Voice-over-IP Now on Wireless LAN

Symbol develops NetVision phone system

Wireless LANs are no longer solely for data, unless you include packetized voice as just another type of data. And this is exactly what Symbol Technologies has done in creating its NetVision phone system featuring voice over IP technology.

Symbol’s NetVision Phone, based on a modified cellular phone design by Sanyo, enables people to place full-duplex voice calls over Symbol’s Spectrum24 wireless LAN, supporting more than a couple dozen simultaneous calls per cell. NetVision does this by compressing the voice data. In addition, the system conforms to the H.323 ITU standard, which defines real-time multimedia teleconferencing over the Internet.

The NetVision Phone offers a number of conventional features including call waiting, call on hold, call forwarding, as well as two-call conferencing. The phone, which will be widely available around summer, offers about four hours of talk time, as well as a two-way paging capability, according to Symbol.

Calls from the mobile phone can reach both conventional phones, through a Cisco 3260 gateway, as well as any other PC-based phone accessible via a TCP/IP based network. Of course, calls placed through an internal corporate data network carry no additional toll or public utility charges.

Symbol NetVision Phones are expected to be priced between $500-600.

Symbol Technologies, Inc.
www.symbol.com