Net2Phone Offers WiFi VoIP Handset And Service

Here at the Communicasia 2004 show in Singapore, I've had a chance to visit some of the exhibits on the floor, and so far one of the more interesting products I saw was a Net2Phone WiFi telephone. Net2Phone is a "elder citizen" of the VoIP market, and has established IP to PSTN interconnection arrangements around the world. That means they have relationships that allow them to terminate a PC or IP originated call to any of the worlds regular telephone numbers. The WiFi phone would make such calls, and allocate charges to a prepaid calling account. Although we've discussed the challenges of WiFi phones (battery consumption, QoS, limited range), the implications of a WiFi phone are also fairly interesting. Broadband customers with a home WiFi gateway could add one of these handsets, and begin making outbound calls at lower per-minute rates than their landline offers, and not tie-up their landline. It's like a Vonage box, but without the box! Of course, Vonage offers a PSTN phone number, so their equipment also handles inbound calls. Net2Phone was pimping up the usability at wireless hotspots, but we think the coverage of free, open WiFi hotspots is still too low to make this a truly useful option when cellular phones offer near-ubiquitous coverage and low long distance rates. However, the new device could be an interesting addition to the WiFi equipped home or office. The handset looks and feels much like a candy-bar style cellular phone. According to Net2Phone, there is still no dual-mode version with wide-area network roaming.

Filed Under: wifi, wi-fi