Broadcom Announces New VoIP Router Solutions with 3G USB Modem Support

By Rajani Baburajan, TMCnet Contributor

Broadcom Corporation, a provider of semiconductors for wired and wireless communications, announced the new Intensi-fi XLR wireless LAN or “WLAN” VoIP router system-on-a-chip or “SoC” platform solutions with 3G USB modem support.

The new solutions enable system OEMs to develop advanced routers based on Broadcom (News - Alert) wireless silicon integration technology and their proven VoIP software suite, company officials said.

The 3G functionality can be added to these new platform solutions using a USB interface, bringing Internet and network services to homes where broadband is otherwise unavailable.

With 3G modem, customers can utilize their cellular network to create an instant Wi-Fi hotspot for whole home Internet and VoIP services. This would enable consumers to make high-quality phone calls over the Internet.

Since VoIP calls are charged as part of the Internet service instead of a separate regular telephone charge, the service offers additional cost benefits to customers. Additional services like multiple lines, conference call and caller ID are also provided at no additional charge as part of typical VoIP offerings.

The company leverages a 65 nanometer complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor or “CMOS” design process and a high level of integration to reduce the number of system components on-chip, which in turn, lowers the rest-of-bill-of-materials or “RBOM” cost by up to 35 percent, company officials claimed.

In addition to this, the new router SoC solutions further reduce cost by using two-layer printed circuit boards or “PCBs,” making high-end routers more affordable to consumers.

Broadcom's new 802.11n design platform includes router options for low-end to high-end solutions including Broadcom BCM5356U,a single-stream 2.4GHz IEEE (News - Alert) 802.11n router SoC solution; BCM5358U, a dual-stream 2.4GHz IEEE 802.11n router SoC solution; BCM5358, a dual-stream 2.4GHz IEEE 802.11n router SoC solution with VoIP support; BCM47186, a dual-stream 2.4GHz IEEE 802.11n high-performance Gigabit Ethernet router SoC solution with VoIP support.

The new 802.11n router platform features Accelerange technology, a unique set of hardware and software enhancements that ensures more robust wireless coverage, according to company officials.

With its powerful 533 MHz MIPS32 74K core CPU memory subsystem architecture allows for consistently enhanced voice quality even under high Internet data traffic conditions, the company claims.

"By optimizing our wireless solutions for popular consumer use cases, Broadcom is able to address growing industry trends in wireless routers including support for external wide area wireless networking (3G, WiMAX (News - Alert) and LTE) and the ability to run a high quality VoIP stack,” Michael Hurlston, senior vice president and general manager, Broadcom's WLAN line of business, said. “This product family not only supports these two new features, but also provides best in class system integration and wireless performance.”

Earlier in June Broadcom announced its new single-chip 802.11n dual-band 3x3 wireless solution, the BCM4331, at the 30th annual COMPUTEX in Taipei, Taiwan. The BCM4331 Wi-Fi solution achieves 450 Mbps data rates in client devices and over 600Mbps throughput (TCP/IP) in 3x3 AP/router configurations

Vonage VoIP Apps Now Available for T-Mobile and AT&T Android Phones

T-Mobile and AT&T customers with Android phones can now finally download a Vonage VoIP app to their devices to make cheap international calls over Wi-Fi or 3G. They'll also get free domestic calls, but only over Wi-Fi.

Vonage Delivers Worldwide Calling Savings to T-Mobile and AT&T Android Users

HOLMDEL, N.J., April 9, 2010 /PRNewswire via COMTEX News Network/ — Vonage Holdings Corp. (NYSE: VG), a leading provider of high-quality voice and messaging services over broadband networks, today announced the expansion of its Vonage Mobile offerings to AT&T and T-Mobile devices that use the Android mobile operating system.

Vonage Mobile will be available to download for AT&T and T-Mobile Android devices at www.vonage.com later today and is already available for iPhone(R), BlackBerry(R) and iPod touch(R) devices. Vonage Mobile customers enjoy high-quality, outbound international calling over Wi-Fi and cellular networks as well as free domestic calls over Wi-Fi.

