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Technology

Why isn't WiFi Used for Voice Anymore? 36

Posted by Cliff from the do-we-need-more-voice-based-devices dept.
Sonam asks: "Despite the relative cheapness of Wifi cards (available here for US$35) nobody seems to use Wifi for the ultimate killer app: short-range handheld voice terminals -- a.k.a. cordless phones. The competing, lower bandwidth DECT standard is widely used in Europe and elsewhere to provide good quality, digital voice and data links at home and about. Like Wifi, DECT terminals can operate in peer-to-peer mode -- some people even use their home DECT phones as walkie-talkies in camping trips. Does anyone know why Wifi isn't used for voice? Would a biscuit PC with a Wifi PCMCIA card work as a voice+data terminal? (Note, the second cheapest price on the pricewatch page above seems to be for a DECT module)" For the most part, voice is covered, we have cell phones, short wave radios, walkie-taklies with a 2 mile range and more! These things are all entrenched, they work, and they are now fairly cheap. Do we need anything else? Would WiFi voice provide better communication than those voice-based devices we are already using?
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Why isn't WiFi Used for Voice Anymore? More

Why isn't WiFi Used for Voice Anymore?

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  • Although WiFi may be useful for data, I personally doubt that it will be able to enter into the entrenched voice market, such as cell phones and handheld radios. As a counterpoint, cell phones are continuously attempting to enter the data transfer area, with option like surfing the Net.

  • The Obvious Answer (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Cycon ( 11899 ) <steve [[ ] thePr ... m ['at]' in gap]> on Saturday June 15, 2002 @08:34PM (#3709480) Homepage
    For the most part, voice is covered, we have cell phones, short wave radios, walkie-taklies with a 2 mile range and more! These things are all entrenched, they work, and they are now fairly cheap. Do we need anything else? Would WiFi voice provide better communication than those voice-based devices we are already using?

    WiFi would seem like a far better solution than any of those you mention above once you add in the obvious component:

    Voice over IP

    With a VOIP WiFi "cell phone" you could conceivable talk to anyone in range (peer-to-peer) at no cost, and to anyone connected to the internet if you are in range of a base station.

    You even already have an MPL'd H.323 protocol library [openh323.org] to provide communication with NetMeeting and GnomeMeeting [gnomemeeting.org] users. In fact, I've been looking for something like this which could compile on the LinuxARM architecture, in order to turn my iPAQ running Linux into a WiFi cellular phone.

    --Cycon

    • With a VOIP WiFi "cell phone" you could conceivable talk to anyone in range (peer-to-peer) at no cost, and to anyone connected to the internet if you are in range of a base station.

      Now, as a company trying to make money off of people's voice conversations, this helps me how? I don't mean to be cynical as hell, but the cell phone companies have spent a load o' cash on infrastructure, and they want a return on their investment. If peer-to-peer phone service ala Nextel becomes the norm, it creates a revenue problem for them.

      I'm not going to go in to the security implications of my phone number and conversations being routed through a non-trusted infrastructure as you describe. I could not trust that I was the only one able to make calls based on my phone number, nor that I was the only one able to receive calls. Long distance network access and billing is another issue with this, and the security of it. Long distance is free with your phone now partially because AT&T is a long distance provider, as is Sprint, etc. The peering arrangements with other providers so their customers cell phones work in other areas include long-distance trunk access (at least as I understand it).

  • i was at a medical informatics conference, and came across these guys, vocera [vocera.com]. this is the killer app for voice over ip. it works just like the star trek communicator. i see it being useful outside of the hospital and industrial setting too.

  • Price? (Score:3, Informative)

    by shepd ( 155729 ) <slashdot.org@gmai l . c om> on Saturday June 15, 2002 @09:22PM (#3709588) Homepage Journal
    I have a Panasonic GigaRange DSS phone (Cost: $120 - $150). Its good to 1 mile, no modifications, and is legal throughout North America. It means I can be outside cutting the grass and if it rings I don't have to run inside the house to answer it.

    Two of those cards would already run $70. Throw in some telephone interface electronics, a battery powered handset, speaker, digital auto-code hardware (to prevent anyone with a phone abusing your line) and I'm pretty sure you'll be at the same or higher price, and you won't have anywhere near the range.

    Speaking of range, my local bargain shop had (sold out now) FRS radios for $13. That's miles of range. I doubt a fully digital solution will ever be able to beat that (heck, they can't even sell a full hardware modem for under $20!).

    Sometimes analog is the way to go.
    • 1 mile? I don't think so.

      Maybe in open prarie with no bugs in the way to distrot the signal... but that's near laboratory conditions.

      Those gigarange phones don't go anywhere near a mile.

  • Raw voice beats the shit out of VoIP. VoIP is for getting it from relay point to relay point on an existing network, not the last mile. Not the worst idea for something around the house or office, but won't be hitting the streets either...

  • Anymore? (Score:4, Funny)

    by tswinzig ( 210999 ) on Saturday June 15, 2002 @10:05PM (#3709692) Journal
    "Boy I remember back in the old days when we had rotary phones and you DIALed a number, and your call was routed to a real, live operator, and she transferred your call by hand over the WiFi network."

    "Yeah, those were the days..."

  • I think one of the cool things about VoIP on 802.11b would be the additional features you could build in to the handset.
    If your handset is something similar to an iPaq, you have a full ~11Mbit data connection as well as voice communications. This could open a lot of possibilities for collabrative applications and video conferencing.
  • I don't believe anyone in the business world would be willing to stick their neck out for something insecure like this. This is also the reason Linux has difficulty achieving market penetration. It's hard to determine accountability.
  • Where I work, the single most vital piece of technology is the telephone. We can do without key bits of our computer infrastructure for hours at a time. Computer failures of one sort or another happen all the time and are (kind of) accepted. But, if the telephone system in an office fails at all, senior executives start looking for someone to decapitate.

