January 7th, 2007

CES: 3J's wireless SkyPartner SP101 Skype phone connets to landlines too

Posted by David Berlind @ 9:02 pm

Categories: CES 2007, Disruptive Technology, Events, General, Mobile, Telephony, VoIP Hardware@CES, Wired & Wireless

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 CES VIDEO »
3J Communications is here at CES 2007 in Las Vegas showing its latest and greatest: the SkyPartner SP101 Dual-Mode wireless phone. Compared to NetGear's $200 WiFi-based Skype phone, 3J's SkyPartner (pictured left) does something that's particularly special: it supports both Skype and landlines simultaneously. For Skype calls, it wirelessly communicates back and forth to a USB-dongle that connects to a PC running Skype's client. Whereas NetGear's phone uses WiFi and transmits its traffic to and from a WiFi router, the SkyPartner communicates with the USB dongle via a wireless technology known as DECT. 

I personally haven't seen much about DECT (no, I haven't been hiding under a rock), but the consortium behind the spec is here at CES talking about how over 1 million devices using version 6.0 of the wireless phone technology have already been sold. According to the release:

Only one year after the official launch of DECT 6.0 at the CES by the DECT Forum, the international association of the wireless communication industry, more than 1 million DECT 6.0 devices have been sold to US customers. DECT 6.0, the interference free wireless communication technology for family homes and small and medium sized enterprises, has become a broadly accepted technology for cordless telephony. 

Back to the SkyPartner, the phone also communicates wirelessly with its base station to which you can connect a regular phone which in turn enables the phone to use the infrastructure of your choice: Skype or POTS (the plain old telephone system). One reason this comes in handy, according to 3J officials is that Skype doesn't support E911 which is probably a service you'll want to have access to in case of an emergency. Anyway, here's the video.

CES 05 - 3J Phone

For a complete round-up of my CES 2007 coverage, click here. Also, be sure to check out some of the other VoIP hardware I'm spotting at CES. For more information on 3J Communication's SkyPartner, go to 3J's Web site.