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ZyXel P-2000W VoIP WLAN Phone Reviewed 87
prostoalex writes "MSNBC reviews ZyXel's P-2000W, a VoIP-over-WLAN phone that supports 802.11b and 802.11g. Gary Krakow tests the $200 phone with a VoIP account from T-Glo (his phone came pre-programmed with that). Looks like a pretty decent solution for anyone who's on the go, but has consistent access to Wi-Fi networks: 'I took the phone with me to a number of friends' homes and tried it there. All I had to do is ask the phone to find nearby networks and join them. It was even able to find others' WiFi networks as I walked though Manhattan (no, I didn't try connecting).'"
Two words... (Score:3, Funny)
and... (Score:1)
Re:Two words... (Score:1)
Did anyone else read that as... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Did anyone else read that as... (Score:1, Funny)
Re:Did anyone else read that as... (Score:1)
Re:Did anyone else read that as... (Score:1)
This is very cool. (Score:2)
Re:This is very cool. (Score:2)
Maybe this next gen phone has a way. The article didn't mention.
But for home wireless usage, absolutely. Quality is great.
Re:The article did mention it (Score:1)
Article: "I followed the instructions and asked the phone to find nearby 802.11b or 802.11g wireless networks. After a few tries it found my home access point. I typed in my network's security code - the phone re-booted and was ready to make clear sounding phone calls. "
Re:excuse me but (Score:1)
but they had to get the x, y, and z in the name to be eXZtrYM! (to the max!)
Re:excuse me but (Score:5, Informative)
Re:excuse me but (Score:1)
Zyxels, US Robotics Couriers and Hayes were the modems us "older timers" lusted for. The Rolls Royces of 14.4k modems.
The best I could ever afford back then was an el cheapo "Zoom Telephonics" But it was a _vast_ improvement over the generic 1200 and 2400bps modems I was using back then.
Sweet! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Sweet! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Sweet! (Score:3, Interesting)
Observe:
(I kind of hope this doesn't get moded up very much, or else a lot of people will start screwing the system like I do...)
Here's my trick, get an unlimited incoming call plan from your mobile company, and an asterisk box with VOIP (From my employer in my case). To make outbound calls on the mobile, call the asterisk box from your phone and hang up. Have it generate a call to you after you hang up and present you with an IVR (Voice Menu) where you can dial ou
Re:Sweet! (Score:1)
Re:Sweet! (Score:1)
http://www.iwireless.com/ [iwireless.com]
-Shawn
Re:Sweet! (Score:2)
http://www.iwireless.com/megatalk_payinadvance.as
i can find for $45 on their web site.
Your statement has more truth than you think (Score:2)
Try it with the power out (Score:5, Insightful)
This guy is talking such shit. If he did have a proper power outage, I'm sure his VoIP is going to break.
When we had our big power outage in the NE of N. America a couple of summers back, my land line carried on flawlessly. My internet went down and stayed down longer then the power was off. That would definitely break a VoIP phone, methinks.
What ever you have to say about the baby Bells, they've had to maintain higher standards than other alternative providers of telephony. Or at least that how it seems here in Canada.
Re:Try it with the power out (Score:1)
Re:Try it with the power out (Score:2)
wondering is if this is a way for them to cut their power
usage? FIOS requires end user provided power w/ battery
backup. Any engineers know the details? Is the homeowner
now proving power to ring the line?
Re:Try it with the power out (Score:1)
Re:Try it with the power out (Score:2)
the survivability of the fiber lines/system. Outside of the
city its still strung up on poles like the old system, AFAIK. At least I didn't seem verizon digging up every street in the
town! In a hurricane or similar, will they have a lot more
to replace compare to POTS?
Re:Try it with the power out (Score:1)
The fibre used for telecom trunks is similar to the common stuff people are use to seeing in a data center for things like gigabit ethernet, oc-3's, and the like. However, it isn't one pair; it's several (dozen) pairs. The smallest I've ever seen was 3 pairs -- bellsouth's spar off a main trunk to an offi
another anecdote (Score:1)
Well guess what, it took two days to fix the wires from all the felled trees while that buried cable and vonage service kept chugging away.
