Cisco Wireless IP Phone 7920

Cisco 7920 Wireless IP Phone

The Wireless IP Phone 7920 is a mobile phone branded by Cisco Systems, Inc. that communicates via IEEE 802.11b technology. According to C. Giancarlo, senior vice-president of switching, voice, and carrier systems at Cisco (as cited in ComputerWeekly.com Ltd., 2003), the 7920 was not intended to replace traditional mobile phones. Instead, he said, it was intended for use exclusively within an enterprise.

Between rechargings of the battery, the 7920 is claimed to deliver two hours of "talk time" and twenty-four hours of "standby time" (which presumably means it is switched on, yet idle) (ComputerWeekly.com Ltd., 2003). Twenty-four hours is a relatively low level of standby time compared to GSM mobile phones, which can have standby times of a week or more. This is presumably due to the greater power requirements of the 802.11 hardware and the protocol's lack of power management. In fact, the 7920, while out of range of a WAP will consume its battery in about an hour (this is because it is searching for an AP).

The Cisco 7920 supports Cisco's proprietary SCCP Skinny Client Control Protocol. Skinny is a proprietary signalling protocol provided by Cisco's CallManager. Open/Shared Key/LEAP are supported authentication methods with CCKM/WPA joining in the near future. Also, XML is going to be supported by Cisco 7920 to enable the development of applications by third parties.

References

• ComputerWeekly.com Ltd. (2003). Cisco to ship Wi-Fi mobile phone in June. Retrieved January 25, 2004 from http://www.cw360.com/Article121053.htm
• Cisco CP-7920 Wireless VoIP Phone from http://www.smartcisco.com/cisco-cp-7920.html