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Vonage to Produce a WiFi Phone

Posted by michael on from the convergence dept.

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.

41 of 213 comments (clear)

  1. GSM/GPRS by wdd1040 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Now, if it could seemlessly integrate with the GSM/GPRS setup already in place with most providers, I'd be all over it.

    --
    wdd
    1. Re:GSM/GPRS by learn+fast · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Especially since the coverage in my house is shitty. This way, cell providers don't need to worry about that, since people will be able to augment their own coverage in their own homes (they'll just have to worry about making ends meet...)

    2. Re:GSM/GPRS by jpetts · · Score: 4, Informative

      This is coming: I have already seen and tried out devices that have VoIP and GSM capability in the same unit. The acronym you need to watch out for is UMA - Unlicensed Mobile Access. Look here for basics.

      --
      Call me old fashioned, but I like a dump to be as memorable as it is devastating - Bender
  2. Verizon.... by 10101001011 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Can you hear me n.....

    No carrier detected

  3. Old News by jpetts · · Score: 4, Informative

    This is not new

    --
    Call me old fashioned, but I like a dump to be as memorable as it is devastating - Bender
    1. Re:Old News by Nugget · · Score: 2, Informative

      I would hope not, for their sake. That phone is a zyxel, not a pulver -- pulver is just another one of the rebadgers. It's also one of the shittiest pieces of equipment I've ever owned. I documented my experiences with it at http://slacker.com/~nugget/asterisk3.php

  4. I have an open access point at my work by way2trivial · · Score: 4, Insightful
    and at my home... both on consumer grade broadband connections..

    widespread wifi voip will force me to close them. the bandwidth potential is to severe....

    --
    every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
    1. Re:I have an open access point at my work by dresgarcia · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    2. Re:I have an open access point at my work by LiquidCoooled · · Score: 2, Interesting

      The art is to simply open the ports you want to allow access on :)

      "Sure, you can surf the web from my connection, but your not going to send crap through it"

      --
      liqbase :: faster than paper
    3. Re:I have an open access point at my work by user9918277462 · · Score: 4, Informative

      SIP-based VOIP services like Vonage use UDP ports 5060, 5061 and the UDP range 10000-20000 (inclusive). TCP is not used.

    4. Re:I have an open access point at my work by jonbrewer · · Score: 5, Informative

      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.

      This depends entirely upon the codec used. 90kbps (full-duplex) would be G.711, while G.729 uses about a third of this:

      http://www.terracall.com/FAQs_white_1.aspx

      I haven't figured out why so many people use G.711 - voice doesn't need this much bandwidth, and we all know this from years of working with mp3.

      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 can be very tricky. SIP uses UDP 5060 to negotiate calls, then picks variable high ports (~16000 I think) but can be run pretty much anywhere.

      I have been playing with a WiFi VoIP phone from ZyXel at home for the last few weeks & the performance has been adequate. It really depends heavily on the quality of your Internet connection. Unless you have consistent ping times of 50ms and close to zero jitter to your call termination point, you won't enjoy the experience.

    5. Re:I have an open access point at my work by ZakMcCracken · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I haven't figured out why so many people use G.711 - voice doesn't need this much bandwidth, and we all know this from years of working with mp3.

      Simple-- there is just so much overhead that dividing your codec bandwidth does not increase the capacity much.

      In fact, if you check out this good technical presentation by Spectralink, slide 13, you will see for example that a G.711 call (64 kbps both ways, i.e. at most 128 kbps) actually utilizes 4.5% of the bandwidth in "11 Mbps" mode (i.e. in the best radio conditions). That represents 500 kbps of nominal bandwidth, to carry a 128 kbps signal.

      What happens when you use the G.729 (GSM) codec at 8 kbps instead, is that the quality goes down for for sure, but the capacity does not increase that much: one call utilizes 3.5% of the bandwidth in "11 Mbps" mode, which still represents 400 kbps of nominal bandwidth.