"We are focused on ensuring that our customers can enjoy all the benefits of their Vonage service from any location using any device that can access the Internet," said Michael Tempora, senior vice president of product management. "We will continue to expand our offerings in 2010 to include a robust set of voice and messaging services that utilize Wi-Fi and 3G wireless networks."

The Vonage Mobile application gives customers the flexibility to choose between Vonage World Mobile, which includes unlimited international calling to more than 60 countries, or Vonage Mobile Pay-Per-Use. Vonage Mobile Pay-Per-Use provides savings of more than 50% - compared to rates charged by wireless carriers - for calls to dozens of countries.

With Vonage Mobile, there are no access numbers or new phone numbers to give to friends and family. Customers simply enter an international number or select a contact from the existing contacts on a mobile device and hit send.

To follow Vonage on Twitter, please visit www.twitter.com/vonage_voice. To become a fan on Facebook, go to www.facebook.com/vonage.

*iPhone allows calls on both cellular and Wi-Fi networks. BlackBerry allows calls over cellular networks. iPod touch allows calls over Wi-Fi networks. Service subject to minimum monthly usage fee, taxes and certain other fees. Forfeiture rules apply. See Terms of Service for details. There are important 911 limitations when using Vonage for Mobile service. See vonagemobile.com/tos for details.

[Vonage]

iiNet’s BoB Modem/Router Is The Best Named Gadget Ever

It looks like iiNet has actually put a little bit of effort into their latest modem/router offering, and we don’t just mean the awesome name ‘BoB’.

The device, manufactured by Belkin, features your regular modem/router bits, including support for 802.11n, 4 ethernet ports on the back and a couple of USB charging ports. It’s a pretty stylish piece of kit, with lots of fingerprint friendly black glass. But the big selling point is the inclusion of a phone handset for VoIP calls.

You can get up to five additional DECT handsets, and BoB can support up to three separate phone lines as well, making it a great option for small businesses.

The base unit will set you back $369 outright including a single handset, or you can get it for 269 if you sign up for one of iiNet’s 24-month BoB contracts. Additional handsets cost $69 each, although if you happen to have a compatible DECT phone already, you should be able to pair it with BoB.

BoB (which apparently stands for “Broadband in a Box”, although it’s one of the weakest acronyms I’ve ever seen), is also OS agnostic, working with Mac, Linux and Windows flavours of software. It sounds like a pretty complete solution, so long as you’re with iiNet, that is.

[iiNet via Lifehacker]

iiNet BoB wireless modem

Upside

In an attempt to simplify home networking and internet telephony, ISP iiNet has partnered with Belkin to launch an Australian developed modem/router/VoIP phone device to be marketed under the name of BoB. (The name is apparently a play on "Broadband in a Box"; but why, given its Aussie genetics, could they not think of an appropriate acronym for BRuCE we ask?)

BoB's got four Ethernet ports and wireless b/g/n capabilities to connect up to 16 wireless devices, so networking whatever you want to in your household should be no problem. It also serves as a base station for standard phone or VoIP calls when teamed-up with either a BoB handset or your existing DECT-compatible handset. It can support up to three separate phone lines and five telephone handsets at once.

If you have an ADSL connection and a normal PSTN phone line, BoB works as a normal phone. If you have a VoIP service, BoB will by default use VoIP to make and receive calls when your broadband connection is active with failover to PSTN if the connection drops out for any reason. And if you're on iiNet's Naked DSL, all local and national calls will route through your internet connection.

iiNet claims that BoB's very easy to set up. Once the power and phone cables are connected, the rest of the set up can be managed remotely by iiNet using your specific broadband account and settings.

