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Vonage to Produce a WiFi Phone
EvilStein writes "Vonage is announcing plans for a WiFi phone that will allow Vonage subscribers to make VoIP calls from any WiFi hotspot. The phones are said to cost about $100. This looks to be a pretty cool setup and might rattle the wireless industry quite a bit if they pull it off." Another story notes that battery life won't be as good as existing cell phones.
Now, if it could seemlessly integrate with the GSM/GPRS setup already in place with most providers, I'd be all over it.
wdd
Granted there are many open hotspots out there, but the easiest to find and most predicatable for the road warrior are all pay-for-play (iPass, tmobile, wayport etc). Given that there's no standard for authenticating to these networks, this kind of thing won't be useable there. Now for home/office use, it looks great!
Think outside the... Hey, where'd the friggin' box go?
When researching VOIP this weekend (I am thinking of nixing my home phone for a cell phone and a voip) I found that a call requires 90Kbps of bandwidth.
Isn't there a port or something you could block to disable VOIP services? I don't know a whole lot about it but I assume it must use a port that could be firewalled out.
This is a nifty gadget, but it really isn't functional. VoIP is fine for home use, but at this point there's no reason to choose a portable VoIP phone over a cell phone. There simply isn't a large enough network of WiFi connections yet, not to mention the fact that many of them are personal networks. I'm sure the owners of said networks do not want random passersby using up their bandwidth. If anyone wants one of these toys, fine, but I'm sticking with my cell phone. I can actually make calls without reliance on an internet connection with it.