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Wireless Networking Hardware

Cisco's Wi-Fi Phone 134

Posted by timothy from the check-your-terms-of-service dept.
Forbes.com has a quick look at Wi-Fi-enabled VOIP phone. If a company deploys it in more than one location you can take the phone with you, and it acts just like the phone on your desk. Calls across the country or potentially across the ocean can be as free as a call across the office. There's also plans to incorporate support for wireless phone networks.
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Cisco's Wi-Fi Phone More

Cisco's Wi-Fi Phone

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  • And so will thease new VOip have the same backdoors in as cisco say they will build into their other products :-(
    • Based on the reports since 9/11, the government can already monitor cell phone conversations. Most new ones have GPS built in, so not only can they hear you, they can tell where you are when you say it.
      • You don't even need GPS for this :-)
        Link [prweb.com] here

      • Re:Backdoor (Score:4, Insightful)

        by pantropik ( 604178 ) on Monday April 28, 2003 @06:05PM (#5829435)
        Another instance of trading personal freedom and/or privacy for security?

        Hard to say. I mean, I live in Florida, near the capital, but you don't have to drive far in any direction to be in the middle of the National Forest (read: nowhere). If I'm driving out in the middle of nowhere, get in a wreck and end up mangled I want someone to be able to pinpoint my location if I dial 911 from my cell phone.

        What if I barely have time to hit the emergency button on the phone before I lose consciousness? What if I just can't talk for some reason? What if I don't really have a clue where I am or I'm just too addled to describe the location clearly? Around here, it's really easy to be on a 50-mile stretch of road that's just trees and more trees with lots of smaller roads branching off to who knows where.

        It's more a case of when and how the location technology is used than whether there should be such technology. It has life-saving uses, but as with so many other things the potential for abuse is huge, especially by an administration that considers accountability, honesty and transparency nothing more than obstacles that must be overcome.

        Maybe I'm too cynical ... that would suck. The only thing that would suck worse is if I'm not being cynical enough ...
      • the goverment has always been able to monito phone conversations, be them cell OR normal landlines.

        they don't just 'tap in' to the landline going to your house, they issue a warrant(or whatever is needed in the country in question) and have the phone company record the calls. as such it doesn't matter if the phone is landline, celly, or whatever in todays world (that is, digital world, the call isn't practically crypted when it's off the air, they can do whatever they please with it). and as a fact most ne
    • Its over ip, Ever hear of a packet sniffer... VOIP is cool, but is being taken a little too far. Voice/Video should be seperate from the data networks. ME.

  • War-calling (Score:1, Funny)

    by jemenake ( 595948 )
    Hey... now I can drive around town and make calls to China with someone else's WAN connection....
    ... wait... you mean it's not going to drive their bills sky-high? Pffffff! What's the point, then? :)

  • More on a previous /. news post... (Score:4, Informative)

    by Chicane-UK ( 455253 ) <chicane-uk.ntlworld@com> on Monday April 28, 2003 @05:21PM (#5829044) Homepage
    Information on the release date, and other info was posted on this [slashdot.org] /. posting from a two weeks ago.
  • Phones without cords? What is this world coming to?

  • Comment removed (Score:3, Funny)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) * on Monday April 28, 2003 @05:23PM (#5829057)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • This is cool! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by sipmeister ( 615618 ) on Monday April 28, 2003 @05:23PM (#5829067)
    Finally the time has come for affordable IP phones (as Cisco announced a $130 desktop IP phone as well). The technology to make all this useful has been developed over the last couple of years, and as much as this is being touted for the enterprise, it will impact the consumer market as well. I'm already using a Cisco 7960 hooked up to my DSL, using a SIP enabled router (Intertex IX66) to call people all over the world (for free!).

  • VOIP (Score:2, Insightful)

    by camken ( 568412 )
    I for one welcome the day that VoIP can be a reality,
    but let's face it, with the ammount of data that it requires, a WiFi enabled VoIP call would just eat up the bandwidth that others need to use to do their work. let's focus on bringing sellular technology to the IP network, rather than the other way around.

