* How wireless VoIP might integrate with other phone technologies
For the last couple of newsletters we’ve been concentrating on some of the options for converging the worlds of wireless LANs and voice over IP. There’s clearly a desire for this to happen, but the exact pathway for getting there isn’t so clear. In the last newsletter we concentrated on IP phones that have 802.11 capabilities – but there are a couple of other options.
Of course, the primary intent here is to limit the number of discrete devices that you have to lug around. You already have your notebook and/or your PDA, your cell phone, and maybe a couple of pagers. So before you have to start wearing one of those 1950s-era photographers’ vests just to carry your toys, let’s see if we can economize.
A possible level of simplification is to have a combination cell phone and wireless IP phone. When you’re on a campus, you’re talking on the local net. Go off campus, and the same phone works as your cell phone. While there are not many readily available options for this technology today, you should expect to see a lot of announcements over the next year or so. (Of course, this makes one wonder, why even bother to have a wireless VoIP phone at this point if you have a perfectly good cell phone?)
We find it interesting that the majority of the buzz on this technology seems to be centered around integrating cellular technology with VoIP, as opposed to integrating cellular technology with traditional cordless phones. Next time, we’ll look at an interesting idea that drops back, so to speak, to the cordless generation.
