Cisco's Wi-Fi Phone

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.

Comments

Backdoor

[Loosewire]

And so will thease new VOip have the same backdoors in as cisco say they will build into their other products :-(

Re:Backdoor

[gpinzone]

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.

Re:Backdoor

[Penguuu]

You don't even need GPS for this :-)
Link here

Re:Backdoor

[pantropik]

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 ...

AAAAArrrgghhh

[spumoni_fettuccini]

Another company leash!!!

Re:AAAAArrrgghhh

[NanoGator]

"Another company leash!!!"

Don't be so negative. There are brilliant opportunities here. Thanks to my cell phone, I got to tell the founder of my company I was taking a shit once. Heh. (I'm not kidding...) Opportunities like that only multiply when the calls are easier to make!

War-calling

[jemenake]

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...

[Chicane-UK]

Information on the release date, and other info was posted on this /. posting from a two weeks ago.

Wireless phone networks?

[antiher0]

Phones without cords? What is this world coming to?

Dupe.

[E1ven]

I wonder if it's compatible with this phone?

-Colin

Everything we need thanks to Cisco

[Anonymous Coward]

First we could sit in front of someone's office and surf all the p0rn we wanted for free.

And now to out do this....

We can make all the 900 number calls we want!

Sweeeet!!!!

I think those guys from Homeland Security who said that Wi-Fi was the next big threat are just jelous. We get free p0rn, and free p0rn phone calls...they dont even get the First we could sit in front of someone's office and surf all the p0rn we wanted for free.

And now to out do this....

We can make all the 900 number calls we want!

Sweeeet!!!!

I think those guys from Homeland Security who said that Wi-Fi was the next big threat are just jelous. We get free p0rn, and free p0rn phone calls...they dont even get the curtosy of a reach around :)

This is cool!

[sipmeister]

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

[camken]

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

[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 about then dont speak :)

Re:VOIP

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed -- people should not speak unless they know what they are talking about.

VOIP works and it works great. We have several of these phones and their use is not even noticed on our network and as others have said it is crystal clear -- they sound much better than cell phones too.

We are going to buy more.

Re:VOIP

[Total_Wimp]

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

Re:VOIP

[grumpygrodyguy]

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

Yes but what about all that dark fiber?

Re:VOIP

[Cramer]

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

[stratjakt]

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.

Re:VOIP

[HeadbangerSmurf]

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 out for a few years and people are just now getting excited over this. I set up my first system last summer using one Call Manager to run four offices, three of which were connected by 384Kbps lines. Even then you could unplug your phone and go to another office where it would re-register and work just like normal. The only downside I can see with any of this is that the phones are prohibitively expensive. 7960s are $450 or so each! The 7910s are $300+ and they are (or were) the bottom end. What's REALLY cool is that you can run a key system out of a Cisco router now. IP Telephony Services on a 1751 will allow you to run 24 phones with at least 4 outgoing lines. That is damn cool. Tom

Re:VOIP

[camken]

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.

Re:VoIP

[BenDalton]

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 company in Japan to talk to their factories in the US for no more than they pay for bandwidth, which in comparison to paying for intnl ld is a much better deal.

I see this being cool if you want to set up a temporary office. Just get a leased line, drop a wifi access point, and put these phone's on everyone's desk.

Anyway... these products aren't targeted for ma and pa down the street unless they are running a business w/ 100 phones on the premisis.

Wow!

[Anonymous Coward]

At $595 a handset I'd be a sucker not to buy a dozen

Re:Wow!

[morcheeba]

That's not much more than Cisco's 7960 corded IP phone @ $500. It's a nice phone.

I tried it once...

[Anonymous Coward]

I tried a VOIP service before; I believe it was MSN or something. Anyway, my biggest problem was dropped sections of the call -- I would start talking and the person on the other end would miss some parts of my talking. It was endlessly annoying, and I ended up not using it anymore.
Dropped calls were also very common, as well as lag, even though I'm on a very reliable and fast connection.