    • Re:VOIP (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      WTF are you talking about????

      I have DSL at my house. Its shitty and only gets max of 384. WiFi starts, well I should say not always, at around 10mb...note the difference in speed???

      Vonage is using DSL and etc at people's homes.

      I just use my workplaces VOIP phone system to connect to our offices remotely. Its like 12k for a phone conversation. Yeah sure you can run up the codec to take like 65MB...but why the hell would you do that when its crystal clear at 12k.

      If you dont know WTF you are talking ab
    • The best part about this isn't that it's a godsend to any particular need, but rather that it will attract business users who aren't fully utilizing their networks (a lot of 'em) and help drive down cellular phone costs.

      Right now Cellular providers use stickin' it too us for services that should be free (text messaging). If we *do* get it for free over the LAN and we use it, then the market dictates that cellular providers will be forced to lower their prices.

      TW
    • bringing cellular technology to the IP network, rather than the other way around.

      Yes but what about all that dark fiber?
      • The fiber is cheap compared to the cost of lighting it up. It cost the same to bury 12 stands as 1 (cost of the bundle aside), so everyone stuck a lot more stuff in the ground than they ever intended on using.

    • Re:VOIP (Score:2, Interesting)

      by HeadbangerSmurf ( 649736 )
      Amount of data? A g.711 call requires about 80Kbps of data when there is data to be transmitted. That is, if you're not talking there's nothing there to send. Also, last time I checked, when I'm working on a project or surfing the web, there's a bunch of time in there where I'm not transmitting or receiving anything on my machine. Unless I'm on a porn downloading spree I don't see how this phone is going to impact any of the work I'm doing. What surprises me the most is that this technology has been ou
      • well, you know what? i've been wrong before.
        it was my understanding that the amount of data being transmitted would significantly impact the wireless router's bandwidth capability.
        it still seems like that, to me, because of the number of people in each office, that sooner or later one router would get bogged down. but obviously i am just mistaken on that.
    • What I want to know is how the phone handles handoffs to other Wi-fi nodes and whether it can roam around a campus environment. If you start to lose the signal on one node and pick up another, you get a new IP Address through DHCP... How does the phone system handle this? In order for this system to work, it has to be able to roam across wireless nodes.

  • Wow! (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    At $595 a handset I'd be a sucker not to buy a dozen
  • Will this have any impact on traditional phone companies?
    • Loss of revenue for a start, since the start of the internet, more local calls to the isp, but less national/international calls since email/im/voip is much cheaper.
    • Probably will impact their revenues for long distance and regional toll calls. The regional bells are clueless when it comes to new technology, so they won't move fast on this.
      • I wouldn't say "clueless". They know what it is and exactly what it's going to do to their business. "Lazy" would be a better term. They really have no desire to change the way they've been doing business for the last 30+ years. VoIP is certainly neat stuff, but it's a long way from the quality and stability of the modern PSTN -- amazing given the age of the equipment and the nuts managing it (and I'm one of them.)

        Speaking from experience, telco facility equipment is expensive and becomes obsolete far
        • Good point...lazy is a better term. By the time they figured out ISDN for the home it was old news, then it took them forever to get DSL to consumers. However in those situations it wasn't so much the hardware investment as the install support and help desk issues. Compare the telcos to the cable systems...telcos at least were able to run ISDN and DSL over their existing network (from CO to point of service). Cable had to rewire the entire country with fiber, so they were really taking a chance.
    • Some time ago it was in the news that Panama had legislation floating about that would require ISPs to block the ports that VoIP used, citing that it would decimate the domestic telephone industry.

      It didn't matter whether the traffic had a endpoint in Panama...even traffic passing THROUGH Panama was supposed to be blocked.

      Not sure what happened with that.

  • Wow (Score:4, Funny)

    by Dr_LHA ( 30754 ) on Monday April 28, 2003 @05:27PM (#5829100) Homepage
    I was wondering when somebody was going to invent a kind of "Mobile Phone". Imagine being able to make calls from whereever you like? Its an amazing idea - I can throw away my 100 ft telephone extension cable now! I hope these "Mobile Phones" catch on!

