Broadband - VOIP - Wifi Mobile

Jimbo333_2

I'm after some help from someone more tech-minded that I:

I have Telewest 2meg unlimited broadband at home, but no phoneline as we use VOIP (currently VoipCheap.co.uk) for international & sometimes a mobile phone for uk calls. I'm going to be getting a DSL router very soon for wi-fi (wife wants a laptop)

It's mobile phone contract renewel time for me, so I've been thinking:

If I get a mobile with wi-fi capability (quite a few nokias etc with this now) can I

(A) Connect to my wireless network, to surf the full internet from a new wi-fi phone?

(B) If so, can I then use the wifi mobile to access VOIP in some way, so that I can make VOIP calls from the mobile for free?

In the case of (B) I guess this could either be the wifi mobile connecting to the internet to make a VOIP call OR, if that is not possible, could the wifi mobile, connect with my wifi Desktop PC (which has the VOIPcheap application on it) and make a call that way (therefore really just using the phone as a wireless extension of my desktop PC).

Is anyone doing this?

Is it possible?

Am I out of my depth technically?

What applications might I need on PC and or the phone?

And WHICH mobile phone?

Many many thanks to anyone who can help, or comment on this.

J.

espresso

Interesting idea. The Nokia 6136 is a quad band GSM mobile with WLAN 802.11 b/g but it talks about automatic switching between WLAN and cellular networks. The question is can this be selected manually? I have tried to download the user manual for this phone but it does not appear in the drop-down box on the Nokia site. Do you know of any other Nokia's with WLAN?

TheChillPill

It is possible, on smartphones at least, to install 'softphone' or skype software to make use of any available wifi connection and therefore use it as you would via your PC. I used to do it with an XDA Mini-S, so I would be fairly certain any phone running Windows Mobile would do the job (I suspect the majority of Wi-Fi enabled devices run this anyway).

You can't, to my knowledge, connect a phone to software on your desktop, so whatever phone you get will need to be able to run the software itself.

Jimbo333_2

espresso wrote:

Interesting idea. The Nokia 6136 is a quad band GSM mobile with WLAN 802.11 b/g but it talks about automatic switching between WLAN and cellular networks. The question is can this be selected manually? I have tried to download the user manual for this phone but it does not appear in the drop-down box on the Nokia site. Do you know of any other Nokia's with WLAN?

Nokia wise: N92, N91, N80, E70, E60, plus a few others in the E **/ E6* range.

W.r.t selecting WLAN manually, if it is possible, you can BET that the networks will insist that Nokia etc disable it before they send it out as part of a contract deal

Also XDAs, SP5s

ChillPill:

Good to hear that it's been done!! Don't personally like Skype, but will certainly be looking into "Softphone". I agree that it's most likely to be either a Windows Mobile platform that'll be required, or maybe UIQ/Symbian/Nokia S60/80 etc. I currently run a Moto A1000, which has a strong following of "bedroom programmers" who would probably have knocked out the required software by now IF the a1000 had WLAN!


Thanks both.

espresso

Jimbo333 wrote:

Nokia wise: N92, N91, N80, E70, E60, plus a few others in the E **/ E6* range.

I believe while that these handsets may have a kind of Wifi (Bluetooth) it is not 802.11b/g which would be needed to connect to your home wireless network.

HTH

:eek:

TheChillPill

The E61 allows you to install a softphone - assuming that is the one that looks a bit like a blackberry? A friend of mine did it recently, and I'm 99% sure it was the E61 (he got it on the 3 network).

Incidentally, when I had the XDA setup for it, it would always use the WLAN connection and not GPRS - and I didn't do anything to make it do so (not that I'm aware of, anyway).

I used to have the A1000 too, and agree it would be a good choice if it had wifi.

Jimbo333_2

Done some googling and I see what the "Softphone" thing is all about. Definitely need a PDA/Smartphone type mob then.

E61 is the blatent Blackberry copy (poor show Nokia, you're usually so original!). Don't think I could live with one though.

XDA maybe...