I recently picked up an OBi110 for use with Google Voice, and am happy with it so far. I'm impressed by the functionality and power that's been packed into this little device, and look forward to making use of it for a long time to come.
As a technically-inclined computer user, I've made direct use of
NTP Internet time services, and was not surprised to see that the OBi device uses these as well to keep its internal clock synced. However, there are a couple of issues with this aspect of the device as currently implemented in the firmware.
First, the time server specified in the default configuration is
pool.ntp.org. This is the top-level hostname for the NTP Pool Project, and in their
guidelines for vendors, they state:
QuoteDo not use the standard pool.ntp.org names as a default configuration in your system. The NTP Pool can offer services for you, but it must be setup in advance (see below).
QuoteYou must absolutely not use the default pool.ntp.org zone names as the default configuration in your application or appliance.
According to the guidelines, Obihai should either provide their own time servers (probably stratum-2 systems syncing to an
official stratum-1 host), or arrange a vendor zone (e.g.
obihai.pool.ntp.org) with the NTP Pool Project and provide a small monetary contribution to help defray costs.
Given that Obihai already maintains a significant amount of Internet infrastructure for the benefit of their devices (i.e. OBiTALK), I believe providing their own NTP servers would be the easiest way to go.
Secondly, in viewing the OBi device's network chatter while idle, I see that it makes an NTP request at a rate of once per hour. Is it really necessary to get the time this frequently? Isn't the device's internal clock reasonably accurate enough to allow syncing once every, say, twenty-four hours? Public time servers are heavily-used resources, and while once an hour may not seem like much, when you multiply that by millions of devices---plus the fact that most users leave the defaults untouched---it adds up to a significant additional burden on a public resource.
There have certainly been cases where Internet-attached devices
did the wrong thing vis-a-vis NTP. Given that Obihai already provides an excellent product, and has proven forthcoming and responsive to its user community, my hope is that it can become an example to other vendors in yet another respect.