  • We need everything rolled into one device (Score:5, Interesting)

    by pmbuko ( 162438 ) <pmbuko AT gmail DOT com> on Monday April 28, 2003 @05:28PM (#5829108) Homepage
    What they need to do now is create a hybrid cell/wi-fi/VoIP phone with bluetooth that can auto-sense where it is in relation to your desk and/or office building.

    When at your desk, your wired desk phone rings. When in the hallway/bathroom/break room, your wireless phone rings. When outside the building, calls are forwarded to your cell number on the same device.

    You would be able to customize each of the 3 zones (office, building, world) with its own call-handling rule set. Higher-end models would also auto-sense when you were in the bathroom, so you could avoid those embarrasing moments without thinking twice.
    • You would be able to customize each of the 3 zones (office, building, world) with its own call-handling rule set.

      I can just see my mom trying to 'customize each of the 3 zones with it's own call-handling rule-set'. Abbot and Costello, minus hilarity, plus tears of frustration.

      On the other hand, the day has probably already come and gone when the average user should be considered as tech-savvy as my mom. That worries me a little, though. It means the day when I, too, will be obsolete and considered no

    • What we need are fewer Cisco advertisements on the slash
    • What they need to do now is create a hybrid cell/wi-fi/VoIP phone with bluetooth that can auto-sense where it is in relation to your desk and/or office building.
      You mean like this [slashdot.org]?
    • And they aren't far away from it. The key problems will be in the software, getting all the systems to talk together and fully integrate. But the mobile devices are starting to come through with the next-gen mobiles.

      Oxford Research Labs, the people behind VNC, were doing similar stuff without the mobile technology parts quite some time ago. They had a location system that could pinpoint where an employee was in their buildings. When someone calls you, a phone nearby would ring with a distinctive personal

  • yikes! (Score:3, Funny)

    by EvilStein ( 414640 ) <spam@pb p . net> on Monday April 28, 2003 @05:28PM (#5829111)
    "The devices will start shipping in June with a list price of about $595 a handset."

    Wow, that's a costly phone..

    "Sir, I think that we can save the company money by NOT buying those expensive phones and just letting employees actually return their voicemails when they get to the office. No need to spend $595 per phone just to bug people when they're on lunch!" ;)

    • Re:yikes! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Erwos ( 553607 ) on Monday April 28, 2003 @06:26PM (#5829600)
      It _seems_ costly, until you start doing some math. I know the price shocked me, too.

      That $600 is one time cost. There's no recurring fees on the phone, just maintenance of the VoIP network. While that might not be cheap, it's infrastructure, and infrastructure spending is easy to justify in a case like this, where you can show clear cost savings.

      A good cellular plan runs at, what, $60 or so a month in the USA. This phone is not as flexible as a cell phone, in that you can't take it everywhere and use it. But at $720 a year, a cell phone costs way, way more than this one.

      But, aha! The next year, you've saved all $720 on each phone, sans the support of the VoIP network. If you've got 1000 cell phones on your company account and replace them all with VoIP phones, you've saved nearly $720,000 - let's call it $500k with VoIP support costs. That's one hell of a lot of money.

      Not everyone needs the flexibility of a cell phone. If all you want is a comfortable wireless phone to use at work, this is a good deal. In fact, it has a goodly amount of potential for telecommuters, too - imagine patching your home system to your employer's VoIP system via the internet. No more phone bills to justify, auditing, etc.

      -Erwos

      • Re:yikes! (Score:3, Informative)

        by gujo-odori ( 473191 )
        It _seems_ costly, until you start doing some math. I know the price shocked me, too.

        I just finished a pilot VOIP install in an extremely rural area of Vietnam, about 250 km or so northwest of Hanoi, as part of a feasability study for bringing VOIP to rural areas. The system consists of a few IP phones in three locations (one of which, a high school, had no telephone at all before the VOIP install) and a couple of PCs for Internet access.