If you were really worried about realiability like all the slashdot nuts seem to be (what did people do in 1920 when there
Re:another anecdote (Score:1)
The resilience of various networks will vary wildly everywhere you go. Both phone and cable can each be on a pole or in the ground. Your parents have their cable in the ground and phone hanging on poles. It could just've easily been the other way around. And it would've been much more than 2 days to get it fixed; the PSTN is a regulated public utility with mandated availability requirements where as cable is not.
In fact, I've seen the exact opposite... power restored in
Still too expensive .... (Score:2)
I put up an asterisk exchange at home last month - I'd love to toss wifi phones thru the house ... but at $200/pop they still cost too much - maybe at ~$50 I think they get interesting
WDS Performance (Score:2)
I'm in a situation where we have a VOIP phone system in-house with between 3 and 7 APs across a 2 square mile radius. I'd be curious to know if it drops the call when it switches APs. I know most proxim cards don't if you're on a laptop but d-links do. I won't get into the quality of dlink wireless products. ugh
Anywho, with a standby time of 24 hours and a 4 hour talk time it
Zyxel is good stuff (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Zyxel is good stuff (Score:2)
Of course if you're comparing it to a consumer grade product they aren't so bad.
Re:Zyxel is good stuff (Score:2)
Having said that, it looks like the ZyWALL's stack up pretty good against Sonicwall's low/mid end.
Per ZyXEL's home page [zyxel.com], their ZyWALL 70 won Network Computing's "Best Value Award" and SC Magazine's "Best of 2004" award. Not too shabby. Also did a quick google search and turned up this review from Network World, "the Zyxel ZyWall 70 comes in a close [networkworld.com]
Re:Zyxel is good stuff (Score:2)
They had this concept in the UK in the 80's (Score:3, Informative)
and funnily enough it failed, why ? lack of connection points (it was relativly cheap too)
BBC story about it [bbc.co.uk] , would be wise to read it before praising Wifi phones just yet
regulators headache (Score:2)
How revolutionary!! (Score:4, Insightful)
That's kinda' like geeks who buy a powerful PC with a video card so that they can watch TV on their PC's.
Re:How revolutionary!! (Score:2)
I work remotely all the time, and often times from friends' homes in other cities. When working, I'm on conference calls for most of the day. And my cell phone may or may not work well at my friends' house, but their wifi always works well. And I don't want to have to haul all my VoIP phone boxes and crap with me to their house. So I've been looking forward to something like this for quite some time.
Re:How revolutionary!! (Score:2)
My point is, every friend I visit who has broadband internet also has wifi. So if there's internet for my laptop, then there could be VoIP for me. And without having to use my daytime minutes on my cell. Which can rack
Re:How revolutionary!! (Score:1)
In my travels outside the US, I do find many places where WiFi is availaible, I have yet to find someone who has a cell phone that works in and out of the US (I know they exist...)
This makes business sense for my company, where I work, we don't have cell coverage over the entire property (10-15 square miles of testing facility), for $20,000 worth of equipment AT&T would allow us to put up our own cell phone repeater (which we
Re:How revolutionary!! (Score:2)
Actually, G.711u (or "a" for that matter) only use 64k, so, unless you're running torrents all the time, you shouldn't have a problem. It's the up speed that really counts, not so much the down speed.
G711 and the ZyXel WiFi phone (Score:2)
Re:How revolutionary!! (Score:1)
Complain? I'm afraid you haven't tried using a verizon phone around where I live. No matter where I am in the house, I can't go ten minutes without getting disconnected. I usually have to call my girlfriend back 5-10 times during a night's conversation. On top of that, my most frequent phrases are "What?" and "I can't hear you..." I don't want to complain, I want to cut verizon's balls off and smash them with a hammer. Maybe not in that order. Ar
A very superficial "review" (Score:4, Informative)
The largest problem is that you can't use these phones in places where you have to log onto a service provider in order to use the wifi connection - for example at a Starbucks. You can only use it on wifi access points that are wide open or for which you have the WEP key. Both 64 & 128 bit WEP are supported though.
The firmware is still a little flaky. Once in a while, it randomly reboot itself. Also, it sometimes has trouble connecting with access points that use MAC address filtering, even if the phone's MAC address is correctly entered on the allowed list.
