing broadband connection to save on your monthly phone expense at first glance makes sense. Let's take a closer look.

First off, can your existing broadband throughput handle the additional strain of digital voice transfer? You can use your favorite search engine (google, bing, yahoo, etc.) and search for "VoIP broadband test" to get a general idea of the speed of your connection. This is only the first consideration.

How is your existing broadband access coming into your home? If you're using DSL then using VoIP for your primary phone line may not be an option. DSL availability without existing phone service is not generally available. You should check with your local phone company before canceling service. You just might end up with no phone service, VoIP or traditional. Check first.

If you're using cable internet access and your connection speed test looks good, find a VoIP provider that allows for a trial period. You may find a good provider that offers up to 30 days for you to cancel if you are not satisfied with voice quality or service.

A VoIP converter and a router will be required to setup your VoIP service. Your modem would plug into your router. Next your converter plugs into your router and your phone base plugs into your converter. Most normal phones should work fine. There isn't any special phone required to use this type of service. The entire process is pretty painless, but if you should run into any issue, your provider should be ready to help.

If you're looking to leverage your existing broadband internet access to save money on your monthly phone expense, VoIP can be a great option. Just remember to check your connection, check with your local phone provider (for DSL users) and find a provider that offers a money back trial period. This can be a great way to save money, but don't be pressured before you know the facts. Even if it doesn't work out for you now, keep your eye on this technology.

The FCC is already involved in the apparent conflict between VoIP service providers and DSL access. E911 service (Enhanced 911 service) is already being mandated and additional steps will be made to bring this technology further into the mainstream. Make no mistake about this technology. It has arrived and is here to stay.

Google Places Launched

Google knows things. Specifically Places as they launched their new product, Google Places.

Google knows 50 million places, and when you search for say "museums new york," it now shows you a new kind of search result that replaces a list of links with a list of mini-pages for museums in the Big Apple with a map on the right. Each mini-page has links to reviews around the Web on sites like Citisearch and Yelp, as well as the address and phone number. The mini-profile also has a photo and a algorithmically chosen snippet from a typical review.

Google will automatically choose the so-called Place search, rather than a general web search, if it thinks your query is about a place -- something Place Search product manager Jackie Bavaro says accounts for about 20 percent of Google searches.

More ambiguous queries such as "soccer field" will use the main search, since the user could be trying to learn the official FIFA regulations for a soccer field, not find one to scrimmage on. But Place Search remains an option for all searches, joining the left navigation on Google's search results, alongside Images, Shopping, News and Video.

"We are now organizing the world's information around places," Bavaro said. "Each place is really its own results page, dynamically connecting Web pages."

The feature will be slowly rolled out to users around the world starting Wednesday. For now, Place Search is for the desktop only, but a mobile version is in development and should be available soon -- a no-brainer, since searching to learn about or find a place is one of the most common searches on mobile devices.

The feature is yet another step by the net's major search engines to use the interface to improve search, rather than tweaking the ranking algorithms or building a bigger index. Bing and Yahoo are already making moves to build pages for "entities." See, for instance, what Yahoo does for musical artists and Bing creates for entities such as colleges.

Google Place Search does not rely on human editors to curate pages (neither do Yahoo and Bing's), and instead relies on algorithms to determine what pages on the net are about a given place. One can expect that Google and others will keep building on this idea, so more and more of your searches about things -- whether that be the San Francisco Giants pitcher Tim Lincecum or the Samsung Galaxy S or Osgood-Schlatters disease -- will be mini-pages curated by an algorithm of information from the Web.