I can only imagine this working if these kinks can be worked out. Has anyone used a VOIP service before that works better than that?

Re:I tried it once...

[Tmack]

Well... Cisco has been doing VOIP for some time now, on a more commercial level. I work for a telecom company that uses cisco routers to deploy VOIP telephony to our customers via T1 (bandwidth not in use by voice traffic is used for internet access). The largest problem (trouble ticket wise) seems to be more at the physical level with T1's failing (which we get through de-regulation from the baby bells), where as your problem sounds like network lag and bandwidth limits. Granted, our network was designed specifically for voice traffic, but any company that sets up a Wi-Fi VOIP network should be able to do the same, so long as no one runs the microwave thats in the break room...

TM

Re:I tried it once...

[Anonymous Coward]

VOIP works great. Yes, I actually work at Cisco and have been using Cisco VOIP phones for quite a while. We have them at all Cisco sites. I personally have a Cisco IP phone at home that I use over a VPN into the office, and it works fine over my inet connection (which is typically ~250K down, ~100-150K/up-- that's kiloBYTES, not bits). As a matter of fact, I also have the Vonage IP phone service, which uses another Cisco IP telephony device, the ATA 186, which is a VHS sized box that plugs into your network and then you plug your std. analog phone into it. I easily have enough bandwidth to call from one IP phone to another, and they're both going out over my net connection at once.
Very rately on my Cisco IP phone, but sometimes on my Vonage service I'll get some echo's, etc, but nothing overly irritating.
I'm quite happy with VoIP phone service, and my 'hardwired' service is now cancelled.

Traditional Phone Companies

[tindur]

Will this have any impact on traditional phone companies?

Re:Traditional Phone Companies

[dtldl]

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.

Re:Traditional Phone Companies

[John3]

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.

Re:Traditional Phone Companies

[Cramer]

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 too quickly. As much as I'd like to use cheap linksys gear, I'd rather not incure the fines for using non-standards compliant hardware. (NEBS) (Not that I'd live long enough to talk Hell South into allow it in the first place. They are enough of a pain in the ass when it is compliant.)

Re:Traditional Phone Companies

[frdmfghtr]

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.

Re:Traditional Phone Companies

[John3]

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.

Wow

[Dr_LHA]

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

[pmbuko]

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.

Re:We need everything rolled into one device

[elwoodblues16]

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 non-tech-savvy is just a little bit closer...

Re:We need everything rolled into one device

[pmbuko]

This is precisely the reason why the IT helpdesk exists. :)

Re:We need everything rolled into one device

[brucifer]

What we need are fewer Cisco advertisements on the slash

Re:We need everything rolled into one device

[ar]

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?

Re:We need everything rolled into one device

[glesga_kiss]

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 ring.

The same systems would enable you to sit at any workstation and see your own private desktop. Hence the birth of VNC.

Re:We need everything rolled into one device

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sorry, but this is a bit backwards. I want ONE number that follows me everywhere. My single phone should handle all of my calls and, like the current cell phone tech, it auto-senses which tower/wireless port it gets the best signal from.

As for rolling all things into one, I want my PDA to be my phone, with a Bluetooth headset. And I should be able to send info (names/addresses/number/schedules) to the person I'm talking with without disconecting, maybe even play a simple game against that person. (Imagine three-way calling!)

yikes!

[EvilStein]

"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!

[Erwos]

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!

[gujo-odori]

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 first remote site over an 802.11b WAN link using a wireless router with a directional antenna at one end and an omni-directional antenna at the other. The first remote site is connected to the second remote site, about 200 meters away, which has a small directional antenna pointed at the omnidirectional one at the first remote site. The voice quality is outstanding, and we tested it with calls to as far away as Ho Chi Minh City, a distance of 1600 kilometers or so.

