Developers of telephony systems that use Cisco Systems' IP phones
will soon be able to support nearly any set of characters following
Cisco's decision to adopt support for Unicode.
A forthcoming release of Cisco's software for its IP phones will
include support for Unicode, the standard that allows text in
virtually any alphabet or character set to be rendered on a
display.
Cisco will introduce the new capability at a developer conference
in May this year.
The new feature could allow developers to tap into a burgeoning
market for IP telephony in the Asia-Pacific region, especially in
China, said Alistair Woodman, director of marketing for Cisco's
Voice Technology Centre.
IP phones plug into a packet network that treats voice calls as
data, saving companies the cost of building and maintaining
separate voice and data networks. IP phones also can save
residential customers money by letting them use a carrier's data
network.
Packet-based phone networks also can give developers more
flexibility to build new voice and data services, vendors say.
New services could feature an interface to access special services
and information tailored to a specific company or group of
customers.
The ability to display text in a variety of character sets could
make value-added services on IP phones more useful to many people,
according to an executive of a company that develops IP telephony
services software for carriers.
Demand for multiple character sets is growing in Europe, where
companies are more likely to employ speakers of different
languages. For example, a native Swedish speaker may work in
France. With support for special Swedish characters, it would be
easier for that employee to look up the name of a Swedish
colleague.
Cisco's core software for its IP phones will also support XML,
allowing developers to provide virtually any kind of content to the
phone on a user's desk.