Linksys EIP300 WiFi VoiP phone available for pre-order

We first caught a glimpse of the Linksys WIP300 via the good folks over at the FCC. Available now for pre-order, this lighter spec'd sib of the EIP330 VoiP handset flaunts 802.11b/g, SIP v2, 1.8-inch color display, POP3/SMTP email access, SMS, USB charger, and a range of audio enhancement features including echo cancellation. Live the wireless calls-on-the-cheap dream starting 16 Feb for a mere, ehem, $250.

[Thanks, Clay]

[Ross Carlson @ Feb 9th 2006 8:13PM]

So who provides the service? Looks like no Skype or did I miss that? Looks very cool!

[ted @ Nov 7th 2008 2:23AM]

You can use it with any company that provides VoIP service.

[tracy @ Feb 9th 2006 8:17PM]

damn expensive! i hope the netgear one is cheaper when it comes out. and yeah does it do Skype?

[Kyr @ Feb 9th 2006 8:39PM]

It's a SIP phone, so it'll do Vonage, or Asterisk, or any other SIP service. It's not a Skype phone. Unfortunately for these types of phones, if you take them with you to say an internet cafe or a hotel, they typically do some sort of stupid DNS-redirect-login-screen thing to sign in to their service.
That prevents anyone from using these types of phones in many hotspots.

[ipearx @ Feb 9th 2006 8:40PM]

I wonder if it does skype?

[Devin Cox @ Feb 9th 2006 8:56PM]

Looks very nice.

[Jason @ Feb 9th 2006 9:02PM]

Or just buy yourself a top of the line 5.8ghz base station, SEVERAL spare handsets, and hook it up to your voip router and be done with it.

I hardly see what about this justifies the price tag other than the normal geek gushing about it being wi-fi.

[Not4u @ Feb 9th 2006 9:29PM]

People need to get over this affection for Skype and oddball proprietary communication protocols. The Linksys phone supports industry standard signaling and VoIP protocols. It will work nicely with industry leading VoIP services like Broadvoice, Vonage, VoicePlus, etc. as well as integrate into any modern SIP-based PBX system.

[Terry @ Feb 9th 2006 9:32PM]

Anyone know if this will work with Vonage?

#6, If it is compatible you can make phone calls at any WiFi hot spot using your home Vonage account. Possibly use the free Metro WiFi services that are now coming to fruition in many cities like San Fran and Philly. These WiFi phones are't limited to home use only.

What is even better is a cell phone with built in WiFi support that can switch back and fourth between cell phone towers and WiFi hot spots. Leave your house and continue the call as it automatically switches to cell phone service and back again to WiFi as you pass your local StarBucks or WiFi enabled McDonald�s like the ones here in PA and back to cell and back to WiFi as you arrive home. A company holding patents for this type of service is demonstrating this very type of service. Calypso Wireless to Demonstrate the C1250i Wi-Fi-GSM VoIP Skype Calls Connectivity Cellular Phones.

Calypso Wireless is listed on the stock market as CLYW

[qyiet @ Feb 9th 2006 9:38PM]

To those who wonder "why wifi? why not just get a cordless?" It's because wherever you have a hotspot, you have your phone.

Be it at home, at work, at starbucks, wherever. Personally I am waiting for a WiFi Cellphone like the Nokia N91, and a symbian softphone. So if I'm not in WiFi coverage I can drop back to cellular.

-Qyiet

[Terry @ Feb 9th 2006 9:39PM]

#7, I did not see your post until after I confirmed my post with the e-mail response. Glad to hear it should work with Vonage. Now will they me register it with their service?

Vonage already has a WiFi phone for about $70, but the specs especially battery life is not that great. I have not compared these phones side by side. Something I would do before I laid out 3 and 1/2 times the asking price of the Vonage phone (re-branded from another manufacture).

[Patrick @ Feb 9th 2006 9:50PM]

The whole wi-fi based voip phone would be great if you didn't have a proprietary login system for each hotspot service provider or has Linksys solved this problem somehow?

[JDH @ Feb 9th 2006 10:08PM]

So, this is what I cannot figure out. Lately I have been reading how great linksys is, and how netgear is cheap and stinks. Years ago it was totally opposite. How did Linksys outthink the old and great Netgear?

Regardless, this phone sounds great. I would be very interested in a phone like this that you would use with your already existing home account. Morever a mobile/wifi phone would be a buy in my book. However, at first I cannot see any cell phone company liking this as it would cut into their profits.

Wouldn't you cut your cell phone bill if you could?

[jimbob @ Feb 9th 2006 10:17PM]

I only just discovered Skype, and now there's even more of VoiP stuff.

It seems very much in flux at the moment though as a replacement for conventional phones (voip, not this particular phone)

[Gus Jenkins @ Feb 9th 2006 10:26PM]

OT: Who The heck is Ted Leonsis, and why the frak should I care that he is blogging?

[Brandon @ Feb 9th 2006 11:33PM]

if you want to see a similar phone in use checkout the asterisk systm episode at systm.org

[Jason @ Feb 10th 2006 12:12AM]

So let's see if I've got this right. I buy this thing and can use it as a VoIP phone at home and cart it around so that I can use it as an extension of my home phone at wireless hotspots all around the globe?

Sounds like it would be a real PITA to configure it for each different wi-fi hotspot.

Much more practical than this are new handsets coming out (like the Nokia N80) that are both GSM quad-band wireless phones AND have wi-fi.

Avaya even has a motorola phone that seamlessly roams (without dropping the call!!) between the GSM network and the Avaya wi-fi VoIP network on a corporate campus.

When asterisk can do that let me know.

[CLAY SHENTRUP @ Feb 10th 2006 1:26AM]

YES FOLKS, PLEASE GET OVER THIS SKYPE THING. SKYPE IS _PROPRIETARY_. SKYPE IS DEAD. SIP AND JINGLE ARE THE WAY TO GO, AND I IMAGINE JINGLE WILL PROBABLY EVENTUALLY WIN OUT EVEN AGAINST SIP. BUT STOP..CARING ABOUT PROPRIETARY SYSTEMS INSTEAD OF STANDARDS, PLEASE. YOU ARE LIKE CONSUMERS WHO SHOOT YOURSELVES IN THE FOOT.

[Jason @ Feb 10th 2006 1:39AM]

Why would anyone be against proprietary standards? Data weenies the world over fawn all over Cisco and they are about as non-standard as you can get.

[Michael @ Feb 10th 2006 2:18AM]

Jason:

Cisco *is* the standard. Go into any company datacenter and you are unlikely to see anything else.

[kfz @ Feb 10th 2006 2:48AM]

For that price I'd expect it to interoperate with about any IM/SMS Gateway and of course Skype!

[Jonasan @ Feb 10th 2006 2:55AM]

Like Patrick (post 12) said: "The whole wi-fi based voip phone would be great if you didn't have a proprietary login system for each hotspot service provider or has Linksys solved this problem somehow?"

So has anyone heard about possible solutions for this?

I'm in the military and currently in Japan. My main source of Internet access is through a hotspot and this phone would definitely be convenient.

About the SIP part of the whole thing, does this mean it'll support Gizmo Project as well (since Gizmo Project umm...how do you say...is powered by SIP?)?

[chuck @ Feb 10th 2006 4:51AM]

$250 FOR WHAT?! my HTC Tornado cost $535 but it's a GSM phone + wifi + windows mobile 5.0 and I can certainly run SIP phone software.

anyone paying $250 for just SIP?! NOT ME.

[Steven @ Feb 10th 2006 8:45AM]

Any word on whether this will work for Lingo?

[Jason @ Feb 10th 2006 9:39AM]

Michael,

Doing advanced trouble resolution for fortune 500 companies I am well aware of what is in company data centers. It does not change the fact that Cisco uses numerous propriety protocols (CDP, skinny H.323, etc) in their quest for world dominance.

There are much better alternatives than Cisco out there these days. Take a look at Juniper, their boxes run on standard PC architecture and are based on BSD Unix.

[George @ Feb 10th 2006 3:29PM]

"Live the wireless calls-on-the-cheap dream starting 16 Feb for a mere, ehem, $250."

Or as they say in eBay, ONLY $14.99 (plus $235 flat-rate shipping ANYWHERE IN CONTINENTAL US!!!)

/sorry

[policy @ Feb 11th 2006 4:12PM]

where is it available for pre-order?

[Mizael Longuini de Morais @ Feb 26th 2006 12:14AM]

That's great phone the Imperio VoIP are starting all times at the same time!

[Mizael Longuini de Morais @ Feb 26th 2006 12:15AM]

That's great phone the Imperio VoIP are starting all times at the same time!

[Steve @ Feb 26th 2006 4:29PM]

I use Sipgate on a daily basis and find it very good with very few dropped calls. I would be very interested in this phone and cant wait to see it on the market. From what I hav seen it could potentially reduce my cell calls by a huge amount each month. I get really annoyed with the 'Skype hype'. There are far better solutions out there that will allow free calls to each other. I guess its a new AOL syndrome, I remember several years ago new internet users all signing up to AOL and then dumping them (or trying to) when they discovered new (and better/cheaper) alternatives)
Look forward to seeing this phone!

[iGotNoTime @ Feb 28th 2006 3:18PM]

Comment #23 is the one got me to push the comment button. I will be buying a SIP only phone. I have a SIP WiFi phone now and will be upgrading to the new Linksys that comes out, but not this one. The next model up is here:
http://www.voipsupply.com/product_info.php?products_id=1563

That answers the other question of where to pre-order. Yes WiFi SIP phones do work with Vonage, but only after adding the softphone option and paying $10 per month. Mine was on my Vonage account before I closed my Vonage account (there are much cheaper VoIP options out there than Vonage).

Finally NO it will not work with Skype! Skype is a closed proprietary network and the people who support it are only hindering the development of services that are more reliable, lower priced, user-friendly and not foregoing all morals and customer satisfaction to make a dollar. I hope and pray that Google Talk will DESTROY Skype, and they likely will since they are integrating SIP.

This phone = WiFi VoIP with integration to your instant messenger? Thank you Google!

[hassan @ Apr 10th 2006 12:07PM]

from where can i buyed , and who i have to contact ?
any body help me

[kelly @ Apr 19th 2006 9:15PM]

just got the wip330 today, have it working on our wifi network fairly easily (playing with it as we're a voip provider)

solid build quility, screen is quality, size is nice, but seems like manual configuration is required, which is a downer... tftp load of a pre-built config would be a nice add-on, your average rube would have issues. may be there and I haven't seen it, but I think not. no other feedback yet as I haven't had enough time to check battery life, etc. I'll add some more thoughts later if anyone's curious.

expensive though... i bought the sample retail as it was pure curiousity, but it was $300+.

[sharma @ May 15th 2006 4:43AM]

the service i'm retailing provides voip service. we're also coming out with a WIFI phone this august. Pls visit www.in-voice.com for further details. email me if you have more questions at [e-mail]

[Michael Larsson @ May 21st 2006 7:22AM]

I use the F1000 with voipfone. I think the main purpose and benefit of SIP is for people like myself that work abroad a lot and have access to wifi. I don't see the point in expensive SIP wifi phones, as the whole point of using such a phone is to save money. Be aware, certainly in UK and Denmark, that many wifi networks are not fully open to SIP ports, so you cannot use them to make calls. Also, these phones typically (in europe), have only 20mw output power. If your router is more powerful, you may be able to hear the person at the other end, but they will get 'gittery' call quality of your speach. Definately a good tool for people who travel on business, but woild suggest a cheaper model.

[Lawrence Chen @ Aug 20th 2006 11:11AM]

Looks like it is the same software as the D-Link DPH-54x.

I sure hope it isn't, because I got a DPH-540 and I'm having nothing but trouble with it. The biggest are the issues of 'roaming' from one WiFi network to another.

Maybe it'll work better if it isn't a flip...because the DPH-540 won't detect the change of network, until I open the handset. And, then more often than not...it'll lockup up either at "Acquiring IP" (requiring reboot, by extracting the impossible to remove battery) or at "Registering" (where I can at least use the power button to reboot it).

Plus battery life is dismal, and when are they gonna sell accessories like holsters and cradles for them?

Also the email function in it is no good....it requires me to navigate to the menu and select receive to get messages. And, it doesn't seem to do voicemail notification....

It says the email function is manual to save power, but isn't the WiFi on all the time for VoIP to work?

[WiFi-Guy @ Sep 28th 2006 7:01PM]

You guys need Devicescape Supplicant that can avoid the "stupid DNS-redirect-login-screen thing to sign in to their service"

[David @ Mar 1st 2008 11:31AM]

Just to let people know that there is alot of differnt companys that offer VOIP other than Skyp. Take for instence the company I work for we offer VOIP service that can be used with any other service and with a Flat rate price of 24.95 per month I call anywhere in the US, Canada, and Porta Rica and not get charged a penny and then I can make call internationaly buy butting money on my international account which offers the lowest rate I have seen around. So by using Our service and this phone it would change everyone way of telecommuncation for cheap.