The initial cost of the equipment (Cisco VOIP gateway and call manager), a layer 3 fast ethernet switch, the satellite equipment, the IP phones, etc., looks expensive, but when you compare that to the cost of running landlines over nearly vertical mountains to a place that is an hour's drive over dirt roads from the nearest town big enough to even have lodging, you can see that if such a project is expanded from pilot program to full deployment, the costs scale very well. Even if a POTS network used microwave links over the mountains and only needed a wired network locally, the cost of building that wired network and putting up the microwave towers over the mountains would at least equal the cost of the a VOIP network with satellite uplink, and probably exceed it.

Once the one-time costs are over, operating a wireless VOIP network in such an area would certainly have a lower running cost than operating a POTS network. I wish we had had Cisco's new wireless IP phones available for the install instead of the wired ones we used. Just not having to install ethernet cabling and surface conduits in concrete-walled buildings would have saved us at least a full day's work, which would have recovered the higher cost of the wireless AP and NICs compared to the cost of a cheap switch, cable, and wired NICs.

In short, 802.11b IP phones are a significant and very promising development that will offer a significant cost savings over both POTS networks and wired Ethernet networks in remote locations.

Nice Phone

[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!

Re:Nice Phone

[druzicka]

It did do a lockup/reboot on me once though.

Ha ha... You had to reboot a phone!

What the hell does...

[Cranx]

...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

[binaryDigit]

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.

Re:Add vpn to make it complete

[_Sprocket_]

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 data. What it would allow in this case is the potential for the Wi-Fi network at an airport to become a connection for a Wi-Fi handset--again allowing you to make and receive calls as though you were at your desk.

Re:Add vpn to make it complete

[jroysdon]

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

[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.

Wi-Fi VoIP

[benjamindees]

There's also the Symbol NetVision Phone available now. Hopefully they're compatible in more than name only.

Dropped

[Superfreaker]

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

[Kunta Kinte]

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 :)

Re:Dropped

[iritant]

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 bandwidth. In addition, the codecs used for IP phones are far more resilient to both loss and delay, as compared to an analog phone. An analog phone has no buffers to play with.

Re:Dropped

[Anonymous Coward]

The question is not how many bandwidth do you have, it is how do you use it?

QoS is the key. You can make voice work in a very congested link if you turn the right knobs.

Re:Dropped

[Florian Weimer]

QoS is the key. You can make voice work in a very congested link if you turn the right knobs.

This is usually much more complicated than just increasing the bandwidth. 8-(

Re:Dropped

[mcrbids]

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 minutes for working with clients. The lag is comparable to a cell phone - sometimes a little awkward, but never a problem.

On my 1.5M/384K ADSL, I've only had a problem when downloading stuff at over ~100 KB/s or uploading over ~ 20 KB/s. I have all my "heavy lifting" stuff (backups, etc.) running via cron at night, so it's just not a problem.

I surf, stream MP3s, and talk on Vonage on the same line with no issues.

I think, though, with IPv6's QOS component, we might see VOIP jack up another notch.

Re:Dropped

[ckuhtz]

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.

Symbol Technologies has already done this...

[tsangc]

As mentioned in the previous post: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=61207&cid=5758 604 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...

[Faust7]

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?

[jonr]

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.

Re:Could IP phones be the thing that IPv6 needs?

[Anonymous Coward]

would it really make much more sense? plenty of companies are using this type of technology already without IPv6 thru use of NAT, PAT, etc.

why is it that more and more IPv6 seems to be a solution to a problem that we've already solved?

Re:Could IP phones be the thing that IPv6 needs?

[jroysdon]

Even with NAT and 1 hour expiration times, a customer of mine just had to add a second Class C to support their growing number of phones (so their internal network phones can talk to their phones at home or small ADSL sites on the public internet). Eventually more and more companies are going to move to VoIP, and it'll click, "Why should I call another company with VoIP phones using the PSTN when we should just have our VoIP devices talking directly." NAT is no solution there.

Second, NAT is a hack and doesn't really solve the issue (address shortage), and creates as many problems as it solves. Almost all "router" problems I ran into at my last job were due to NAT/PAT issues.

Third, you've a very narrow-minded US-centric view. The US has over 75% of the IPv4 address space. Guess where IPv6 is taking off? Europe and Asia where they got screwed on IPv4 allocations.

