Answering Service Blog | American Inbound

Answering services often use SMS to get emergency messages to service technicians and doctors. Now, police departments have found a new use for this technological convenience. Following in Boston’s and Cincinnati’s footsteps, Louisville is encouraging people, young people in particular, to text message anonymously the police about crimes. Among the crimes that have already been reported to the police sergeant are school vandalism and illegal dumping in the forest.

 For more on this new use of SMS texting, click here.

Having trouble staffing your call center? It may be adventageous to your answering service to hire operators who work from home. Not only can you find more people willing to do the job (many people would love to work from home), but also you will be able to cut down on absences. During busy times, a shift manager can call a remote operator and ask if they can go into rotation and take calls.

Afraid that operators who work from home will not do their job properly because they’re unsupervised? Don’t worry. Virtual supervision is available. With call recording technology, every call an operator takes can be recorded and heard by call center management.

Click Here to read an article about at home call center operators

Think holographic teleconferencing technology is years away? Well think again. Cisco and Musian Systems have joined forces, and their results are nothing less than spectacular. Seeing is believing, so please check out the video.
For more info on the subject:
Cisco On-Stage TelePresence Holographic Video Conferencing
Cisco Experimenting with an On-Stage Telepresence Experience

Mobile instant messaging (MIM) is poised to take over SMS. MIM is very similar to SMS, in that you can send and receive text messages on your cell phone; however, MIM is capable of more flexibility.

MIM is simply an instant messaging program stored on your cell phone. Think of Yahoo Messenger, ICQ, AIM or MSN Messenger for mobiles.

MIM provides many benefits over SMS. SMS cannot store user information. When you send an SMS, you can only tell the telephone number you are texting. With MIM, configurable profiles are available. These can provide information such as names, email addresses, home addresses, or any other info the messaging service provides.

Matthew Kirk points out on Textually.org:

“Of every 100 messages - including texts, emails and picture messages - sent by users without mobile instant messaging from their mobile phone or computer, 38 are text messages. Once consumers start using mobile instant messaging, the number of texts falls to 23 per 100.”

This Sunday AT&T will be releasing a new service to transmit TV channels to your cell phone. The service will cost $15 a month and provides 10 channels for your viewing: CBS Mobile, Comedy Central, ESPN Mobile TV, Fox Mobile, MTV, NBC 2Go, NBC News 2Go, Nickelodeon, PIX (a movie channel), and CNN Mobile Live.

Unfortunately, the service is only available for two of the newest cell phones on the market: The LG Vu, and the Samsung Access. However, they mention that other TV-ready phones will be released in the future.

It is now possible to anonymously report crime tips to the authorities. mBlox, the largest mobile network, and Anderson Software, LLC, a leader in law enforcement tip software, are teaming to provide this service on a nationwide basis.

The application is very secure and it is encrypted, which allows the investigator to have two-way correspondence while maintaining the user’s anonymity.

TipSoft is currently deployed in 16 Canadian cities and they are currently launching in 32 US cities. Service will also be available soon throughout the UK.

Samsung is kicking it in to high gear.  They’ve developed brand new battery technology that will allow gadgets to be powered off of water.  Yes ordinary water.  Cnet has written an explanation of this high-tech wizardry on their site. 

Battery life will comprable to current lithium ion batteries.

“According to Oh Yong-soo, vice president of Samsung Electronics Mechanics’ research centre, the new battery could last for up to 10 hours, adding that based on four hours of use daily on average, the hydrogen cartridge will have to be replaced about every five days. ”
 

The initiative to create an SMS warning sytem has been approved by the FCC.  All US major cell phone companies are looking into its implementation, though it is not mandatory.  The service is also optional for individual cell users.  So if you would like to opt out of it, you will be able to.

More at:
www.teleclick.ca

technocrat.net

Phone service costing you a fortune?  Small businesses can dramatically reduce the cost of internet and telephone by installing a shared T1 line. 

T1 Rex explains that T1 lines have recently dropped in price so dramatically that businesses with only 6 lines can save money if they were to switch. 

Cell phone users travelling in Europe will be allowed to use their cell phones while flying this year.  This is a first world-wide for cell users.  All calls will be routed through a base station in the plane which is connected to a satellite uplink. 

The EU insists this will not be a safety issue.   The service will be blocked during take-off and landing and only be allowed at a height of 10,000 feet.  The pilot will have control over when the service is turned on and off.

Unfortunately there have been no scheduled plans for the States.  The AP released a FAQ on in-flight cell phone rules if you’re planning on travelling in Europe and have a question.