        The main site has a satellite uplink and is connected to the f

  • Nice Phone (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I had this phone to play with at work last thursday and friday. I was very impressed with it compared to the spectralink phones we currently have. It did do a lockup/reboot on me once though. Otherwise, great phone!
  • ...a wi-fi voip have to do with free overseas calls? Voip gives you that already. The additional property of being wi-fi doesn't add that capability; any voip phone does that. Not well, but it does it.

  • Add vpn to make it complete (Score:4, Insightful)

    by binaryDigit ( 557647 ) on Monday April 28, 2003 @05:38PM (#5829219)
    Right now the phone will only work in travel mode when you are connected to your own companies network. The next step would be to have a vpn client embedded in the phone, this way it can be used anywhere there is a wifi signal.
    • Oddly enough, this is covered in the article:

      Cisco has big plans for this product line. Marthin De Beer, vice president and general manager of Cisco's IP Wireless business unit, says that down the road Cisco wants to build a virtual private networking capability into the handset so that the phone will work at public hotspots. Using a VPN lets you connect back to your corporate network over any Internet connection while encrypting the traffic to prevent eavesdroppers and network snoops from seeing your dat


    • Yes, and no. Just like the Cisco 7940/7960 non-mobile line, I'm sure you'll be able to program a public IP address of your "phone server" (in Cisco's product line, a Call Manager). Then you just grab a DHCP address and gateway from whatever 802.11b network you can get on...

      Of course, that's if you don't mind having your traffic sniffed, but most folks don't think of that in the first place.

  • Not a new Idea (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Symbol had a similar product several years years ago. I believe it was called "NetVision", and at the time it ran on 2 m-bit/sec 802.11. I believe they've since updated it to run on 802.11b at 11 m-bit/sec.
  • There's also the Symbol NetVision [oneunified.net] Phone available now. Hopefully they're compatible in more than name only.

  • Dropped (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Superfreaker ( 581067 ) on Monday April 28, 2003 @05:43PM (#5829258) Homepage Journal
    I use vonage business VoIP services. I have calls drop and poor sound quality as is, now if I brought the unpredictability of Wi-Fi connections into play, it would only get worse.

    VoIP is still not a complete solution, at least not for reliable service just yet, IMHO. Unless you go with a dedicated network. Services like vonage are affordable, but they use the net and are vulnerable to the usual traffic issues, etc...

    • Re:Dropped (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Kunta Kinte ( 323399 ) on Monday April 28, 2003 @06:03PM (#5829417) Journal
      VoIP is still not a complete solution, at least not for reliable service just yet, IMHO.

      You're right in your case.

      But for many, many organizations, VOIP makes perfect sense.

      Many organizations have under utilized gig backbones. I know ours do. The Wan link is never enough, but the LAN backbone load never goes above 5 percent in our case.

      VOIP works well in these situation; Saves a lot of money ( they're bypassing phone drops entirely in some locations ), and quality is fine.

      VoIP on WiFi, seems like another story. I dunno about that :)

    • VoIP is still not a complete solution, at least not for reliable service just yet, IMHO

      Drops are the result of networks that are not properly engineered for voice. You need to do that.

      That means using appropriate QoS mechanisms at the edges and either using those same QoS mechanisms across the core or being sure to over-engineer the links (your mileage may vary).

      VOIP is a tradeoff in this regard. Yes, you don't have to duplicate infrastructure, and you actually do get more efficient use of the ba
    • I use vonage business VoIP services. I have calls drop and poor sound quality as is, now if I brought the unpredictability of Wi-Fi connections into play, it would only get worse.

      I've been using Vonage for some time now, and am generally very happy with it.

      Don't use Vonage if your 'net connection is running over ~ 50%. You'll start to get skips and stuttering in your connection.

      But, for your small business with a few phone lines and an xDSL line, it's a godsend. I use it myself, and love the unlimited m
    • I use vonage business VoIP services. I have calls drop and poor sound quality as is, now if I brought the unpredictability of Wi-Fi connections into play, it would only get worse.