Forth, how do you think all the new internet-ready cell phones in Europe and Asia are connecting online? Those that aren't using lame RFC1918 address space and NAT (SprintPCS) are using IPv6 (AT&T) and temporarilly IPv6-to-IPv4 NAT (but as IPv6 services grow, there will be less and less IPv6 NAT). Yes, your cell phone most likely has a MAC address, and if you surf, it's using that as part of its IPv6 address.

Re:Could IP phones be the thing that IPv6 needs?

[ckuhtz]

Blah. Working IPv6 as part of my day job... that argument doesn't hold water.

Anyone with a brain (or not) will have a broadband router at home. Which will act as a firewall, too. And should.

No reason why this can't and shouldn't be a SIP/H.323/whatever proxy. That's probably the most sensible way to demilitarize such traffic anyway.

Bzzzzzzzzzzt Sorry. No score for IPv6 plug, but thanks for playing.

Re:Could IP phones be the thing that IPv6 needs?

[Anonymous Coward]

And you thought dialing international was bad?
Try remembering a IPv6 address!

But seriously IPv6 imbedded into these phones would have been like an ounce of prevention... better than the cure (NAT etc).

Wassup freakin geekz!

ttttssssggghppt ;(```

Star Trek style communicators on the way?

[NanoGator]

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.

Re:Star Trek style communicators on the way?

[billnapier]

Nextel

Re:Star Trek style communicators on the way?

[papa248]

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?

Already done

[Wesley Felter]

Vocera -- it was probably mentioned on /. 3 or 4 times last week.

VoIP

[Crasoum]

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 get the phones that are cat5-ed to your laptop/BB connection.

YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING

[Anonymous Coward]

okay people, yes there are dupes, yes you will have to learn to accept them, but everyone does NOT need to run around yelling "DUPE" every time a story is published on the same topic. This, if you read the article, is an OBVIOUS follow up, I mean even the /. preview reads like a follow-up. Come on, read the article before you complain. And a +1 informative AND a +1 funny, come on mods! I hope they nail you in meta-mod.

Re:YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING

[Anonymous Coward]

shut up taco

Whoops!

[RNLockwood]

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.

Re:Whoops!

[glenstar]

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.

Re:Whoops!

[Anonymous Coward]

While the above is certainly plausible, a valid network design has redundancy built-in, as far as an enterprise implementation is concerned

SRST is a router on the network that can handle phones in case of connection loss to the main call managers.

Further, there should always be a copper line, what we call a BatPhone, that is for when everything else fails.

Even WiFi mate

[Crasoum]

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 until 2004.

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

Or more legitimately that call from the ex-spouse.....

commodity product

[g4dget]

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.

Re:commodity product

[silas_moeckel]

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.

Re:commodity product

[bryan1945]

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...

[Dubber]

...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 for status updates.

For Tennessee activities against this bill see: The Tennessee Digital Freedom pages

Well then, I'm getting one too!

[Anonymous Coward]

Cisco the Dragon is the bizomb!
If he's got a Wi-Fi phone, you damned-skippity I'm gettin' one too!

Thong-th-thong-thong-thong!

Cost of implementation

[psyconaut]

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

Re:Cost of implementation

[jroysdon]

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.

Re:Cost of implementation

[tsangc]

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 add in cards, or for new installations, you can always buy a Succession CSE1000 IP PBX. Method 1 means you don't have to junk your existing PBX investment. Method 2 is less expensive than a large M1 due to the IP terminals (less line cards, wiring etc) and trunking (lower TCO).

But Cisco, Nortel or otherwise, if you want to it right (ie, not some homebrew solution), it's not cheap. Cheaper than traditional PBX, agreed, but not cheap like using a headset and using Netmeeting :)

OWLAN

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's an interesting paper http://matrix.netsoc.tcd.ie/~mannionh/WirelessLAN. pdf on an architecture for wireless LAN access for mobile phone operators

how many channels do you need?

