New website

This blog has been copied to Camiguin Connections http://camiguintelekom.wordpress.com. Why telekom? Sounds German. Yes, it’s German. This is to remind us that telephone network enjoyed by Camiguin is a grant of the German government. Updates will be posted to the new website. Please feel free to post your comments there. Thank you.

Backdoor dialing

Backdoor dialing is one method to establish free calls to  Internet phones using regular phones (landlines or mobile phones). It is a two-step process:

1. Dial the nearest access number (can be in New York, London, Sydney,etc)  -  the list of numbers is usually posted on the provider’s website
2. When the call is answered, dial the Internet phone number.

When the dialing is complete, the Internet phone rings regardless of it’s location (e.g. Philippines)  as long as it’s connected online to the Internet.  My Internet phone is a stand-alone unit. I just leave it on during my waking hours. The setup works just like an ordinary phone.

Country code for VoIP

ITU (International Telecommunication Union) created a country code +883 for the VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) in June 2008. When implemented, IP phones will be reachable from regular phones by dialing +833 prefix. IP phone users needs to get their iNum (International Numbers) to be reachable via +883. iNum is a country-less phone number so you can use it anywhere. As of it’s implementation with telcos, it remains to be seen. As of now, iNums are reachable only thru affiliate providers access numbers. Visit iNum for more details.

CAMTECO Online Telephone Directory

At last, Camiguin Telephone Cooperative (CAMTECO) put up an online directory of it’s subscribers. You can search for part of the subscriber name or address. It’s still under construction so you can find the webpage still looks crude, many disconnected phone numbers still appear, CAMTECO phone numbers are not posted, etc. but it’s still useful to establish initial contact.

For those who are searching for phone number of resorts, many are listed by the name of the owner (not on their business name).  So, search first for the name “tourism”, call them and ask for more details.

So here’s the website http://www.camiguinonline.com

For more information, please call CAMTECO office numbers: (88)387-1000 or (88)387-1002.

Trivia: When was the first telephone system in Camiguin established?

If you think in 1994 by CAMTECO, the Phil-German Telephone Project, you are dead wrong!!! It was on the 60′s. Ask your elders. Post your answer.

Elected officers 2008

In the last General Assemby meeting, the elected officers were:

Board of Directors

• James Bollozos – Chairman
• Antonio Credo – Vice-chairman
• Evangelisto Almonia
• Jesus Flores
• Jesus Wong
• Gorgonio Manlangit
• Emmanuel Aranas

Audit & Inventory Committee

• Corazon Ballentos – Chairperson
• Mercy Marquez – Member
• Josefina Ebarle – Member

Faster, cheaper email for dialup users

Most email users only know webmail – like Yahoo, Hotmail and Google. It’s called webmail because web browser e.g. Firefox or Internet Explorer is used to access your mailbox. This is fine with broadband connection.  But if you have a dialup connection, this is inefficient and costly since you are charged per minute.

Before Yahoo mail became popular,  we were using email reader programs where you can compose and read your email offline.

If you want to try this option, you have to do the following:

Free call to the Philippines using landline

My relatives and friends abroad are now calling me using their regular phone for free! Even though it only cost them $0.16 per minute to call Philippines via regular phone, it’s a big savings for an hour talk especially now that the gasoline is very expensive in the USA/Canada and the rest of the world.

We’ll before the local telcos start sniffing around to check if I’m a hacker. No. My callers are using landline but it rings to my stand-alone Internet Phone. It consumes only 5 watts. I can leave it on for 24-hours but I turn it off when I go to bed. Anyway, it has a voicemail. I can always retrieve missed calls in the morning. Bottom line … it’s legal.

For Camiguin Internet (DSL or wifi) subscribers, we can support to setup your SIP IP phone. I will demo my setup to some friends and I will bring some IP phone hardwares, too. It will be between last week of April and 2nd week of May.

Finally, SIP phone is perfect for OFWs.

Setting up an Internet phone is no trivial matter. To make things easier for mere mortals, get pre-configured units like MagicBox.PH. It’s a cheaper option than Vonage.

Are the days of small telcos numbered?

I came across this BBC news that Intel is backing Wireless Africa Plan. Wireless Internet and telephony? Yes, I agree this is the most feasible technology for remote areas. Being a pioneer of the Phil-German Rural Telecommunication Network project, I cannot help but worry about the future of the telephone cooperative I started and the small telcos who cannot (or didn’t) keep up with the technology.

In 1994, Camiguin Telephone Cooperative (CAMTECO), started with a state-of-the-art telephone Alcatel S12 exchange. The remote subscribers that are too far from the exchange, are connected via Alcatel’s RURTEL TDMA system. It is the same system used by Telecom Eireann (now Eircom) in Killarney, Galway and Donegal (Ireland) where I underwent training in 1992. However, in 2005, the residents of Black Valley, County Kerry raised the issue of poor telephone service and non-availability of broadband service to the Irish Parliament in 2005.

Giant telecom companies catched the vision what the Internet can offer. So they dropped their expensive DSL services and bundled them in their basic voice services for less than P900/month. And I overheard that video will be bundled,too, for less than P1,000/month in the near future.

The domestic long distance traffic of small rural Local Exchange Carriers (LECs) drastically dropped due to the penetration of mobile networks. Incoming overseas calls also dropped because of email and voice/video chatting

“But how about local calls? Calling via mobile phones is more expensive than landline!”. Hmm. That’s right. But how about VoIP like Yahoo voice chat or Skype. “Too much hassle. I to need to turn on my computer, we need to set an appointment to call and I must keep it running for 24 hours so that I don’t miss any incoming call. No way!”.

That’s the common notion about VoIP. But take a look at this gadget.

This is a analog telephone adaptor (ATA), a class of IP Phone, which I bought for only P4,500 including shipment. Just plug an analog phone(!), then your Internet connection, and get a 9~12V DC supply (from a power adaptor or battery). Bingo! Now you have a stand-alone IP phone. No computers needed. Very handy – about the size of a cigarette pack. Low power consumption,  just 5 watts, you can keep it running 24 hours 7 days!

PLDT expands their domestic fiber-optic network capacity

Manila Bulletin posted that PLDT’s domestic fiber optic network to reach terabit capacity by year-end. Terabit is a measurement of volume of digital information. Each DVD disk contain 4 gigabytes. In my rough calculation, PLDT fiber network can transfer 31 DVDs per second!  Why?  “To support our economy which has become to be more and more dependent on the power of the Internet ….”.

See … PLDT is now preparing for the increasing demand of Internet vs voice by expanding their Wi-fi/3G wireless broadband connection. I think part of their capacity expansion is to support the Landline Plus service nationwide, too,  which I feel will kill the small LECs (Local Exchange Carriers).  And I suspect that the Landline Plus service is just an interim service to help finance future expansions because it cannot carry broadband connection. The subscribers will have to get a broadband connection because it also carries voice (VoIP). Once the subscribers upgrade to wireless broadband, they can just throw the Landline Plus units away.

For the international connection, “PLDT would also be complementing the DSL capacity by doubling its Internet Gateway to 50 Terabits per second capacity “.  Gateway is the international fiber-optic link crossing the oceans to major points like USA, Taiwan, Singapore, etc.

With this huge capacity, it’s very near that Smart/PLDT will offer voice, Internet and cable TV with hundreds of channels in one package.