Vonage and UTStarcom Announce Portable Wi-Fi VoIP Phone

UTStarcom has announced a portable Wi-Fi handset, the F-1000, that will allow people to make VoIP calls on 802.11b Wi-Fi networks, including home and corporate Wi-Fi networks, and public hot spots.

The company has also partnered with Vonage to provide the handset to Vonage customers, pre-configured with the Vonage service, nationwide beginning in the spring or summer 2005.

The handset will allow people to make VoIP calls over their home networks, on work networks, or to make VoIP calls at Wi-Fi hot spots when they travel. It combines the features of a VoIP terminal adapter and a standard cordless telephone.

The F1000 handset has a standby time of up to 80 hours, compared to typical Wi-Fi phone standby times of about 8 hours, and talk time of three to four hours, six to eight times longer than the 30-minute talk time of other Wi-Fi phones, claim UTStarcom officials.

The F1000 Wi-Fi portable handset supports a wide variety of VoIP features, based on the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP). Service providers can offer high-value call features, such as three-way calling, call waiting, and call transfer, and more, based on the capabilities of their call servers. The F1000 also enables voice processes, including comfort noise generation, voice activity detection, and echo cancellation, as well as IP protocol features such as Real-Time Transfer Protocol (RTP), Session Description Protocol, Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP), and Point-to-Point over Ethernet (PPoE) authentication.