[zogger]

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 around on the net you can find some deals, like a case of them at a bulk price. You'll go through batteries so invest in some rechargeable nicads of appropriate size (usually AA or AAA) and charging stations though. I even modded one of them into a "base station" by using a ratshack dc to dc power converter (12 to 6vdc) and a little wiring action inside the batt compartment, so I can run it off the 12 volt circuits I have here.

Re:Backdoor, a bit offtopic

[gl4ss]

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 new phones don't have gps built in, but that doesn't matter since the locating works well enough even without them(somebody other posted a link in a reply, but iirc you figure it out from information where the gsm access points are and the delays to each one of them that are nearby)

you dont like it? buy one of those devices that scramble your voice(encrypt it, theres such products out there), and buy one for everyone you call too. use paid-in-advance-no-names-involved sim cards and stolen phones, only phone outside your house.

chances are that you could arrange much more private conversation with such voip systems(and you wouldnt have to trust some middleman, like phone company).

Why would they need to build a Backdoor in.

[headbulb]

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.

Re:Why would they need to build a Backdoor in.

[Loosewire]

Err encryption?

Screw the phone co? Yeah!!!!!

[kraemer]

Opening my access point so a dork in his car can surf? Yawn. Opening my access point so I can say Fu#$ You to SBC? Oh YES!!!!! When these things get real I'll put an 802.11 antenna on the roof and a sign in the yard!

Where did the numbers go?

[Anonymous Coward]

With a VoIP system you can pretty much call any phone number and talk for free. Problem, how do they call you back? Your on a VoIP network, not a POTS network. If you call an ANAC to get your ANI your not going to get anything back (identified number your calling from). If everyone and their brother get this and dont have phone numbers, who are we going to call?

I cant see the day we dial "68.110.58.213:5304", besides theres no period on my keypad. ;)

Re:Where did the numbers go?

[dildofire]

there's an RFC dealing with that exact problem.

basically what they're proposing to do is use DNS to map phone numbers to ip addresses. if your voip phone is assigned a phone number of 5125551212, you would send a dns query with an address of 5.1.2.5.5.5.1.2.1.2.e164.arpa in order to get the ip address assigned to that number. as far as i know this hasn't been implemented yet, but it's a pretty cool hack nonetheless.

Voicemail

[SouperDouper]

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]

Re:Security?

[druzicka]

I didn't see any technical specifications, but I would assume that it supports WEP... However, none of the appliances like these (WiFi cordless phones, barcode scanners, POS equipment) support 802.1x, so once that WEP key is cracked, all of that data might as well be sent in the clear. Single purpose devices (unlike multipurpose devices such as laptops and handhelds) generally don't support modern key-rotating protocols like EAP, so you have to assume that any data you're sending from your WiFi enabled phone is being compromised.

Phone Phreaking on Wi-Fi

[Unixinvid]

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.

Re:Security?

[Anonymous Coward]

And you think your current mobile phone conversations are secure? They're not - and all because of flawed encryption, just like WEP.

Spectralink has this

[Jay Tarbox]

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 have been around for a while

[Anonymous Coward]

The Avaya 3606 is an 802.11b phone. They bouth it from SpectraLink. They're pretty slick.

VoIP then why wireless?

[fdawg]

Thats alot for a cordless phone. Sure the number follows you around your network even if you are in a different institution or even a different country. But since we are talking about IP, wouldnt it be just as easy to go to your sister office, grab an unused phone, and re-map the extension to your office?

Re:VoIP then why wireless?

[Unixinvid]

I think with the idea of a wireless Wi-Fi Phone is pretty cool and you wouldn't ever have to pay for phone service again with the many open ports out their.

More to it than meets the eye

[bferrell]

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

[Phil Karn]

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.

cordless phones

[per11]

what ever happened to codless phones?

Good timing...

[AMuse]

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

[YetAnotherName]

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.

Re:Great for managers, not for developers

[bryan1945]

Just spoof an annoying co-workers IP so all your calls go to him/her. Your own personal secretary!

