Wifi Revolution

Broadcom (News - Alert) announced on Tuesday that its WiFi phone platform now supports Skype software and will be available to consumers in new WiFi (News - Alert) phone handsets from Buffalo. The Buffalo WiFi phone for Skype allows Skypers to conduct free Internet-based calling to others, while supporting traditional calling to and from the public switched telephone network (PSTN) through the SkypeIn and SkypeOut offerings. The partnership between Broadcom and Skype (News - Alert) will ultimately free Skypers from their PCs while they talk on the phone via a Skype -enabled connection powered by VoIP technology.

“A Wi-Fi phone is more flexible and useful than a traditional analog phone because it uses Internet Protocol (IP) as the underlying technology and can communicate with other devices on the network,” said Broadcom’s Consumer VoIP products senior product marketing manager Monika Gupta in a statement. “Consumers can now be part of the Skype community, scroll through their contacts, see who is online, make free Skype-to-Skype calls, all without sitting in front of the PC.”

The Buffalo WiFi phone for Skype uses IEEE 802.11b/g wireless LAN connectivity and a high-speed Internet connection. The device features a high-resolution color display, speakerphone and Buffalo's AOSS easy configuration protocol. The Buffalo WiFi phone will be Skype-Certified and available for the Japanese market in this month.

Broadcom’s WiFi phone reference design is comprised of the BCM1161 mobile VoIP processor and BCM4318E AirForce One 54g chip. The processor integrates an ARM9 CPU, which is an analog voice codec featuring a direct microphone and a speaker interface, a 2 megapixel camera interface, a 262k color LCD display interface, a polyphonic ringer, as well as a USB interface into a single-chip system. The BCM4318E chip is Broadcom's smallest 54g client system, which integrates a 2.4 GHz radio, IEEE (News - Alert) 802.11a/b/g baseband processor, media access controller (MAC) and other components onto a single chip.

Broadcom xChange VoIP software allows the BCM1161 VoIP processor to transport toll-quality voice through the use of complex algorithms. xChange is a modular software architecture that it is currently utilized across all of Broadcom's VoIP silicon platforms including WiFi and desktop Ethernet IP phones, residential terminal adapters, and voice-enabled cable and DSL residential gateways.

The BCM4318E and BCM1161 devices will be available and shipping starting today together with the Broadcom xChange VoIP and OneDriver software.

The Broadcom BCM1161mobile VoIP processor was introduced just this September. The BCM1161's multimedia features include polyphonic ring-tone support, a 2 Megapixel digital camera, voice record/playback and video clips record/playback. The device also supports telephony features including 3-way conferencing and speaker phone support, and high-fidelity voice capabilities through the use of Broadcom's BroadVoice technology. It also integrates an ARM9-based CPU, analog voice codec with a direct microphone and high-output speaker interface, 262k color LCD display interface and a USB 2.0 interface.

“The performance and voice quality achieved through our BroadVoice32 technology allow phone calls to be near CD-quality,” said Patrick Sullivan, vice president and general manager of Broadcom's VoIP phone products back then. “This provides a significant differentiator to those service providers who offer VoIP service when compared to traditional phone service.”

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Johanne Torres is contributing editor for TMCnet and INTERNET TELEPHONY magazine. To see more articles by Johanne Torres, please visit her columnist page.

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