Slashdot Mirror
WiFi Phone Announced
igrp writes "Zyxel just announced its Prestige 2000W VoIP Wi-Fi Cordless Phone. It's designed to work with 802.11b networks, implements QoS and IP-to-IP call functionality and uses 128-bit WEP encryption. It also scans for 'available APs in [the] hand set's environment'. War driving just became a whole lot more interesting."
with everything going wireless, will we even need to wire houses of the future (well i guess power might be necessary)?
30% Troll, 50% Underrated, 10% Interesting
Score:5, Troll
with the state of today's wireless network configurations, this is kinda like giving free untraceable phone service to anyone wanting to buy the phone initially...
How wise is it to stick a 802.11 transmitter right next to your brain for extended periods of time?
RF Safe
"According to Dr. Brown, the real danger is the proximity to the transmitter because the transmitter sends out the waves that could heat up human tissue if close enough to the antenna. "
"Moving from one inch away to only one foot away from the Wi-Fi antenna weakens the signal by a factor of 100. So unless you're hugging the antenna, or leaning against it, you're being exposed to very little radiation."
D'oh... Better have a "hands free" option so that I can place the transmitter next to my genitals instead of near to my head.
Now it's a matter of time before someone implements a software version of the Cryptophone for these wifi-phones.. I really wonder how LEA's will deal with this. Afterall, wiretapping a phone will be fairly impossible :-)
I'm not a complete idiot... Some parts are missing.
I can't believe more people don't have more VoIP phones already... Something like Vonnage offers. I can have a local phone number, travel to Hong Kong, and still have a local number to my home town. Having a wireless option makes it that much better. Telephony service costs too much already, and this may help more people switch to VoIP phones, too... thus making it even more inexpensive. As timothy pointed out, this certainly does take wardriving to a whole new level. Sweet.
I actually had some great fun with it. Weeks and weeks of joy for me. I got myself a job as a taxi driver and stuck a laptop with external GPS and external 802.11 connected to the roof for good reception. After a days work I'd pull out the laptop and see where all the networks were and when I had been driving all day.
Not forgetting to mention that when I get bored I can just whip out the lappy and recompile my kernel for fun...
I can only just begin to imagine how much fun and how useful this new device is going to be for me.
Does it go on forever?
But the 2.4GHz spot in the frequency spectrum in a typical household is so crudded up already. I mean, I already have these in use in that space:
o 802.11b network (2 APs, 4 clients)
o Cordless phone
o X10 video camera (for baby monitoring)
o Microwave oven
The X10 camera goes mostly unused nowadays due to interference from the APs. The telephone has some very annoying pops and clicks when the microwave is in use. I'd be hard-pressed to shell out many buckazoids for one of these until I was certain it worked better than my existing phone that's using that spectrum.
Assuming there's enough recovery for corrupted packets when interference is occurring (tried to read the article to get more info, but can't get to the site as usual), I can see where it might work better than my existing phone in the presence of such interference. But I won't be in a big hurry to go buy one just yet.
- Leo
You don't use science to show that you're right, you use science to become right.
It's called a Pocket PC, a WiFi adapter, and WiFive
Wifive can connect to other wifive users or netmeeting, and if you have an IP-PSTN service, you can place calls to regular phones as well.
Cool though that someone made an actual phone to make the process easier
no comment