Re:Great for managers, not for developers

[YetAnotherName]

Hah! Wonderful.

All that IP-level hacking I learned in college turns out to be pretty handy after all...

Re:Security?

[stevejsmith]

My God, get over it. If it's really that secretive, then don't you think that it would be easier for somebody to just pay off the dry cleaners to shove a little microphone into your suit? I highly doubt that you're every going to say something so secretive that you need a damned encrypted phone. Get over it...just because people can listen doesn't mean they want to. Ever wonder why people don't go and sit next to you on the park bench when you're breaking up with your girlfriend? No, it's not 'cause you're speaking a different language that uses a different md5'd hash every 30 seconds, it's 'cause nobody cares.

If people care that much then they'll find another way. Remember, it doesn't matter how secure your telnet session is if you don't check the end of your PS/2 mouse for a bugging device!

Re:Security?

[druzicka]

If people care that much then they'll find another way.

I disagree. Just because it's possible to circumvent security measures doesn't mean that no precaution should be taken at all.

Look at it this way: Once that key is compromised, the attacker has access to your network. Furthermore, they can have access to your network without neccesarily having physical access into the building. At that point, as a node on the LAN, you can observe people's cleartext (telnet, FTP, POP3) passwords, attack internal systems, or just snoop around. Is that still acceptable?

Until a standard emerges that fixes the security problems with WEP, I'll be using an IPSec VPN to protect my internal network.

Free?

[Shadestalker]

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?

Re:Security?

[Anonymous Coward]

Read Datasheets here

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/hw/phones/ps37 9/products_data_sheet09186a00801739bb.html

Security

Cisco Wireless Security Suite IEEE 802.1X Cisco LEAP authentication: Optional password prompt at power up

40 and 128 bit static Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP)

Optional phone lock password

Symbol had this 3-4 yrs ago

[ckuhtz]

I was working on a disruptive technologies study 4 yrs ago, and we had a 'cordless' VoIP phone from Symbol Technologiesin our lab. Production release back then. In fact, they still make one 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.

Cisco phones do speak SIP

[ZorroIII]

Cisco make SIP software available for their IP-phones. So you can choose between Cisco proprietary and SIP. See this link

Re:Cisco phones do speak SIP

[Phil Karn]

Thanks for the info. So if I load SIP into a Cisco phone, I can use it with open source servers, or with no servers at all? I don't have to buy any expensive boxes from Cisco? If so, that's a Very Good Thing.

PDA + VOIP + WIFI + Small Form Factor

[Anonymous Coward]

Were you hoping for a URL?

Such a device would be very nice as long as the battery life is decent :)

It really shouldn't take much to add VOIP capability to PDA's that are WIFI-enabled. Just softare + microphone (if it doesn't already have one), right?

How much cost would this feature actually add to PDAs like Palm Tungsten C?

Re:Security?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've actually played with one of these 7920s at our local Cisco field office. Just so you know they do support LEAP authentication, which I thought was rather neat. I'll be glad once they either put the VPN client on there or push it up to PEAP.

Re:Indeed!

[cies]

Wanted to post this one, but that would be a dupe ;-)

Long Distance tariffs???

[chargen]

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

But how does it handle handoff/roaming?

[Otis2222222]

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.

Been done

[rdolphin]

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.

Re: Haven't you heard of the UPS?

[Ezrem]

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 problem.

Can get good VoIP without QoS

[Ungrounded Lightning]

The question is not how many bandwidth do you have, it is how do you use it?

QoS is the key. You can make voice work in a very congested link if you turn the right knobs.

Even without QoS-capable routers in your enterprise you can still get good VoIP service even when the LAN backbone is saturated.

Just use a separate branch of the net for the VoIP traffic, with a router or switch (rather than a hub) between that and the rest of the LAN.

Yes that means two Cat5s drops to each cube. But you probably have that anyhow - one for the net, one for the POTS phone. Just recycle the POTS drop for the new VoIP phones.