I have one of the Hitachi WIP-5000 wifi phones. Been using it about 6 months. I've even travelled with it and tried to make use of hotspots here and there. My primary application for the phone was to replace a Panasonic analog corldess phone and Sipura SPA-2000 combination for my home office.
I have both 802.11b (house) and 801.11g (office) on the property. The WIP-5000 is a .11b device. While it supports long encryption keys it does not support WPA...which is specific to .11g. I have been able to make it mount both WLANs with encryption enabled. There is a bit of an issue making it jump from AP to AP seamlessly as both APs must share channels & SSIDs, which is troublesome.
As a phone its behaviour is very good. It's very small. The battery life has been good. It has a 2.5mm jack for a standard headset, which is essential for me. It can perform basic PBX functions better than the ATA/Panasonic pair. I wish that the volume would go a bit louder...that's my one major complaint about the phone.
However, what I've learned about wifi along the way is more enlightening. My wlan is simply not sufficient to ensure a good voice experience. I've been using several access point including; Linksys WAP54G, Linksys WAP11b & a cheap Belkin 802.11b. None of these provide absolutely continuous calling. Periodically the wlan goes away for a couple of seconds then restores itself. The result is a momentary pause in an ongoing call...very much like a cell phone. The call never gets dropped, but I often need to ask the other party to repeat their last statement.
Also, the range you can expect is nowhere near what you will achieve with a normal 2.4 or 5.8 GHz cordless phone. I get around 40-60 feet maximum...and I don't like in a brick house.
As an alternative I've also purchased an Aastra 480 CTi which comes with a cordless handset. Too early to know much about this in detail but so far I like it a lot.
Michael Graves
--Original Message Text---
From: James H Thompson
Date: Thu, 6 Oct 2005 12:04:50 -1000
Anyone have good words to say about any of the WiFi handsets currently available?
Thanks.
Jim
Michael Graves [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sr. Product Specialist www.pixelpower.com
Pixel Power Inc. [EMAIL PROTECTED]
o713-861-4005
o800-905-6412
c713-201-1262
fwd 54245
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