      So while you divided your codec rate by 8, sacrificing quality, the capacity has only been increased by 30%, not by 700% as one would expect in a perfectly designed system.

      Why bother with lousy codecs when the underlying layer adds so much overhead in any case?

    6. Re:I have an open access point at my work by zm · · Score: 2, Interesting
      TCP is not used.

      Actually, that is not correct. See rfc3261.
      All SIP elements MUST implement UDP and TCP. SIP elements MAY
      implement other protocols.

      Making TCP mandatory for the UA is a substantial change from RFC
      2543. It has arisen out of the need to handle larger messages,
      which MUST use TCP, as discussed below. Thus, even if an element
      never sends large messages, it may receive one and needs to be
      able to handle them.
      --
      Sig ?
    7. Re:I have an open access point at my work by user9918277462 · · Score: 4, Informative

      Regardless of the RFC, I can verify that Vonage at least does not use TCP currently in its hardware applications.

  5. Still lame... by WIAKywbfatw · · Score: 3, Funny

    OK, wireless but still less space than a Nomad. I guess that still makes it lame in some people's eyes...

    --

    "Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
  6. Good by doombob · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This will be a wonderful alternative for many people. Right now, the company I work for is setting up various hotspots on the selling point that you could bring in Vonage, and this will be one more great selling point. It's amazing how many people despise phone companies.

  7. XTEN + Ipaq + Asterisk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    I have had this setup working for some time now. Works perfectly!

  8. Been using Vonage by kvsnut · · Score: 4, Informative

    I've been using Vonage and I dig it so far - altough I'm hoping the international rates come down further.

    I have Verizon for land line and they charge 2.57 per minute to france. I'm not signed up for an international plan but I do have a $60 per month plan. They are shooting themselves in the foot by charging so much for basic line, vmail and international.

    This idea is cool but I don't think it would be an immediate threat to the wireless carriers.

    1. Re:Been using Vonage by steeleweed · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Ever consider Skype? PC-PC free internationally, PC to phone also available: PC in US to phone in France would be 0.017 Euro/minute...

  9. More detail, please. by Moby+Cock · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Can the phones be used to receive incoming calls? If so, how does Vonage "know" where to address the messages to? Is there a persistent forward channel giving Vonage the phone's location?

    1. Re:More detail, please. by Sialagogue · · Score: 5, Informative

      Incoming calls would be no problem, just as they aren't with their modems or softphone. The phone is basically a shrunken VoIP modem with a mic and a wireless card, so I'd assume that the phone declares its IP address to Vonage Central once it logs on to the local network. Vonage then maps your local number to that IP and your on your way.

      Their modems and softphone work the same way. Once they navigate the firewall they log into the Vonage servers and your number is mapped. We use both all the time internationally - we've sent modems to our European offices which has made them accessable with a local New York call, and we use the softphone on business trips to Hong Kong, which has turned a multi-hundred dollar phone bill per trip into nearly zero.

      If you're involved in international business, VoIP is the biggest cost-saving measure since e-mail.

      --
      The only acceptable defense of scientific results is to say that they were the product of the Scientific Method.
    2. Re:More detail, please. by cavemanf16 · · Score: 4, Informative

      Vonage's current units work by having a unique identifier that they send back to Vonage to identify which "number" the call is coming from or going to. In other words, if I take my Vonage unit with me on the road and have a hotel with broadband available in the room, all I have to do is plug the unit in and I could make calls from it back to my area code as a "local" call. I could also receive calls in my hotel room from people trying to reach me at my "home" phone number. I assume their WiFi phone would work the exact same way.

      I know some /.'ers may poo-poo this idea, but I think it's got some real sticking power. The whole "college kids making free calls" thing mentioned in the article is just one use of many. In the approx. 1yr that we've had Vonage at my home, neither my wife or I have been displeased with the service. Yes, my wife gets displeased when I'm trying to d/l all three Mandrake 10.1 ISO's and she's trying to talk to her mother because I'm swamping the cable connection with my d/l's, but I simply delay the downloads... no big deal.

