New Phone Uses WLAN or Cel Networks

Reefa writes "Avaya, Motorola and Proxim this week are expected to announce a co-developed handset and enterprise network gear that let mobile phone users roam between cellular networks and wireless LANs to make/receive calls. The phone uses SIP to make calls when on the WLAN network and switches to using cellular network when out of WLAN coverage and vice versa. The device also supports Push-To-Talk over SIP. BTW, the phone runs WinCE."

Comments

Favorite OS name

[Dashing Leech]

Ah yes, my favorite OS name. Who else but M$ would come up with a name that spells wince. Was there ever a more appropriate name? Now they just need to come out with a cringe OS.

Re:Favorite OS name

[Infinite93]

I think you just named the next portable Linux Distro.

"Don't WinCE, Cringe!!!"

An intriguing solution to some problems

[chia_monkey]

The one thing that gets me from the article (yes, I actually read it...go figure) is that you have to use Avaya access points. That right there could be the deal killer because there are already thousands of access points installed around the country. I don't see that many companies tearing apart their infrastructure simply for this functionality. Think of all the national rollout plans (McDonalds, Panera Breads, airports, Barnes & Noble, etc) that would have to redo everything. It would be like starting from scratch for them and for the WiFi companies that installed everything.

Yet, this is an interesting solution to those killer cell phone bills. We're experiencing that right now as we take a large volume of calls on our cell phones. If we were able to use "WiFi airtime" instead of "cell time" while in the office, that could save a company loads of money.

Re:An intriguing solution to some problems

[gwernol]

The one thing that gets me from the article (yes, I actually read it...go figure) is that you have to use Avaya access points. That right there could be the deal killer because there are already thousands of access points installed around the country. I don't see that many companies tearing apart their infrastructure simply for this functionality. Think of all the national rollout plans (McDonalds, Panera Breads, airports, Barnes & Noble, etc) that would have to redo everything. It would be like starting from scratch for them and for the WiFi companies that installed everything.

But the main use would be within a company, not for public WiFi access points. Replacing the APs within a building, or throughout a hospital (as discussed in the article... natch) is a much smaller task and could easily pay for itself if the calling costs were suitably low.

Two problems...

[Teancom]

Every 802.11b wireless device I've ever heard of sucks batteries like a fat kid with a slurpy. The example the article uses is a hospital staff. Is the phone going to last an entire 18-hour shift without recharging? That would be seriously impressive.

Secondly, why the need to have a special WAP? I can see having to have some sort of control-device, that's obvious. But it really ought to work with any standard WAP, and route to the PBX. I see that really hurting the chances of wide-spread adoption in a lot of places (like my house!). It would be like having a IP telephony system that made you replace all your hubs and switches. Just ain't gonna happen.

Re:Crashes more often

[wfberg]

Win CE crashes more often than Win XP and that's too much!

My Win XP setup is fairly stable (also helped by the fact the dual cpu means one cpu is usually still there to do ctrl-alt-del magic), but the instability of wince is almost inconceivable.. It should remind you more of windows 95. It hangs on to all the design mistakes ever made in Windows, and then adds some.

Unfortunately, it has such a strong foothold in the PDA market, that the companies that produce components for iPaqs and such are likely to offer wince support by default. Whereas if you were to go with linux, good luck finding energy-efficient GPUs and touchscreens etc. that are supported.

It also doesn't help that there's not much in the way of device-friendly linux APIs.. Running X on a small device is a bit too much; opie is there, but not much else.. Microsoft have even crammed a stripped down version of directX into their pocketPC OS. *shudder*

You have to wonder who dropped the ball over at Sun that they don't have a Java OS for handhelds. And lament the rape of symbian by Nokia. (No, you're thinking of a sybian, different thing entirely).

There is already a similar product being marketed

[bain_online]

This kind of device already exists,

Its small poacket size box which has bluetooth capability. You can use a bt headset and a pocketpc/palm with bluetooth to connect to it. And it can make gsm calls, has voip stack comes with its own sip server, and works with any access point.

here is the link

you will find some info on the company and product