Certification Process Comes to Wi-Fi Voice Products

Voice over IP (VoIP) and mobility are two of the growing applications in small and medium enterprises. Consequently, a growing number of users desire to mix and match different vendors products and that process just became a bit easier.The Wi-Fi Alliance has been a driving force in the adoption of the mobile technology. Voice has been an application of growing interest among users, and the recent development of dual purpose phones, ones capable of supporting cellular and Wi-Fi transmission, is helping to drive it. The Wi-Fi Alliance notes that analyst firms forecast shipments of such devices will reach between 250 and 350 million units in 2011.

The alliance completed certification of its first batch of products for voice, which applies to voice-over-Wi-Fi in single access-point deployments, those typically used in small offices. In addition to testing for multi-vendor interoperability, the group focused on voice performance. The requirements for passing voice traffic are less than 1% packet loss, 50ms jitter and 50ms delay.

The work represents a first step, so there are a few holes in the process. The initial list of voice-certified products did not include any handsets. Also, there were also no tests for roaming or handoffs, items that will be filled in later. Consequently, running voice over Wi-Fi is not as plug-and-play as data transmissions, however, groups, like the Wi-Fi Alliance are slowly working to change that.

Does your company use VoIP at the moment? Are you running any of your traffic over Wi-Fi links? How easy or difficult is that process?