Souped-up Wi-Fi handset includes Web browsing and email
Published: 02 Jul 2003 09:19 BST
The Wi-Fi phone market is set to heat up, with a maker announcing a handset that can do Web browsing and email, in addition to voice.
IP Talk, a subsidiary of electronics firm Mitsubishi Electric, will sell a phone that works on voice-over-Internet Protocol (VoIP) only. It will operate only when in the hotspot of a Wi-Fi (802.11b) access point, according to Nikkei Electronics Asia Online.
Networking equipment giant Cisco previously announced it would sell its own Wi-Fi phone, the Cisco 7920 in Japan from July, said the report.
Wi-Fi handsets can be used in zones covered by a wireless LAN access point, such as construction sites, hospitals, offices and warehouses.
The 7920 phone -- which lacks email and Web features -- is essentially a wireless version of Cisco's 7960 IP (Internet Protocol) phone, which uses a wired Ethernet connection to make and receive telephone calls. However, the 7920 will have a wireless handset that uses an office's Wi-Fi network to connect.
Cisco will have plenty of competition when it introduces the 7920, especially from Wi-Fi equipment maker SpectraLink, which sells a similar phone. Handset maker Motorola and Avaya also are at work on their own versions.
The 7902G, at $130 (£78.22), puts the company on par in price with competitors, including SpectraLink. Several analysts, including the Meta Group, estimate that the average price of an IP phone is between $125 and $135.
IP phones allow people to make calls that travel over the Internet, rather than across privately owned long-distance telephone networks. The cost of making Internet phone calls is significantly less than that of basic long-distance service because the calls bypass the telephone companies' lines. As a result, many large corporations and tech-savvy consumers are using this technology for long-distance dialling.
News.com's Ben Charny contributed to this report.
Click here to see a map of the UK's Wi-Fi hot spots.
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