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Supercharge your Wi-Fi

Posted on 29 Sep 2006 at 10:45

Your final option is a Wi-Fi-specific VoIP phone. These shouldn't be confused with cordless VoIP systems that essentially consist of a standard DECT handset connected to a VoIP Ethernet adaptor. Instead, these phones look like outdated mobiles, but enable VoIP calls over an 802.11g connection. Belkin, Netgear and SMC all now sell phones with support for Skype built in at £140 or less, while Sipgate and Vonage sell the UT Starcom F1000 Wi-Fi phone preconfigured for their service, priced £89 to £99. Again, global usage makes these devices attractive to travellers, but on the downside these phones aren't always compatible with WPA security. And typing in a WEP key using a phone keypad is no joke.

The holy grail of Wi-Fi VoIP is UMA (Unlicensed Mobile Access), whereby the phone involved is a dual-mode Wi-Fi/GSM model, which looks like a standard mobile phone but connects and roams seamlessly between Wi-Fi and GSM networks. At home or in the office, you connect through Wi-Fi; outside, you connect through hotspots when available, shifting to GSM when out of range. UMA phones from Nokia, Motorola and Samsung are already being trialled or rolled out in the US, France, Norway and Finland, and we don't have long to wait here. BT's next-generation Fusion service is abandoning the Bluetooth connection of the initial offering for a Motorola Wi-Fi handset.

Connection quality

Those same factors that affect any Wi-Fi connection - distance, reflections, interference - will also affect your wireless VoIP, but don't worry unduly. As long as you have good-to-excellent Wi-Fi reception, you'll have enough bandwidth to make or take a call. In our tests, it was only in areas of poor Wi-Fi coverage that calls broke up, and until that point there wasn't any noticeable lag or loss of quality. Just bear in mind that your Wi-Fi phone won't match a standard DECT phone for coverage.

The other issue that will affect your call is traffic. As with any VoIP call, quality is affected by traffic running between your router and the internet, which is why some VoIP-friendly routers include a Quality of Service feature to ensure, no matter what else is happening on your internet connection, some bandwidth is reserved for voice calls. Equally, traffic on the home network can cause problems, particularly if someone starts copying large files or backing up across the network midway through a call. For this reason, another standard - 802.11e - and a component technology, Wireless Multimedia (WMM), ensure media traffic gets priority over other network traffic. WMM only works effectively if supported by the router/access point, the client device and, preferably, any software, and at the moment only a few routers, adaptors and Wi-Fi handsets do so.