TeleSym, a voice over IP technology company, is to ship in beta a
client software program that gives laptop PCs phone
capabilities.
The company already ships similar software that gives any Pocket PC
2002 device VoIP capability.
TeleSym announced earlier this week that it will receive additional
funding from Intel's $150m (£93.5m) Communications Fund, which is
part of Intel Capital.
One industry analyst said Intel was seeding the Wi-Fi market in
advance of its Banias chip introduction in the first half of 2003.
Intel will integrate Wi-Fi into the Banias chip set.
In previous product rollouts, Intel had the problem of having a
chip technology that was ahead of the market, according to Tim
Scannell, president of Shoreline Research.
"In the past they would introduce a great new chip, like the
Pentium 4, but there was nothing that could take advantage of it,"
Scannell said.
With TeleSym technology, workers in a closed Wi-Fi-enabled
workgroup environment,such as hospitals and warehouses, can use
their handhelds or notebooks as they would a regular phone. A
push-to-talk capability also gives them the ability to set up
conference calls to all members of a workgroup by depressing the
button located on the side of all Pocket PC devices.
"The side button is part of the Microsoft reference design, and a
company can assign an Intercom value to it," said Pat Boyle,
product manager at Telesym.
With the addition of the SymPhone Connector on the server, TeleSym
users can also connect over the Internet back to their corporate
PBX system and from there place regular outbound calls.
Other features include caller ID and telephone dialling using the
Microsoft Outlook contact database.
According to Boyle, the company has resolved quality issues around
VoIP, as well as minimising the impact of latency by using Edge QoS
real-time latency management in the client software.
With the promise of tremendous cost saving by the use of VoIP the
market is expected to see significant growth next year, according
to Scannell.
"Intel is wise to partner with TeleSym. OEMs may also want to
bundle TeleSym or a product like it into their next generation of
notebooks," Scannell said.