It also has two USB ports on-board. One "charge" USB port can charge mobile phones, iPods or any other USB-charge device. The other USB port is designated as "storage/3g" for network sharing of files stored USB hard drives and flash drives. It is planned that this same port will also be able to support 3G (mobile broadband) dongles; however, its 3G functionality is not currently available and will have to be enabled via a future firmware upgrade.

Downside

If you're using another internet service provider, you'll have to switch, as BoB is exclusive to iiNet.

And sorry, a router with the same name as my father is just weird.

Outlook

The pricing structure allows you to buy the unit for AU$369 outright (including a handset) or AU$269 if you sign up for a 24-month contract. You can connect up to five additional BoB phone handsets at AU$69 each.

Depending on how much you're spending on broadband and telephone charges, BoB might be a simple way to get your home network up and running as well as cut the cost of your landline telephone, providing you're willing to sign up with iiNet.

http://www.cnet.com.au/iinet-bob-wireless-modem-339297865.htm

Engin oneHub ST790

By Alex Kidman

Engin's oneHub is a colossus amongst routers. Sure, there's an argument that a device that combines ADSL2+ modem, wireless router and cordless phone hub is going to need to take up some space, but the oneHub's actual hub is still pretty big by anyone's estimates.

When you first unpack the oneHub, a small set-up poster falls on your lap. It's to engin's credit that they do live up to the simplicity tag with this poster, especially if you're an engin ADSL2+ customer. You don't have to do much more than connect up the oneHub to your phone and ADSL2+ lines and power on the case. Engin will permit non-engin ADSL2+ customers to use the oneHub, although you'll have to do a touch of manual configuration via oneHub's web interface.

The actual modem/router is, as noted, large, with default lights for its functions running along the top. The rear houses a clipped in cover that goes over the unit's ports. Aside from phone and ADSL, you also get two 10/100 Ethernet ports, and rubber-sealed USB type A and B ports, which were non-functional on our review model.

Along with the router, engin also supplies a single wireless Thomson handset which connects wirelessly to the oneHub. Additional handsets may be purchased and synchronisation with the oneHub was, in our tests, immediate.

Features

So far, so good on the simplicity front. However, there are some downsides. The oneHub is only an 802.11b/g capable router, for a start. That's exacerbated by the relative dearth of Ethernet ports available on the rear of the unit, a choice made all the more baffling by the non-functional USB ports.

If you're the tinkering type, you won't be all that fond of the oneHub either, as, similar to many locked-down provider-specific units, many key router functions aren't available from the web interface. If you were taking on the oneHub with an engin 24-month ADSL2+ contract (where they'll only charge you AU$99) this would be somewhat understandable — but for a unit that they will sell at full price, it's much less compelling. As an example, the default IP address for the router is set, and we couldn't find any way of changing it short of — from what we could research using the OEM's original notes on this router model — using a CLI approach to manually talk to the router, a step that's going to be way above the comfort level of the oneHub's audience.

One plus with the oneHub is that it ships with WPA security pre-enabled and printed on the side of the router, and you're advised to change it as soon as you've finished set-up.

Performance

On the phone handset side, the oneHub's single supplied handset worked quite well. In common with many cheaper cordless handsets, the buttons are squishy and the screen is quite indistinct, but as a basic telephony tool there's nothing wrong with it.

On the network side, we had a few more problems. At first, we couldn't get the oneHub to activate its Ethernet ports, something that was only fixed with a reboot. With 802.11b/g only on-board, wireless signal was less than solid but not surprising in our test environment. Throughput was a little higher than we've seen from many 802.11g routers, but still fell predictably low at distance, with an average of 8Mbps real-time throughput on a file copy test.

There's clearly a market for a product like the oneHub. If you're an engin customer and planning to be one for some time, the AU$99 two-year contract isn't a terrible price to pay for the convenience of the model. At the same time, the truly difficult interface, locked down nature of the router and limitations of 802.11g may mean that in two years time, you'll feel solidly left behind.

http://www.cnet.com.au/engin-onehub-st790-339296641.htm