DailyTech - Intel Begins Shipping VoIP PCI Card

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Hardware Intel Begins Shipping VoIP PCI Card
Anh Tuan Huynh (Blog) - June 12, 2006 7:31 PM

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18 comment(s) - last by Lord Evermore.. on Jun 13 at 11:25 AM

The return of the RJ11 jack on PCs

DailyTech previously reported details on the Intel Slick Mountain hardware-based VoIP card. Intel announced the 600SM PCI Phone Adapter at Computex last week and currently shipping the product. The PCI card installs in any desktop system and allows users to connect standard RJ11 compatible telephones to PCs to make calls with VOIP. Hardware acceleration is provided by an Intel Tiger 320G chipset that supports wideband audio codecs. 600SM PCI Phone Adapters are targeted towards small to medium businesses that want a simplified VoIP system that ties in with desktop PCs.

It’s surprising to see the 600SM Phone Adapter shipping as a PCI card since Intel has been pushing PCI Express for the past two years. With newer motherboards from Intel and other manufacturers coming with fewer PCI slots it seems a PCI Express x1 based card would’ve been a more logical choice. Nevertheless the 600SM PCI Phone Adapter is targeted towards business users. It wouldn’t be surprising to see Intel market the 600SM PCI Phone Adapter with the upcoming vPro business platform since Intel touts the 600SM Phone Adapter is a perfect application for dual-core systems. Software compatibility is expected with Skype, Engin, Packet8, Yak and other VoIP phone services. There’s no word on support for Vonage or other similar VoIP services yet.

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heh

By broly8877 on 6/12/2006 8:04:11 PM , Rating: 1

That's the first thing I thought too, Intel and not PCIe?

RE: heh

By peternelson on 6/13/2006 8:16:56 AM , Rating: 2

That was MY first thought too, they should have gone pciexpress.

However, thinking about it this should not be pci or pciexpress.

Cheap 12 mbps USB is amply sufficient for voice, allows you to move your phone dongle from one pc to another, and is dirt cheap to make compared to a pci or pcie card which is a hassle to install and remove.

It's only really old machines don't have usb.

There are plenty things that need pci or pcie bandwidth. A single channel of limited bandwidth, compressed voice ISN't one of them.

This product deserves to bomb.

The advantage of connecting a phone to a pc (rather than a router) is the pc could integrate some app with it eg screen pops saying who is calling. But you don't need PCI to achieve that. Also in my experience at the moment, making/designing pcie is still currently more expensive than pci. eg IP costs more, may need custom asic or Philips interface chip and things have to work at high clock rates. PCIe does save number of routes on a pcb but that is not a massive cost saving.

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RE: heh

By TomZ on 6/13/2006 8:59:14 AM , Rating: 2

A lot of people will prefer an add-in card instead of USB, just because it is a more permanent connection.

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RE: heh

By ceefka on 6/13/2006 10:05:21 AM , Rating: 2

An alternative to this all would be a USB-VOip telephone or an RJ11 to VOiP USB-adapter. Any of those for sale? This Intel solution is more elegant to me, i.e. less desk clutter. Most business PCs have a PCI slot free for this even with the rise of PCI-E, still.

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RE: heh

By Lord Evermore on 6/13/2006 11:25:21 AM , Rating: 2

Both items are available. The major point here is wide compatibility, hardware encoding, and ability to use any analog phone without the clutter of an external box. Plus some people just don't like USB connectivity for things if there's an option to put it inside the PC. It's also cheaper to make an internal card generally since you don't have to build a plastic case for it. There are external USB to RJ11 devices too, as well as straight USB-connected handsets. This device is good just because it means one more alternative.

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I can't see need for normal users

By ncage on 6/12/2006 11:01:56 PM , Rating: 2

Ok maybe buisness users need it that want a phone connected to each pc but i can't see any use for normal people. I mean right now i connect my phone to my router. What advantates would i get by connecting it to my pc? I mean its hardware based in the router anyways. I don't see that it would take up that much cpu if it was software based. I almost see an advantage of hooking a phone to the router because if my computer goes down then i still have my phone.

