Linksys ships Wi-Fi VoIP phone in Europe

WIP330 crosses the pond

By Tony Smith, 1st September 2006

IFA 06 Linksys has at last launched its WIP330 802.11b/g Wi-Fi-connected VoIP phone in Europe - the company's first wireless handset to made available to buyers over here - after announcing the device at the IFA consumer electronics show in Berlin this morning.

The WIP330 is the successor to the Cisco subsidiary's WIP300 handset - released like the WIP330 in the US back in February this year, but according to Linksys never brought over the Atlantic until today.

linksys wip330 wi-fi voip phone

The handset connects to 802.11b and 802.11g wireless hotspots and incorporates IPv4's Type of Service extension to allow access points to give priority to voice data if they too support this quality-of-service system. It'll work with the WEP and WPA Wi-Fi security standards.

The WIP330 supports the SIP 2 VoIP standard - so it's not Skype friendly - and provides a range of customary phone features, including caller ID, call forwarding, speed dial, last number redial, a vibration alert, call waiting and so on. The handset can initiate three-way conference calls.

The 119g handset sports a 2.2in, 240 x 320, 65,536-colour display and a battery sufficient for three hours' talk time and up to 50 hours' operation in stand-by mode. It has 32MB of Flash memory on board and 64MB of RAM.

Linksys said the WIP330 is available now from Linksys distributors. Expect to pay around €399 (£268/$510) for it, the company advised. ®