      Completely agree. I've lost count a long time ago of neighbors 2.4GHz cordless phones punting my WLAN off the air (like my own 2.4GHz phone does occasionally, too).

      Wireless 2.4GHz & 5GHz spectrum devices do NOT play nice with each other. Not good at all.

  • As mentioned in the previous post: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=61207&cid=5758 604 [slashdot.org] Symbol has had VoIP phones that work with Nortel, Cisco and Mitel IP PBXes for a while. They even have ones with barcode scanners and the like in them. Calum

  • You know... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Faust7 ( 314817 ) on Monday April 28, 2003 @05:44PM (#5829270) Homepage
    But wander from your desk long enough and chances are high that you'll come back to a telephone with that red voice-mail light glowing, meaning you've missed a call.

    Sometimes that's the whole idea.

  • Could IP phones be the thing that IPv6 needs? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jonr ( 1130 ) on Monday April 28, 2003 @05:47PM (#5829298) Homepage Journal
    I just can't help to wonder if IP phones will be the driving force behind IPv6. Millions of phones need their IP numbers. Of course it can be used with NATs and VPNs, but a real IP number would make much more sense.
    J.

  • Star Trek style communicators on the way? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by NanoGator ( 522640 ) on Monday April 28, 2003 @05:53PM (#5829344) Homepage Journal
    I think it'd be kinda cool to have VOIP networks at the office that yield more insntantaneous communications.

    Right now my company's building a couple of systems and we've got ppl running around all over the place. It's hard to reach people at their desks. It'd be kinda cool if we had a form of walkie talkie with a list of ppl we wanna talk to on it, tap their name and start talking. Beats using cell phones, plus we only bug the particular person we wanna bug. (as opposed to having broadcast convos over a walkie-talkie...)

    It's not something we'd spend a whole lotta money on right now as it's not solving that big of problem (small office...) but if we did have it it'd be a huge help. I'd like to call over to the guy in charge of the database just to ask a quick question rather than run to the other side of the office with the error message I'm seeing memorized.

    Well I can dream.
    • Vocera [vocera.com] -- it was probably mentioned on /. 3 or 4 times last week.
    • how many different channels do you need? FRS (family radio service) walkie talkies are really cheap, very clear, and you can adjust them for a lot of different channels, and have headsets with voice activated microphones. I have several of them, work great over here on the estate where I work, get around a 1/4 mile or so open, not sure inside a building though.

      Did I mention cheap? I got two in a blister pack at a thrifstore for 5$ once, some sort of scratch and dent/closeout deal. I imagine if you shop aro

    • Right now my company's building a couple of systems and we've got ppl running around all over the place. It's hard to reach people at their desks. It'd be kinda cool if we had a form of walkie talkie with a list of ppl we wanna talk to on it, tap their name and start talking. Beats using cell phones, plus we only bug the particular person we wanna bug. (as opposed to having broadcast convos over a walkie-talkie...)

      Ever heard of Nextel? [nextel.com]
  • Don't MOST VoIP services do pretty much the same thing, in this case allow you to get calls near dirt cheap no matter where you go, as long as the device is plugged into a Broadband connection.

    Granted this is "WiFi" I doubt that it is overall that much of a improvement, seeing as you'd need to make your laptop WiFi on your trips, (or as this article says have WiFi in both locations you go. [And what about air travel then....]) if you planned to take this thing with you.

    All in all it seems better to just
    • All in all it seems better to just get the phones that are cat5-ed to your laptop/BB connection.

      But then you gotta walk around the office with your laptop in tow, maybe in a backpack, looking like a radio operator circa WWII.

      I share your apathy. This is just same-old, same-old except with the new buzzword WiFi attached.
      • You'd need to drag out some type of hardware on your plane trips, because WiFi isn't really going to be big in Boeings with Connexion [connexionbyboeing.com] until 2004 [connexionbyboeing.com].

        Unless it is ideal to miss those important business calls...

        Or more legitimately that call from the ex-spouse.....
    • Actually -- no.

      These CISCO products are targeted for enterprise. With VOIP, companies only have to maintain a data network and not a voice network because the voice is just data. The roi goes up substantially when you have two offices in different area codes which need to be connected. Traditionally, this type of situation is very costly to set up and maintain with high fee's from the carriers if you want to connect them and not pay per minute fees. With this technology it is very possible for a compan

  • Whoops! (Score:2, Interesting)

    by RNLockwood ( 224353 )
    Scenario
    1. The router (or gateway or something) dies so no email. Ok, I'll use the phone. Whoops.

    2. Have a fire that knocked out power, got to call the FD. Whoops.

    I'll wait.
    • That's valid, but VoIP systems like Vonage allow you to specify a number to be called if your ATA can't be reached. Has saved my ass a couple of times.
    • This is no different from any other phone system. As long as you're smart enough to put your switches and router on a UPS, you will have no problems. You see, the Cisco IP phone system relies pretty heavily on the use of Cisco powered ethernet switches. The wired models all get their power from the switches, and the Aironet access points you'll need for the WiFi phones also get their power from the switch. So, as long as you're smart enough to put your switches and router on a UPS, you will not have a p

  • commodity product (Score:4, Insightful)

    by g4dget ( 579145 ) on Monday April 28, 2003 @06:14PM (#5829510)
    Cisco has big plans for this product line

    Cisco may be able to make lots of money on corporate accounts with an initial version of this, but if IP telephony catches on, then this sort of thing will just become a commodity, sold at cut-rate prices alongside Linksys wireless gateways (with VOIP) and non-name USB 802.11b dongles.

    • Thats why they just baught linksys so they have an outlet for consumer products not just office and high end gear for the tech side.
    • No disrespect to the parent, but shouldn't this be modded "+1, Obvious"? It's like saying if computers catch on, they will be a commodity and sold at Wal-Mart. And if doesn't catch on, it will be like Divx, soon to be extinct.

      The idea is to be at the front of the demand curve where you can demand top prices, plus gain the experience in making and marketing the product so you can shave prices later while maintaining a larger margin than your competitors.

      This is kinda business (-)101 stuff.

  • and it'll be illegal in... (Score:4, Informative)

    by Dubber ( 101609 ) on Monday April 28, 2003 @06:15PM (#5829513) Homepage
    ...at least 7 states:
    Delaware, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wyoming, and Virginia
    if not more later this year or next:
    Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Massachusetts, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas.
    Check out http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/superdmca.html [freedom-to-tinker.com] for status updates.

    For Tennessee activities against this bill see: The Tennessee Digital Freedom pages [tndigitalfreedom.org]

  • Cost of implementation (Score:5, Informative)

    by psyconaut ( 228947 ) on Monday April 28, 2003 @06:15PM (#5829517)
    Did the original poster realize that you need a Catalyst switch and a bunch of other expensive Cisco software to get this thing working?!

    Granted, compared to a large scale Merdiain 1 implementation it ain't expensive, but it's not quite as simple as buying a $595 phone and a WiFi base station!

    -psy
    • I'm sure a cheap/free SIP software router with analog trunks would work just fine. There are plenty of them out there. All of Cisco's phones support SIP, in addition to Cisco's Skinny protocol.
    • Did the original poster realize that you need a Catalyst switch and a bunch of other expensive Cisco software to get this thing working?!


      Granted, compared to a large scale Merdiain 1 implementation it ain't expensive, but it's not quite as simple as buying a $595 phone and a WiFi base station!

      No, it's more than just a switch and some software--you need the Cisco CallManager IP PBX servers too.

      It's about the same as Nortel solution. Nortel has two options: You can add 802.11 and ethernet VoIP with a

  • I can already imagine the voicemail greetings of the future...

