Last night I finally got a chance to test a WiFi phone from VOX Communications. The phone is manufactured by UTStarcom and works very well. I placed a call to the AT&T CallVantage line I have at home which traverses my broadband network supplied by Optimum Online. So basically the WiFi phone was transmitting over a Linksys WiFi access point through a D-link ATA to the cable modem. The call went out over the PSTN and then came back to the AT&T supplied ATA. This is the first time I ever tried to make a call from VoIP service provider to another in my house and the though of all that equipment between the two service provider networks made me think there would be large amounts of latency.

As it turns out the latency wasn’t too bad and the test calls I placed were crystal clear. I also learned during the process that my in-laws are not big fans of testing VoIP call quality and have little patience for me asking them things like “Go in the other room and count to ten.”

This is where I turned to people in the industry. I decided to call the person at VOX who asked me to try the phone in the first place. I knew he would want to test the VoIP phone with me. We spoke for a total of 45 minutes. One issue I found was that at one point when I went far away from the access point the phone dropped the call. When I looked at the screen of the phone it had a single antenna bar. When I got closer to the AP the phone still showed one lone bar. It wouldn’t make any more calls at this point. I rebooted the phone and it then started working. After my marathon conversation, the battery was still at full strength. The large amount of heat being dissipated by the phone to my ear is a slight problem but in any first generation products you expect these sorts of problems. I suppose adding bluetooth to the phone is one way of dealing with the heat issue but you will certainly sacrifice battery life if you start piling various radios into the phone.