Voice on Wi-Fi advances

Whether firms are ready to trust voice calls to their wireless LANs (WLANs) or not, vendors are gearing up to offer Wi-Fi networks and mobile handsets that free staff from their desktop phones.

Following recent announcements of voice-over-Wi-Fi equipment from Symbol Technology, Alcatel has launched a range of WLAN access points and switches, and promises to provide mobile Wi-Fi-only handsets later this year, designed to carry firms' internal voice calls.

Neil Tilley, Alcatel's UK enterprise marketing director, said his firm had waited for the emergence of suitably secure, reliable standards before developing its converged voice and data wireless systems, particularly those designed to minimise latency and guarantee the quality of voice transmissions over WLANs.

"The 802.11g, h and i standards now allow us to go with wireless telephony, whilst 802.11e provides the quality of service (QoS) for voice [over Wi-Fi]," he said.

Alcatel launched its OmniAccess 1200 access points, switches and other appliances last week. Its Mobile IP Touch 300 and 600 mobile handsets will be 802.11b-compatible and will sell for around £150 + VAT when they arrive in the summer. They are for use only with Wi-Fi networks, and will not include Dect or GSM functionality.

SpectraLink, NEC and Cisco already offer handsets giving users IP telephony functions similar to those of standard desktop IP phones and wireless Dect handsets - including dial by name, hunt groups, multiple forwarding and pullback to voice mail.

See also:

Wireless LANs

Exploring wireless networking technology and its business applications  08 Aug 2003

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