    "You've reached the phone of Dave Melee, I'm not at my desk...err...I'm not at the office...errr...I don't want to...talk? Can't I just have a few minutes to hit the john? STOP SMOTHERING ME!!!! [beep]
  • Since the start of Wi-Fi networks people can now sniff out networks for free unlocked Wi-Fi and do War Driving. Now can we can thank Cisco for a possible revival of Phone Phreaking at the expense of the owner of the network.
  • Spectralink has been doing this for a while now. In fact it was the only VOIP wireless phone that Cisco had for a while. With the right firmware it's seamless with the Call Manager.
    In addition, they have several gateways that will allow their phones to work with virtually any PBX out there, analog or digital.
    I can testify that their phones are very tough. I've seen them thrown across the room. The battery pops off - put it back and fire up the phone, no problems.
  • These phones are useless unless you have a complete Cisco "solution". They use Cisco only protocol(s) and don't interoperate with H.323 or SIP systems.

    • Re:More to it than meets the eye (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Phil Karn ( 14620 ) <karn@@@ka9q...net> on Monday April 28, 2003 @08:33PM (#5830502) Homepage
      That answers the question I was about to ask. Cisco has really crippled their VoIP phones by having them speak only their proprietary "skinny" protocol. Without an expensive and proprietary server, these phones are totally useless. At the very least, these phones ought to speak basic H.323/SIP/whatever without any outside help beyond IP dialtone and a DHCP server.

      The real market for these things is in the home. I would love to junk my crappy cordless phones and use 802.11-speaking phones on my existing wireless network. Not only would that reduce the number of boxes I have to plug in, but if it caught on it could really help reduce the persistent interference problems between 2.4GHz cordless phones and 802.11 networks.

      But most people aren't going to want to run (and rely on) a PC 24/7 just to be able to make phone calls -- much less a dedicated Cisco VoIP server! And tunneling through some server on some distant network isn't going to work either, given the extra latency and decreased reliability that will introduce.

  • what ever happened to codless phones?
  • Didn't cisco recently release details about some features in their new routers that would enable seamless, undetecable "wiretapping" of IP traffic by law encorcement / router admins?

    Now they're intent on making VoIP ubiquitous. Not that I'm a conspiracy theorist or anything.

  • Great for managers, not for developers (Score:4, Insightful)

    by YetAnotherName ( 168064 ) on Monday April 28, 2003 @09:43PM (#5830877) Homepage
    From the article: But wander from your desk long enough and chances are high that you'll come back to a telephone with that red voice-mail light glowing, meaning you've missed a call.

    Oh no! You've MISSED a call! Oh, horrors! Just think, you were discussing unwinding a recursion on a whiteboard in the hallway with a coworker, doing a walkthrough of some code on the lawn, or typing up nearly 500 new lines of code in the last hour while the ringer was muted. And you MISSED a call. Your productivity was dangerously high---just think what your phone could've done to cure that!

    I'll just use WiFi for email, thank you.

  • Calls across the country or potentially across the ocean can be as free as a call across the office.

    Sure, because we all know trans-oceanic bandwidth is free, right?

  • I was working on a disruptive technologies study 4 yrs ago, and we had a 'cordless' VoIP phone from Symbol Technologies [symbol.com]in our lab. Production release back then. In fact, they still make one [symbol.com] it seems.

    Spoke H.323 and allowed you to call by IP addr as well as by E.164 address. Spoke 802.11b.

    So, this isn't really a new idea. Just Cisco's edition.

  • This really brings to mind the question of tariffs and how local and long distance areas work. Speficially related to the VPN connection back to the office...

    So you could be in New York using a phone with a Los Angeles local calling area. Or if your company had offices in both locations, could you expand your phone's local calling area to both locations?

    How to most inter-office connected phone systems work now?

    How does this relate to cell phone local calling patterns?

    -Pete
  • I work for Nortel Networks. We have been partnering with Symbol to do this for over a year. The Symbol phones(http://www.symbol.com/products/wireless/nv_ phone.html)use H.323 and work with our Succession IP telephony systems(http://www.nortelnetworks.com/products/01/ succession/es/succession_cse.html). Of course it doesn't count 'til Cisco does it.

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