Verizon Launches 'Hub' VOIP Phone
Verizon Wireless launched a VOIP-based, Linux-powered home phone on Friday, the Verizon Hub. The Hub plugs into a home broadband line and acts as a family calendar, limited Web browser, messaging center, digital picture frame and, of course, a phone.
The Hub is based on OpenPeak's OpenFrame design, which we saw at the Consumer Electronics Show in 2008. The OpenFrame – or the Hub – is an 8-inch, 800x480 touchscreen device which sits on a table or kitchen counter. It has a single DECT 6.0 cordless phone that snaps into the base.
The Hub's home screen shows floating, Web-based widgets such as a calendar and the weather, along with details about missed calls and visual voice mail.
Verizon dressed the OpenFrame up with their own proprietary services. The device can stream movie trailers and other video from V CAST; send directions to phones using VZ Navigator; track children's cell phones using Chaperone; view local traffic information, and send and receive text, picture, and video messages. The Hub doesn't require that you get your broadband from Verizon, though – it works with any Internet connection.
When we tried the OpenFrame, it also had a way to view movie trailers, an RSS reader, and YouTube and Flickr clients, though it's unclear whether those clients will be available on the Verizon Hub.
By touching buttons on the OpenFrame's panel, you can sync it with the various contact lists and calendars in your life, view TV schedules, send an IM or SMS, check the weather, surf the Web, watch streaming video, play music or do a range of other things. The devices are based on Freescale MX31 processors, with two 600-MHz ARM11 chips doing the heavy lifting.
Last year, OpenPeak chief executive Dan Gittleman said the OpenFrame is based on an "open" platform, but it's not open by any normal person's interpretation of the word. While the device's custom OS is based on a hacked Linux kernel, all of the software above the kernel is closed and proprietary. OpenPeak will offer a full API for developing third-party apps, but only to carriers, not to consumers.
Verizon has been coping with a loss of landline subscribers even as the company's wireless business booms. This isn't Verizon's problem alone; every year since 2000, the number of home phones has declined as people go wireless-only, according to the FCC. During the third quarter of 2008 alone, Verizon gained 2.1 million wireless customers and 225,000 high-speed Internet customers, but lost 571,000 residential landline customers, according to the company.
AT&T has also tried to stem the collapse of its landline business with a sexy home phone. The $499.99 AT&T Home Manager is a 7-inch touchscreen device produced by Samsung with many similar features to the Verizon Hub. But it's not as attractive as the Hub, it's only available in nine cities, and it doesn't integrate as fully with AT&T's wireless services as the Verizon Hub does. The HomeManager is also a traditional land-line phone rather than a truly VOIP voice phone.
Verizon did not announce pricing or service plans for the Verizon Hub, but said all would be revealed before the product goes on sale on Feb. 1.
source
The Hub is based on OpenPeak's OpenFrame design, which we saw at the Consumer Electronics Show in 2008. The OpenFrame – or the Hub – is an 8-inch, 800x480 touchscreen device which sits on a table or kitchen counter. It has a single DECT 6.0 cordless phone that snaps into the base.
The Hub's home screen shows floating, Web-based widgets such as a calendar and the weather, along with details about missed calls and visual voice mail.
Verizon dressed the OpenFrame up with their own proprietary services. The device can stream movie trailers and other video from V CAST; send directions to phones using VZ Navigator; track children's cell phones using Chaperone; view local traffic information, and send and receive text, picture, and video messages. The Hub doesn't require that you get your broadband from Verizon, though – it works with any Internet connection.
When we tried the OpenFrame, it also had a way to view movie trailers, an RSS reader, and YouTube and Flickr clients, though it's unclear whether those clients will be available on the Verizon Hub.
By touching buttons on the OpenFrame's panel, you can sync it with the various contact lists and calendars in your life, view TV schedules, send an IM or SMS, check the weather, surf the Web, watch streaming video, play music or do a range of other things. The devices are based on Freescale MX31 processors, with two 600-MHz ARM11 chips doing the heavy lifting.
Last year, OpenPeak chief executive Dan Gittleman said the OpenFrame is based on an "open" platform, but it's not open by any normal person's interpretation of the word. While the device's custom OS is based on a hacked Linux kernel, all of the software above the kernel is closed and proprietary. OpenPeak will offer a full API for developing third-party apps, but only to carriers, not to consumers.
Verizon has been coping with a loss of landline subscribers even as the company's wireless business booms. This isn't Verizon's problem alone; every year since 2000, the number of home phones has declined as people go wireless-only, according to the FCC. During the third quarter of 2008 alone, Verizon gained 2.1 million wireless customers and 225,000 high-speed Internet customers, but lost 571,000 residential landline customers, according to the company.
AT&T has also tried to stem the collapse of its landline business with a sexy home phone. The $499.99 AT&T Home Manager is a 7-inch touchscreen device produced by Samsung with many similar features to the Verizon Hub. But it's not as attractive as the Hub, it's only available in nine cities, and it doesn't integrate as fully with AT&T's wireless services as the Verizon Hub does. The HomeManager is also a traditional land-line phone rather than a truly VOIP voice phone.
Verizon did not announce pricing or service plans for the Verizon Hub, but said all would be revealed before the product goes on sale on Feb. 1.
source
Posts
No comments: