Is Wi-Fi VoIP ready for enterprise use?

Wireless VoIP holds a lot of promise – so much that it has already been accorded a number of acronyms. You can take your pick from VoW, VoWiFi, wVoIP.

According to Infonetics Research, the market for VoIP will reach ~$4bn / £2bn by 2009. This fact has not escaped the notice of major networking companies such as D-Link and Linksys who have begun to sell IP phones that will operate on the 802.11 technology which is used for wireless networks.

Wi-Fi VoIP may be an integral part of the phones of tomorrow that will allow users to use both IP and conventional cellular networks. Given below are some pros and cons of opting for a Wi-Fi phone.

Cost is a factor that favors the adoption of Wi-Fi VoIP by businesses. Wi-Fi networks are already in place in many companies and where they are not they can be deployed fairly quickly. VoIP phones can easily be used where Internet is available; Wi-Fi VoIP has received a further boost with the new Skype software which is compatible with Windows Mobile devices.

The major issues facing widespread deployment of Wi-Fi VoIP include the quality of transmission and the security, reliability and availability of the network. Since oral communication is real-time, VoIP calls can suffer badly due to packet loss. There are various points at which a call can falter or fail. These include RF interference, network and bandwidth issues, faults in the call server and the handsets, etc. However, there are tools available to troubleshoot issues related to VoIP performance. AirMagnet’s VoFi Analyzer is one such tool.

Wireless VoIP is susceptible to the same security threats as wired VoIP and then some of its own as well. It is easier to hack a VoIP transmission that is traveling through the air waves than that which is traversing a network.

Therefore, VoIP calls should be encrypted and authenticated using wireless channels. Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) is a strong wireless encryption method and should preferably be used over Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP). Soft phones are more susceptible to viruses than hard phones and companies should go for hard phones which can support better encryption.