VOIP Cellphones

With cost-saving VOIP (voice over Internet telephony) really starting to take off and replacing wired phones, makers of cellular phones are taking notice. Cell phone heavyweights Qualcomm, Texas Instruments, Nortel Networks and others are incorporating VoIP cell phones, chips and wireless network equipment into their products.

VoIP is the basis for Internet phone services, popularized by commercial VoIP provider Vonage and free peer-to-peer phone service provider Skype. VoIP calls are digitized and routed over networks using the Internet Protocol (IP), which is the backbone of the Internet. So far, VoIP calls are unregulated, a major factor that can keep VoIP calling plans at half the cost of traditional phone services.

Major cell phone operators are now making plans to extend the usage of VoIP calls.  In fact, many phone operators already make extensive internal use of VoIP to cut down on the cost of their own operations.

This push coincides with the building of wireless broadband networks, which transmit data bits fast enough and accurate enough to make VoIP cell phones a reality.

The Japanese government plans to build a network to introduce VOIP cellphones there by 2007.  This mobile VoIP cellphone service would take the place of existing VoIP cell phone services that are required to connect to WiFi hotspots for Internet access.

VoIP cellphones using the network are expected to have 15 Mbs rates, but the speed and quality of voice may go down if a large volume of users in the same area use the service at the same time.

• VOIP Cellphones