Wi-Fi Alliance takes on wireless IP telephony

June 30, 2008 (IDG News Service) The Wi-Fi Alliance wants to make voice a part of Wi-Fi networks, and has introduced a program to certify products, it announced on Monday.

The "Wi-Fi Certified Voice-Personal" stamp of approval means a product is capable of making or handling good-quality voice calls in the home or a small-office environment, according to the Wi-Fi Alliance. Access points, wireless routers, handsets (which are growing at a steady rate) and laptops can all be tested and certified.

The push is a way for the Wi-Fi Alliance to keep femtocells and upcoming technologies such as WiMax, HSPA (High-Speed Packet Access) and LTE (Long Term Evolution) -- which have lately overshadowed Wi-Fi -- out of the home, according to Richard Webb, directing analyst at Infonetics Research. Webb said he thinks Wi-Fi, helped by a low cost and a large installed base, will be able to stay dominant.

"Wi-Fi performance has been continually improved, and this is another step along that road," said Webb.

In a departure from interoperability testing, which has always been the Wi-Fi Alliance's bread and butter, the new certification instead looks at performance. To be certified, products have to deliver packet loss of less than 1% with no burst losses, as well as latency and maximum jitter of less than 50 milliseconds, according to the Wi-Fi Alliance.

The first round of certified products include Intel Corp.'s Pro/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection (an embedded 802.11a, b and g PCIe Mini Card), Cisco Systems Inc.'s Aironet 1250 and 1200 Series Access Points, and Meru's access point AP200.

Wi-Fi Certified Voice-Personal is only an option for vendors, so users will need to double-check a special Wi-Fi product database to see whether a particular product has passed the testing.

The Wi-Fi Alliance also has plans to introduce a program for enterprise environments, called "Wi-Fi Certified Voice-Enterprise," early next year. It will be based on the Voice-Personal Program and add support for bandwidth management, hand-offs between access points, enterprise-class security, network management and other features that are necessary in larger environments, according to the organization.

Enterprise adoption of IP telephony over wireless LANs is growing, and vendors have put a lot of effort into improving performance, but many companies are still reticent about putting voice on them, according to Webb.

"Certification gives it a stamp of approval," he said.

Reprinted with permission from

IDG.net
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