Voice Over WiFi Is This Month's Enfant Celebre

Hot on the tails of Mike’s posting regarding a Fortune Magazine article on Voice over WiFi, I picked up this Wired Magazine article on the subject. Both articles discuss how VoW is being used in enterprise settings to add voice functionality while moving around a warehouse, hospital or other controlled campus. I agree that VoW will be disruptive, but suggest that it is limited to controlled business environments, like a warehouse, an office building, or a campus. In these closed areas, enterprises can freely install access points, and also limit interference from other sources on the same frequency. VoW phones will not roam around town because the WiFi networks will be limited to local areas, and phones that roam between WiFi and cellular will be too heavy, big, and expensive for some years. This means that VoW phones currently pose more of a threat to wired phones than wireless. WiFi will kill cellular just as surely as cordless phones killed cellular (as in not).

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