Net2Phone, Navini match broadband wireless with VoIP

Within days after announcing plans for a wireless voice-over-IP services in Newark, N.J., Net2Phone has teamed up with broadband wireless vendor Navini Networks to allow delivery of wireless VoIP on non-line-of-sight (NLOS) metropolitan area networks. NLOS broadband fixed wireless technology providers traditionally have targeted data applications, and often have been perceived as being unable to handle voice. But the Net2Phone/Navini partnership could be a step forward in changing that perception.

“From a fundamental point of view, [Navini’s Ripwave NLOS system] has always been a data system, but it was also designed from the ground up to handle voice,” said Sai Subramanian, vice president of product management and strategic marketing at Navini Networks. “The service providers have tested this, but now they want to try to make a business out of it and create incremental voice revenue.”

Under the partnership, calls on Net2Phone’s VoiceLine service, recently enabled to work on wireless IP networks, can be routed over Navini's Ripwave wireless metropolitan area network base stations to Net2Phone's SIP-based platform. That platform performs call routing and management, supplies Class 5 features, provides billing and provisioning integration and distributes the infrastructure required for interconnecting onto and off of the PSTN.

Net2Phone said it sees fixed wireless MANs as the next frontier for its pioneering VoIP services. Future enhancements likely will include VoIP-enabled mobile handsets that allow consumers and business users to use the VoiceLine service anytime they are within the coverage footprint.