Network management Toolkit

Internet telephony rides back into fashion

Winston Chai CNETAsia

Published: 22 Apr 2004 16:00 BST

If Victor Tsao has his way, your next broadband router could bear an uncanny resemblance to your living room telephone.

Ten months after his company was bought by Cisco Systems for $500m (£282m), the founder of consumer networking-gear maker Linksys plans to embark on an aggressive product expansion trail this year.

Beyond latching onto the digital entertainment wave with more offerings for multimedia streaming and wireless console gaming, Tsao will venture into an area where many before him have seen limited success -- Internet telephony.

With the proliferation of the Web in the 90s, the ability to make cheap long-distance calls over the Internet -- based on a technology called voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP -- was often touted as the next big thing for consumers. Of little surprise, the market soon witnessed an onslaught of hardware and software that aimed to ride the Net phoning tide. However, poor voice quality and frequently dropped calls soon drowned much of the consumer enthusiasm surrounding IP telephony.

Thanks to improvements in quality of service and Internet bandwidth in recent years, VoIP has again caught the attention of telecom carriers around the world. During a recent Singapore stopover, Tsao, now vice president and general manager at Linksys, tells ZDNet UK sister site CNETAsia about his plans for VoIP and future directions for the company.

Q: How has Linksys changed after the acquisition?
A: There is no change to the business model. Cisco is the leader in the enterprise networking field. Linksys is a brand of Cisco, but the brand Linksys covers the other side -- small businesses, home users and consumers.

As for market focus and product focus -- they haven't really changed, although, yes, some things have changed. Before the acquisition, 95 percent of our revenue came from the US and Canada. With Cisco's worldwide presence and infrastructure, we started branching out. We had never really focused on this, due to constraints as a privately held company.

Back on 14 October, we launched the Linksys brand in China. We created an entity in Chengdu, focusing on (aftermarket) sales, technology support as well as marketing and promotions.