The Wi-Fi Alliance is launching a new certification program for voice-capable Wi-Fi devices in home and small office environments. The first wave of devices has passed certification. The Wi-Fi Alliance estimates that shipments of Wi-Fi/cellular converged phones will number between 250 and 350 million units in 2011.
The new Wi-Fi CERTIFIED Voice-Personal program extends beyond interoperability testing to test the performance of products and help ensure that they deliver good voice quality over the Wi-Fi link.
Voice over Wi-Fi is typically used within mixed voice and data environments, in which multiple data streams compete for the available network resources. Products that successfully achieve Voice-Personal certification prioritize voice communication over data, audio, or video traffic, and also have met strict performance levels for key metrics that ensure a quality experience in voice applications: packet loss, latency and jitter.
Products Wi-Fi CERTIFIED Voice-Personal have also passed tests for core interoperability (802.11a/b/g or 802.11n draft 2.0) and Wi-Fi Protected Access 2 (WPA2) for the strong security protections, as well as Wi-Fi Multimedia (WMM) for quality of service and WMM Power Save (access points only). Users should look for both access points and client devices that are Wi-Fi CERTIFIED Voice-Personal to ensure optimal voice quality when making calls over a Wi-Fi network.
The following are among some of the first devices to become Wi-Fi CERTIFIED Voice-Personal:
- Broadcom BCM94704AGR High Performance Dual-Band (2.4/5 GHz) Router Reference Design
- Cisco Systems Aironet 1250 Series Access Point (AIR-AP1252AG )
- Cisco Systems Aironet 1200 Series Access Point (AIR-AP1231G with AIR- RM21A)
- DSP Group Expeditor Reference Design (with XpandR 1.01 software)
- Intel Wireless WiFi Link 4965AGN
- Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection
- Meru Networks AP200
- Redpine Signals Lite-Fi TGn SDIO
A list of all products Wi-Fi CERTIFIED Voice-Personal, as well as a free white paper which describes the program in detail, is available online.http://www.wi-fi.org/
