VoIP is proven technology but its greatest challenge is to make the leap from a "technophiles" gadget to a truly consumer orientated "mass" market service.
The advantages are clear - low cost or free telephone calls. But the downsides are just as obvious. Poor quality of earlier technologies such as Skype is well known. But usability issues are the key.
Take a typical scenario - calling for a Pizza delivery. How many consumers users are going to;
1. Go to the PC (often in another part of the home) 2. Turn it on 3. Wait for Windows to load 4. Watch as the latest anti-versus toolkit is downloaded 5. Find the headset 6. Look up the number ...... five minutes have passed and you've forgotten why you want to make the call anyway!!
PC based VoIP is good; but not good enough. Users want instant connectability; a single address book and a service that is mobile. Oh and they want broadband download speeds as well.
So convenience and mobility are critical to the success of VoIP. Don't get me wrong. PC based VoIP will be here for sometime - but the true mass market is going to require a much improved user experience.
WiFi is likely to be the answer. Over 10% of US and UK homes are already WiFi enabled. Almost all broadband packages now come with bundled WiFi routers. A further 15 million homes will be WiFi'd this year. A similar picture is developing across the corporate world. But surprisingly penetration of WiFi is lower than in homes - but rapidly catching up.
WiFi hotspot coverage is also growing with most major cities planning large scale roll-out of free access WiFi.
But WiFi in the home is where the battle will be won or lost. There is a good range of WiFi VoIP handsets coming on to the market. These are the handset that are going to transform the user experience - providing always on internet phone capability in "the pocket". These phones have all the functionality of VoIP plus the all convenience of a mobile – cheap, mobile and always available.
The pocket internet phone concept is being developed by companies such as Mobiboo (http://www.mobiboo.com/ or http://www.tovo.co.uk/.). Cleverly Mobiboo have launched a branded WiFi service through Tesco in the UK. It comes in two “flavours” – WiFi only and dual mode. WiFi only is good basic handset that offers service whenever logged into WiFi. Dual mode is even better – this works as a WiFi phone in WiFi areas and a standard (GSM) mobile when not. Both phones have good battery life; large phonebooks and amazing download speeds – up to 5Mbit/s.
So the scenario above has a very different outcome
1. Take the phone out of your pocket
2. Dial the number.
Now isn't that a so much better way to do it! And the call can be made from anywhere in the home or office. And the local cafe, restaurant, shop or airport! All the convenience of mobile; at the price of VoIP.
www.mobiboo.com
What Is Wi-Fi
Wireless technology has become a prominent field in the area of networking. It has many uses. The most important being portability and mobility. With the help of wireless technology people now can send and receive messages, phone calls, faxes, read files, login on remote machines etc. and perform all the above mentioned duties from anywhere on land, sea, or air.
The technology of wifi has stormed the field of wireless networking. There are numerous applications of wifi. Nowadays it is very useful and critical in business world because today's business gives more emphasis on the communication of the information. Wifi also finds usage at home, workplaces, shops, any public places etc. the study of the advantages and the risks involved in the wifi system is necessary in order to exploit the full use of it.
About wireless networks.
The transfer of information from node to another with the help of electromagnetic waves is referred to as wireless communication. Signals are normally broadcast through free space and are available to anyone who has device capable of receiving them. A new technique of wireless data transmission known as wifi (wireless fidelity) has been developed. Wifi uses the radio waves to transmit the data. It uses the frequency of 2.4GHz and uses SSID for addressing purposes. SSID stands for Service Set Identifier. It uses a set of characters or numbers addresses so that the sending access point can be identified. Any access point which wants to receive the signal must have the same set of SSID as that of sender's SSID.
Advantages.
The usage of wifi system has numerous advantages. The most important advantage is the cost factor. Since there are free hotspots or access points, a free connection between two nodes cab be established in the network.
A wireless network also provides the facilities of mobility. Hence it is now possible to have a wireless connection, free of hard wired connections.It is also easy to install and configure wifi network. It is also easy and generally faster, internet connections are possible by wifi networks.
Dangers and risks.
Since wifi is a wireless connection it uses the shared wireless space. Hence it is possible that many signals of similar frequencies can interfere with each other and cause unnecessary distortions. This leads to the loss of data and the received data may get corrupted. Hence wifi does not ensure an error free connection.
Another danger involved is related to security of data. It is possible that users who are new to the wifi network may setup an insecure access point, without setting the various security configurations.
It is also possible that some miscreants may use the same default SSID everywhere to access the secured access points illegally. The best way to counter these dangers is to learn and study the configuration of the secured network and make it a rule to always use a different SSID for access point and never keep the default value.
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
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