    Introducing extra complexity through demonstrably fragile technologies is not going to make friends of any business-person who has come to rely on the good old telephone system.

    You don't even have to wonder if the application comes from MS or not - even the market and technology leaders are not there yet, and when they do get there, you can bet your proverbial that there will be some crap network product or cowboy technician in the loop who is going to impinge upon your guaranteed uptime.

    Of course, my opinion is worth exactly what you just paid for it...

  • Not practical. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by BlueLightning ( 442320 ) on Sunday June 16, 2002 @12:51AM (#3710003) Homepage Journal
    As well as the other things already mentioned (complexity, cost, and existing systems for voice) there is also the question as to why you would want to clutter up the WiFi frequencies with voice data? The whole idea would seem to be wastage of everything all round.
    • Why not?

      I've got a Uniden phone which, while not WiFi, certainly lives in the same 2.4GHz slice of spectrum. It works well.

      Same with my microwave oven.

      As long as the latter remains true, and my -neighbor's- microwave continues to cause interference on my 2.4GHz devices, it seems rather silly to go about trying to reduce clutter from 500mW radios on a band which irrevocably has ~1KW transmitters in every home.

      Perhaps, instead, we should marvel that 2.4GHz communications work at all, and enjoy it while it still does.
  • 1) 2.4GHz has lots of interference from other consumer products. You couldn't take a phone call on your WiFi phone if someone in your house was using a cordless 2.4GHz phone (or using the microwave).

    2) WiFi cards are very power hungry. The battery life would be horribly short.

    3) VOIP is very sensitive to latency.

    4) Peer-to-Peer calls with 802.11b... what? WEP would have to be disabled, with no server to manage the ip addresses, who would know what phone is where? It's a logistical nightmare. You would have to walk over to the person and ask them for this information. Kind of defeats the purpose now doesn't it?
  • That cordless phones should use 802.11b?

    I dunno about you, but my cordless phone works in 2.4Ghz. Works great. My neighbor has one too. IT works great too. It's not 802.11b, of course.. but who cares. IT's a phone.

    Also.. another reason that WiFi isn't used is.. RANGE!

    Sorry, but 2.4Ghz sucks for penetration. You get shit range if there is any concrete in the building.

    900Mhz much better.
  • The U.S. Army's Land Warrior wearable computer project uses voice-over-ip over wireless ethernet for its primary voice radio capability.

  • Worst. Question. Ever. (Score:3, Funny)

    by Wakko Warner ( 324 ) on Monday June 17, 2002 @10:17AM (#3715016) Homepage Journal
    nobody seems to use Wifi for the ultimate killer app: short-range handheld voice terminals -- a.k.a. cordless phones.

    Nobody seems to care, because (unless you have been living in a cave for the past 10 years or so), we already have perfectly good cordless phone technology.

    This is one of the lamest, most Slashdot-Retarded questions I've ever seen here.

    - A.P.
  • I was at an electronics show (CES or COMDEX, can't recall) a year ago where I saw Cisco demonstrating Wi-Fi voice handsets. They are designed to work in buildings that already use (wired) IP telephony... just carry your handset with you when you go into the lab and you're still on the IP phone network.

    Also, I think Home Depot uses this technology. If you look at the back of their stores, you'll see a box on the wall that looks suspiciously like a big 802.11 access point. Makes sense to have voice & data on the same hardware if there's a cost savings.
  • <DUH>
    You know this gets me thinking...

    PowerWheels technology [fisher-price.com] has come a long way. You can now purchase one of the "New Beetles" [fisher-price.com] for a mere $150!

    Why aren't we using them for cheap public transportation?
    </DUH>
  • They are at http://www.vocera.com/ .

    We used to call the products that filled this application niche "cell phones".

    I wasn't going to plug their site, since this story seems to me to be an engineered plug, anyway, to coincide with their being hyped on Rafe Needleman's "Catch Of The Day" site. It's a little too coincidental.

    I went looking to see who the were hiring, to see what they were doing, and then dropped them a note when their "Careers" page wouldn't display, except in Internet Explorer ("UNIX Geeks Need Not Apply"). This image is reinforced by the web server they are running.

    According to Netcraft, they are running "Microsoft-IIS/5.0 on Windows 2000", so I rather expect that their slashdotting will end up being fatal.

    Viewing the page source (rather than booting the necessary OS and starting IE) shows that they are looking for a V.P. of Sales, an IT/Admin, a Pre/Post Sales support person, a Product Manager, a QA Generalist, and a "Senior Quality Engineer/Manager" (now *that* will run off the right side of your business card).

    Personally, I think it's an OK idea, if a bit of a niche play. Going after medical is OK, but being the communications link in a hospital probably puts you at significant legal risk, since it most likely makes you a compnent in a life support system.
  • When has wifi been used for voice?

    is someone confused with 2.4ghz cordless phones?
  • Big Y grocery stores in Connecticut and Mass. are all getting their phone systems upgraded, and one key feature of the new system is a half dozen cordless phones in each store for managers/supervisors out on the sales floor that use the existing 802.11b network most grocery stores have in place throughout the store for handheld scanners, scales, ESL's, etc. They're pretty cool little phones, and they tie right into the Nortel Meridian system we use. They are a bit pricey, though, at about $700 a pop. They're made my a company called SpectraLink. They have all their marketing info on them here [spectralink.com].

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