Lucent debuts single-chip IP phone

Lucent Technologies used the Networld + Interop convention in Las Vegas last week to unveil what it claims is the world's first single-chip solution for Internet telephones.

Called the Phone-On-A-Chip, the new unit distills the functions of five separate chips onto a single chip for an Internet protocol phone on a LAN. It promises to reduce the cost of the electronics component of IP telephones and cut the price of the units themselves-currently about $250-by approximately 30%, perhaps bringing it down as low as $150.

Lucent expects the first market for the chip to come from manufacturers developing phone systems for small to medium-sized businesses that want to use their in-house Internet networks to transmit both voice and data.

"This could be a real boost to the IP phone market," said telecom analyst George Albini, of Protean Consulting. "Per-unit price has been one substantial barrier to wider use of the Internet for voice. While the reliability of IP phones is still a work in progress, it's good to see movement this substantial on the cost front," he added.

The Lucent Phone-On-A-Chip incorporates an Ethernet media access controller, two Ethernet 10/100 Mb/s transceiver interface drivers and a repeater. Other functions include digital signal processor and microprocessor cores; codecs for a telephone handset and speakerphone; and amplifiers.