      I'd also like to mention the sheer joy you will receive when telling your local and long distance telemark-a-droids that there is no way they can beat the price you're currently getting for phone service. When you tell them: "I'm getting every single service you offer PLUS long distance PLUS Canada calls PLUS $0.05-$0.15/min. for International calls for $29.99", you can hear their jaw hit the desk as they say: "Oh. Have a nice day." True, we're not factoring in the price of broadband to that dollar amount, but hell, I'd have broadband whether or not I needed phone service anyways so that doesn't matter.

    3. Re:More detail, please. by cavemanf16 · · Score: 2, Informative

      You mentioned that large downloads can cause the VoIP to be less than stellar. What about the other way around? I have DSL for one reason only. Loweset latency that I can afford. Does the VoIP kill your latency? For me, anything that makes me have greater than (say 70ms) to my favorite Q3 servers is a no go. That's why I kill peer to peer (& anything else that's going on) on my home network while I'm gaming.

      I haven't noticed that it does. I regularly get under 70ms pings to CounterStrike:Source servers in the midwest. (I live in Columbus, OH) Of course, I use a router which provides connections to the VoIP box and other computers in the house, so without a router in front of the VoIP box it might. I could probably get even fancier if my router was a linux box with QoS packet scheduling enabled, but I'm not all that into administering a fancy-schmancy network in my home. (This is on a 3Mbit down/356?Mbit up cable modem through Insight RoadRunner) I can consistently max out a really large download from high bandwidth servers at 300kB/s, so YMMV on DSL or a slower cable connection.

      The VoIP box pings the central server A LOT, but it hasn't impacted my online gaming as far as I can tell.

  10. Idea by spac3manspiff · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Would it be possible to get the same functionality from a PDA with wifi and a mic?

  11. Hurdles by Bronz · · Score: 2, Insightful


    Forgive my ignorance of the product, but won't it need to continually poll a server to find out if it has an incoming call due to firewalls? Also, does it expect to be able to seamlessly jump wifi networks -- transparent to the user anyway?

    I see the use of using it in a Starbucks, or whatever, but it would hardly make a practical mobile phone. And I doubt people would bother carrying two phones around.

    1. Re:Hurdles by rainman_bc · · Score: 2, Interesting

      But IIRC that Philly was makeing the city one huge wifi hotspot.

      Wouldn't that cripple the cellular market in philly?

      --
      09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
  12. Net2Phone Has Had This For A While Now ... by charyou-tree · · Score: 3, Informative

    First used their XJ100 on their VoiceLine service a few months ago. Worked great. Battery life was pretty good too - a couple hours of talking before it had to be recharged.

    Only disadvantage ... 802.11b only. No WPA.

  13. Hotspots? Not really..... by djrogers · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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?
  14. Meh by SilentChris · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I have a similar setup at home:, much cheaper Linksys router with Vonage hooked up to 1 piece of a 2 piece portable phone. The phones are regular models (900 mhz Vtech's I believe). The piece connected to the router goes on the floor, and the other piece is easily accesssible (so I can keep 1 phone or the other charged at all times). The entire setup cost $20 and I can add more phones later if I feel like it.

  15. Not time yet by drivinghighway61 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Not time yet by CKW · · Score: 2, Insightful

      > I'm sure the owners of said networks do not want
      > random passersby using up their bandwidth.

      Not true *at all*. I and friends run WiFi connections explicitly so people can do stuff like this. Laptops on the park bench below me, disabled guy down the hall barely making ends meet gets to use an old/donated system, friends/strangers walking or driving by who pull out their high-end PDA to refer to something online, WiFi p2p/sharing networks, etc etc.

      What's the old saying? Information wants to be free?

      New saying - Bandwidth wants to be free!

      Seriously, the above two sayings are closely related. The effective "cost" of many types of information is near zero due to the ability to replicated it among 6 billion people for near zero cost. And that's because bandwidth is so cheap. Bandwidth *and* information want to be free!

