Careful to cover all of its bases, Siemens Communications Inc. has recently announced initiatives to enhance VoIP services for consumers, SMBs and enterprises. On the consumer front, Siemens (News - Alert) Home and Office Communication Devices, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Siemens Communications, announced an agreement with Yahoo! to extend VoIP calling capabilities to Siemens’ Gigaset Cordless Telephones.

 

The relationship between Siemens and Yahoo! Messenger with Voice will enable consumers to enjoy voice-enhanced services not only at a PC, but from anywhere within the home. Siemens and Yahoo! will offer the Siemens Gigaset M34 USB adapter, which IP-enables Gigaset telephones with the VoIP calling capabilities of Yahoo! Messenger with Voice. The adapter will allow users to make and receive calls through the free PC-to-PC calling feature of Yahoo! Messenger with Voice, and make cost-effective calls to fixed line phones through the Phone In and Phone Out features. Using their Gigaset handsets, customers will be able to easily access their Yahoo! Messenger friends' lists, view contacts and their presence status and change their personal presence status. The adapter is compatible with Gigaset cordless phones introduced after the fall of 2004 and that belong to the C-Class and above. The adapter will be available by the third quarter of 2006.

 

As for today’s enterprises, Siemens Communications announced the first in a series of collaborative efforts with Intel Corporation to optimize enterprise communications. Dubbed "Laptop telephony," the Siemens optiClient family of telephony softphone applications will be available in some Intel (News - Alert) Centrino Duo mobile technology-based laptop computers. Such collaboration has resulted in the development of technology to allow mobile workers to make VoIP calls using Intel Centrino Duo mobile technology-based laptop computers linked with remote wired and wireless networks.

 

Voice functionality will be prioritized, even if the PC is engaged in sending or receiving e-mail and FTP or other processor-intensive applications, allowing workers to run several other business applications while using a Siemens softphone over a wireless local area network (WLAN), without loss of call quality. Additionally, should access points be filled with additional devices, such as printers, PCs, or other devices, the Intel Centrino Duo-based laptops will always prioritize voice data, even while roaming between different access points.

 

Back to Small Business VoIP