January 7th, 2007
CES: Is Netgear's wireless Skype phone ready to dethrone your old cordless one?
CES VIDEO » 
One of the major themes at CES this year is Voice over IP hardware. No. I'm not talking about high-end solutions for big office that you might by from a company like Cisco. But rather, this is a much lower end solution that might have you kicking both your cordless phone as well as your local Baby Bell or phone company out the door. Skype in particular is one of those VoIP companies that's has completely destablized the telecommunications establishment with calls that cost nothing (if you're calling another Skype user) or just pennies per minute if you need to "Skype Out": the process of calling a landline.
But Skype's downfall (if you can call it that) has been that it really wasn't a total replacement for your existing phone service since most people have been bound to their PCs in order to actually make Skype calls. That's beginning to change now as a bumper-crop of dedicated Skype (and other VoIP phones) hit the market that can be carried around your office or home (or to some WiFi hotspots) much the same way you'd carry your cordless phone around. Pictured right is NetGear's $200 Skype WiFi phone which works with NetGear's 54 mbps 802.11G router. Company officials here at CES said "G" is required but the specs for the phone on NetGear's Web site suggest otherwise. Here's the video of what I saw at CES:
For a complete round-up of my CES 2007 coverage, click here.
Otherwise, it's good.
