Intel (News - Alert) Corporation has unveiled a new interface specification that it hopes will make the PC more accommodating to Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) applications, enabling interoperability between various softphones and/or peripheral phone devices.

 

In a press release, the company said the new Intel Universal Phone Device Interface (UPDI) is a new software framework and development kit for plug-and-play Web-based phone components. Intel's goal is to make it easier to integrate phone devices from a range of device providers and service providers.

 

By unifying on a new interface spec like UPDI, independent software vendors (ISVs) and hardware vendors can accelerate product development and testing while reducing time-to-market and costs. With UPDI, softphone ISVs no longer have to implement proprietary interfaces and instead can provide "plug-and-play" support for various phone devices. UPDI is also designed to facilitate a broader supply of softphones and devices for service providers.

 

“Both at home and work, people are increasingly using the PC for all kinds of communication, including voice phone calls. UPDI enables hardware and software vendors to build VoIP phone devices and software that interoperate smoothly, eliminating incompatible or proprietary device implementations that add extra cost and support burden,” said Jonathan Khazam, general manager of Intel's Platform Software Division and vice president of the Software and Solutions Group.

 

The UPDI Software Developer Kit provides documentation and reference source code to accelerate software and hardware vendor implementation of UPDI-compatible VoIP components. Since UPDI utilizes existing audio technology through the operating system, no middleware is required to establish a common interface between devices and softphones. A softphone that uses UPDI will immediately recognize when a phone device that supports UPDI is plugged in to a computer.

 

“CounterPath's support of Intel with UPDI underscores our commitment to innovation in the VoIP space,” said CounterPath president and COO Donovan Jones. “The CounterPath Eyebeam 1.5 with the Intel 600SM PCI Phone Adapter was among the first commercial implementations of the UPDI specification. The solution, announced at Computex Taipei in June, enables people to make VoIP calls using existing telephones connected to desktop PCs.”

 

Australian PC manufacturer Optima is currently offering a UPDI-based solution with the Intel 600SM PCI Phone Adapter.

 

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Robert Liu is Executive Editor at TMCnet. Previously, he was Executive Editor at Jupitermedia and has also written for CNN, A&E, Dow Jones and Bloomberg. For more articles, please visit Robert Liu's columnist page.