The phone is easy enough to configure via its web interface. There appear to be a few features that are only configurable via web interface and a few that are only configurable via the phone's menus.
The phone can hold only one set of SIP settings (i.e only one VOIP provider account) at a time.
Battery life sucks. The manual suggests something like 20 hours standby and 3-4 hours talk. I'm guessing that the real numbers are around half of that.
I bought mine at an Office Depot office supplies store (US$199), and it came with a sticker on the box promoting tglo and promising a $50 rebate if you signed up for tglo service. The phone is NOT locked to tglo and I have tried mine on Freeworld Dialup and SipPhone among others.
The Zyxel website provides firmware downloads and a fairly comprehensive manual.
Other than that, it pretty much works as advertised.
Re:A very superficial "review" (Score:2)
Don't keep us in suspense! (Score:2)
and again... (Score:2)
Smart people don't like it... (Score:2, Informative)
http://slacker.com/~nugget/asterisk3.php [slacker.com]
Keep reading past that page, and he says he doesn't use it at all anymore due to it being so terrible.
Meh fun toy, not a serious product (Score:1)
What CRAP! (Score:2, Funny)
Well, first voip handset provider to supply this has my business!
----
sarcasm ( P ) Pronunciation Key (särkzm)
n.
A cutting, often ironic remark intended to wound.
A form of wit that is marked by the use of sarcastic langua
I plan to get this.. (Score:1)
Truphone [scn.com] + a Nokia N91 [nokia.com]
VoIP Over 802.11b when you can, and cellular when you can't.
(sorry about the N91 link. It's as close as I could get on their stupid flash site)
Encryption?? (Score:2)
WEP, WEP everywhere... (Score:2)
Better yet, you don't have to look very hard to find stories about non-Cisco handset
Sorry buit this phone is weak sauce (Score:2, Insightful)
1. No WPA support!
2. This device can't give user credentials for a T-Mobile hotspot account or other similar types of roaming Wi-Fi accounts
So basically, I like the idea but its security needs massive improvement and it needs to be able to work on authenticated gateways that you find at most mobile wi-fi hotspots. Sure this device will work great on any insecure or unsecured WiFi network but I certain refuse to use any WiFi device that doesnt support at least WPA security these day
Security? Encryption? (Score:2)
Why is it that my cellphone can render 3D graphic
Re:Security? Encryption? (Score:1)
Re:Security? Encryption? (Score:1)
Another review (Score:1)
One major complaint I have about the 2002W is that it heats up a lot, and one can o
My GF has one (Score:2)
What it really needs is a tiny browser to accept the splash page on free AP's (e.g. Panera bread). Or just a function that retrieves a random webpage and "presses" any OK/I_Agree/Accept buttons.
On a few occations I have brought a laptop, changed the MAC address to match the phone, started a browser, accepted the terms of use, turned the laptop off, and turned the phone on. Then it works.
What it really needs is an open source firm
I am surprised nobody suggested ... (Score:1)
Re:I am surprised nobody suggested ... (Score:1)
--
lds
Vonage Unhappy (Score:3, Interesting)
According to a user on Vonage Forum, Vonage has requested that Zyxel not provide assistance to owners seeking to use this phone with Vonage's SoftPhone service.
See Vonage restricting use of ZyXEL P2000 [vonage-forum.com]
This is probably because of Vonage's investment in the competing product [vonage.com] from UTStarcom.
ZyXEL in violation of the GPL (Score:2)
No worries about SIP cloning, international calls? (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:No worries about SIP cloning, international cal (Score:1)
Or am I just a paranoid anonymous coward?
Yes, you are a paranoid AC. That doesn't mean you're wrong, though.
Remember: Just because you aren't paranoid doesn't mean that they aren't out to get you.
ZyXel builds great products... (Score:1)
-r
Re:Worthless QoS (Score:1)
Just remember when you buy Zyxel (Score:1)
this could usher in a new era! (Score:2)
holy crap, you mean i can have the same number "almost everywhere"! damn, i am so going to chuck my cell phone and its multiplicity of phone numbers! i am just so tired of having to use a different number at each cell tower i access...
Repeat? (Score:1)
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/03/12/13462