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

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