VoIP Without The DSP

BY RICH TEHRANI

Editor's Note: This is the fourth in a series of short articles from Rich Tehrani based on recent visits with a number of VoIP vendors. The previous article is available here.

New products are being developed faster than ever to take advantage of the acceptance of IP telephony by consumers and businesses alike. VoIP hardware and software development is the fastest growing segment of technology once again and VCs are tripping over themselves to fund new concepts and ideas. This is one reason for the expected success of events like VoIP Developer as well as that of companies like HelloSoft, a 120-person company supplying protocol stacks, DSP software, speech coders, echo cancellers and other components so that developers can create powerful applications with off-the-shelf components.

Here are some of the solutions provided by the company:

HelloVoice is a voice over packet solution aimed at devices big and small.

HelloSIP is a SIP stack that allows the building of various applications.

HelloRTP/TCP is a stack allowing developers to create media sessions, transmit and receive RTP/RTCP packets while further allowing for codec integration, jitter buffering and buffer management.

HelloSoft IP Phone for the ARM Architecture is a software reference design for residential gateways, wired or wireless IP phones and other VoIP-enabled devices. The highly optimized DSP VoIP algorithm eliminates the need for a separate DSP, meaning less power consumption, reduced cost and rapid time to market.

HelloWLAN and HelloWireless are products that Interface with 802.11x protocols and GSM/GPRS respectively.

HelloSoft claims they were one of the first companies to declare you don�t need a DSP in a VoIP phone. While I can�t verify this statement, they do seem to be on the leading edge of DSP-less VoIP solutions. As more companies scramble to develop solutions in the VoIP space, companies like HelloSoft are positioned well to supply the tools needed to rapidly bring products to market. They are also simultaneously allowing for lower cost devices as well as ones that can be brought to market more quickly. All of these issues are of crucial importance to companies developing the next generation of VoIP solutions.

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Rich Tehrani is TMC's president. He welcomes your comments. Participate in our forums.