RE: I can't see need for normal users

By randomlinh on 6/12/2006 11:54:57 PM , Rating: 2

router's in the basement, computer is upstairs?

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RE: I can't see need for normal users

By Lord Evermore on 6/13/2006 5:27:54 AM , Rating: 2

What kind of phone can be plugged into a router, unless you have a specific VoIP service router or a special phone? This allows a standard analog phone to use VoIP service, doesn't require a special router or wiring to anywhere but to the PC, and can be used with pretty much any VoIP provider as long as they license Intel to make the software compatible.

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Cool.

By Ralph The Magician on 6/13/2006 1:14:43 AM , Rating: 2

Am I the only one that thinks this is actually pretty cool? Perhaps. I'm not sure I'd shell out for a PCI card, but if they started throwing this on motherboards, it might be a neat addition. Not sure if it's really worth it. I mean, if you have a computer with a mic that cost more than $5, sound quality is going to be pretty good through Skype. Still, the idea of just plugging in a regular phone and being able to have a private conversation, not something blasting through your speakers, is pretty cool.

I gotta' wonder though, with stuff like this: http://netgear.com/products/details/SPH101.php it kind of makes a PCI card a waste. Sure that Netgear piece is like $300, but it's also cool as crap.

RE: Cool.

By Ecmaster76 on 6/13/2006 1:34:06 AM , Rating: 2

You can just buy a wireless headset....

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RE: Cool.

By Lord Evermore on 6/13/2006 5:31:34 AM , Rating: 2

The Netgear phone is skype-only. This card is supposed to be compatible with any VoIP provider (earlier article listed all the providers Intel was looking to license).

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PCI

By saratoga on 6/12/2006 8:14:01 PM , Rating: 2

PCI is cheap. Plus it lets them sell to small business who have older file servers and crappy desktops. Theres lots of small companies still running on P3 machines and Win98.

RE: PCI

By xdrol on 6/12/2006 8:46:41 PM , Rating: 2

FYI, PCIe is cheaper by design.

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RE: PCI

By cnimativ on 6/12/2006 11:32:44 PM , Rating: 1

Backward compatability is the most important thing in bussiness computing, that's why standards such as ISA and ATA takes a long time to be designed out.

Most PC has PCI slots, and thats the most important thing.

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...

By Lazlo Panaflex on 6/12/2006 8:08:57 PM , Rating: 2

PCI seems the logical choice to me, since I reckon Intel is positioning this towards businesses that have underutilized (older) desktop/server hardware...

Dual Channel VOIP Solution?

By gofor55 on 6/12/2006 8:35:08 PM , Rating: 2

I've been investigating a dual channel VOIP solution so I can connect my home alarm to a company like www.nextalarm.com on one channel for monitoring and the second channel for Vonage or Viatalk. This should work 'cept I have to have an old PC running 24/7 consuming all that power. Oh, well, I needed to expande my server anyway.

PBX?

By Lord Evermore on 6/13/2006 5:36:03 AM , Rating: 2

Do providers like Skype allow multiple calls from the same PC, like if you had two soundcards could each one be used for a separate call? If so, then they could make a card like this with multiple ports, and with the right software you could build a PBX system using VoIP. Have 20 phones in the office with only one computer running them over a single Internet connection (as long as it's fast enough).

Could an analog modem function through this or through one of the USB analog-to-VoIP adapters? Could be a solution to those of us that sometimes need to send faxes but don't have a landline, if the conversion and compression and random transmission problems didn't screw up the signal too badly.

Why not an external USB version?

By vailr on 6/12/2006 8:12:25 PM , Rating: 1

There already exists several external USB VOIP adapters.
US Robotic's USR9620 and Actiontec's VoSky are 2 examples of USB adapters, which allow using a regular telephone to make Skype calls.