    2. Re:Not time yet by MarkGriz · · Score: 2, Insightful
      What's the old saying? Information wants to be free?

      New saying - Bandwidth wants to be free!
      Newest saying - WiFi phonecalls want to be free.

      ...which of course they will be once someone captures enough WiFi packets to crack the encyption and clone their own phone to someone elses Vonage account.

      --
      Beauty is in the eye of the beerholder.
  16. WiFi VoIP phones unimpressive by Greg@RageNet · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I hope the vonage effort finally brings a good voip/wifi phone to the market. I have a WiSIP and so far it's been unimpressive. Flakey, difficult to configure and use, and underpowered (audio quality degrades sharply when using 128bit WEP). Lots of room in this market to make a better product!

    -- Greg

    --
    Slashdot, would a spell-checker for posting be too much to ask? It's not rocket science!
  17. Deja Vu by Hognoxious · · Score: 2, Insightful
    will allow Vonage subscribers to make VoIP calls from any WiFi hotspot.
    Deja Vu, but for once, not about the article. Wasn't there an outfit called "Rabbit" when mobile phones were kind of taking off (late 80s) in the UK? IIRC you had to stand within 20 yards of some antenna contraption to use them. It was a dismal failure, possibly due to the fact that the only places that had the antennas seemed to be railway stations - right next to a bank of payphones. If this phone doesn't (as TFA suggests) do normal GSM too, then it'll go the same way.

    As to making a voice over wifi call at home, I suppose it means I don't have to swith the pooter on (yeah, like it's ever off).

    --
    Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  18. The phone in question apparently by General_Corto · · Score: 3, Informative

    So, based on the articles, Vonage will be selling this handset (PDF of details available from page).

  19. Great idea! by word+munger · · Score: 4, Funny

    Combines the crappiness of VOIP voice transmission with the unreliability of cell phones! Now we just need to get Microsoft in on this to really ruin it!

    --
    ScienceSeeker.org
  20. Nice and cool but.. by EinarH · · Score: 2, Informative
    ..not very convenient. Can you imagine the "yes I'm now within the free wifi AP, call me on my Vonage phone" ?

    I would rather put my money on Skypes future VoIP GSM phone...

    The Spyware/adware could make it suck though. But for convenience and international calls it might be a winner.

    --

    Melius mori in libertate quam vivere in servitute.

  21. Interesting... by JohnnyCannuk · · Score: 2, Interesting

    And, I believe being done in Toronto by Starnix (along with a few other cool things). Remember this?:

    "That's one PDA doing the job of two desktop PCs, a notebook PC, and three telephones."

    I suspect using a trimode card with any PDA\Palm\laptop you could home brew your own version of this that could pick up GSM as well.

    Still, pretty interesting...

    --
    Never by hatred has hatred been appeased, only by kindness - the Buddha
  22. Here's the plan... by F34nor · · Score: 2, Interesting

    1. Everyone with a broadband connection gets a Wifi point and make it free.

    2. Everyone get a VoIP account.

    3. Everyone gets free cellphone service in major metro areas and suburban areas.

    4. WiMax comes out and the coverage increases by miles.

    5. Both Cell phone and POTS companies go out of buisness and are replaced by a pure IP network the opperate as a messure of bandwith density as a mesure of distance from a optical fiber.

    6. anti-profit

  23. Somebody pinch me! by WebCowboy · · Score: 2, Funny

    A new wireless phone product that isn't about

    * being powered by Windows
    * playing music and annoying ringtones
    * takes even more megapixels of pics than ever before!
    * plays microscopic video

    No--it's about a phone that...get ready for it...improves the ability to make phone calls! What a new and novel idea! It's about F***in' time, and I have to say that this is the first phone that has piqued my interest in a long time.

  24. Seen also on Wi-Fi Planet by Zoinks · · Score: 2, Informative

    More detail and a picture over here