Linksys Dual-Band Cordless IP Phone for Yahoo! Messenger with Voice
Yahoo has partnered with Linksys a division of Cisco to come out with an IP Phone that lets people make free internet calls as well as traditional analogue calls. The Linksys Dual-Band Cordless Phone for Yahoo! Messenger with Voice includes a handset with color display. It also includes a USB base station that can be plugged into a computer’s USB port and a port for a traditional landline/PSTN connection. The switching of landline and VoIP service is managed through a button. The user has to register and subscribe to Yahoo Phone out to use the Internet telephone. It uses Yahoo Messenger software to access internet services, which also includes digital online calling. Rivals Skype, Google and Microsoft have already been offering superior Internet calls for users all over the world.
Besides making and receiving free calls all over the world, the Yahoo - Linksys IP telephone enables people to search and call telephone numbers of local restaurants or businesses using their US Postal Service zip codes, by the help of the web. They will also be access weather forecasts through a weather search setting with two days of weather info on the display. Yahoo Real Time Communications director Jeff Bonforte said "Yahoo Messenger and Linksys are giving consumers the flexibility to make and receive free internet calls from the same phone they use for their home line." The charges will be incurred for "calling out or calling in" to mobile telephones or analog landlines. The rates offered are considerably less as compared to telecommunications companies. The popularity of VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) is growing by the day.
Telecommunication and hardware companies have taken note and started making telephones especially for this service.
The telephones adopt a European standard for cordless phones that supports both data and conventional voice traffic called DECT (Digital Enhanced Cordless Telecommunications). The telephones available in the USA cordless phone technology typically have not supported data. In the past years, DECT was approved and made a mark in the USA and Canada. Ebay's Skype has come out with a DECT approved telephone with Koninklijke Philips Electronics. It has teamed with Netgear for a W-Fi enabled telephone.
Tarun Loomba, Marketing Director of Linksys said "We share the same vision with Yahoo of not just improving the experience of internet phone calling, but also offering a valuable combination of internet-enabled features and services that customers will use and really want." Linksys on the other hand have opted to keep Wi-Fi, to keep the prices low. The price of CIT310 is said to be $99.99
The good news is that customers purchasing the phone will be given 100 free minutes to make Yahoo! Phone Out calls to any traditional or mobile phone. The CIT310 would be made available on Amazon.com very soon and other online retailers. Linksys is hoping to have the phones in stores starting in January.
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