Free Republic

Presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton has launched a mobile-to-mobile text-message campaign in an effort to reach more of America’s 236,000 cell phone users. Users who text the word "Join” to 77007 will receive regular updates about the Clinton campaign, which will "ask for voters’ input and offer a feature allowing supporters to surf Hillary’s Web site on their mobile phones,” according to a statement from her campaign. "By harnessing the power of text messaging, we can engage voters in the political process using the latest technology and provide personalized, local campaign updates to our supporters nationwide.” The text-message initiative is "a...

Stealth firm plays reversi with VoIP codeChinese software developers have reportedly reverse engineered Skype's internet telephony software to develop a clone. The unnamed company has developed a software client using the same protocol and encryption technology used by Skype. This software, which is still in the early stages of development, was used to call Charlie Paglee, co-founder of Voice over IP startup Vozin Communications. Although the software lacks features that indicate whether someone is online or instant messaging technology, Paglee reports that the mystery firm involved plans to add these features (along with stability improvements) and release a stable version...

WASHINGTON--An estimated 4 million subscribers to Internet phone services like Vonage could see new fees on their bills under a plan approved Wednesday by federal regulators. The Federal Communications Commission voted unanimously at its monthly meeting here to require all voice over Internet Protocol services that connect to the public-switched telephone network--as opposed to using peer-to-peer technology, like Skype--to contribute to the Universal Service Fund. The $7.3 billion fund, which has been a feature of U.S. policy for more than 70 years, subsidizes telephone service in rural and low-income areas. It also runs a controversy-plagued program called E-Rate that provides...

When Sprint Nextel filed its lawsuit last month against theglobe.com, Voiceglo and Vonage Holdings for allegedly infringing on its proprietary technology, it may have catapulted all voice over IP (VoIP) service providers into the complicated world of patent litigation. Whether the two defendants eventually have their day in court or settle matters privately still remains to be seen. As of this article's publication date, no response has yet been filed by either defendant. But legal experts familiar with the case generally agree that Sprint is executing on a well-constructed legal strategy that the puts the defendants before an uphill climb....