The security of DECT keeps many people busy.
We found a blog by Schneier about the new DECT security issues.

New cryptanalysis of the proprietrary encryption algorithm used in the Digital Enhanced Cordless Telecommunications (DECT) standard for cordless phones.

    Abstract. The DECT Standard Cipher (DSC) is a proprietary 64-bit stream cipher based on irregularly clocked LFSRs and a non-linear output combiner. The cipher is meant to provide confidentiality for cordless telephony. This paper illustrates how the DSC was reverse-engineered from a hardware implementation using custom firmware and information on the structure of the cipher gathered from a patent. Beyond disclosing the DSC, the paper proposes a practical attack against DSC that recovers the secret key from 215 keystreams on a standard PC with a success rate of 50% within hours; somewhat faster when a CUDA graphics adapter is available.

For more information go to the Schneier's website.

Europe’s market leader for DECT phones is continuing its positive trend: Gigaset Communications GmbH significantly increased its operating income and improved its efficiency in the first quarter of 2010. EBITDA was about 17.7 million euros on revenue of 125 million. Operating income in the same quarter of the previous year was well in the red at –17.6 million euros on revenue of 140 million. This shows clearly that the restructuring measures at the company, in which ARQUES Industries AG holds an 80-percent share, are gaining traction.

As a premium vendor, Gigaset has been able to grow market share, especially in Europe, thanks to its successful products. Since its launch in the spring, the flagship model Gigaset SL400A – “the smallest Gigaset in the world” – has captured several awards and leads the rankings in the prestigious trade magazine connect with the rating “very good,” followed by other quality Gigaset products. Readers of Europe’s largest telecommunications magazine also voted the Gigaset SL400A “Product of the Year 2010” in the DECT category.

The company's performance is exceeding expectations, thanks to great demand for Gigaset products and supported by measures aimed at increasing profitability. In 2009, Gigaset Communications had taken intensive cost-cutting steps, reduced its headcount and focused on its core business of telephony. For 2010, the company now expects to post total revenue of about 500 million euros and sharply improve its return on investment.

In the first quarter, Gigaset surpassed its budget targets for revenue and margins, primarily due to strong sales in Europe. The cordless phone business is showing good performance, earnings strength has grown, and Gigaset is making good progress overall. Margins have increased, despite the fact that total revenue declined slightly year-on-year as a result of the sale of the loss-making Broadband and WiMAX divisions in July 2009 and Home Media in October 2009.

The strategy of concentrating on the core business of telephony and the focused positioning of the Gigaset brand in the premium segment are showing success. By selling low-margin peripheral activities and cutting the workforce, the company had already succeeded in 2009 in significantly improving its efficiency.

Gigaset Communications GmbH is one of the world’s largest manufacturers of cordless phones and the clear market leader in Europe for DECT phones. With its headquarters in Munich, the company develops, manufactures and distributes high-quality products under the brand Siemens Gigaset. Its portfolio includes fixed-network phones and Voice over IP devices. The primary production site is in Bocholt, Germany, where the Gigaset products are manufactured under the most
stringent quality and environmental standards.

DSP Group will show their CAT-is solutions on their booth, and the will present about CAT-iq and the different business models for operators / telco's.

About DSP Group
DSP Group is a leading global provider of wireless chipset solutions for converged communications at home. Delivering system solutions that combine semiconductors and software with reference designs, DSP Group enables consumer electronics (CE) manufacturers and service providers to cost-effectively develop innovative revenue-generating applications with fast time to market.
 
At the forefront of wireless semiconductor innovation and operational excellence for over two decades, DSP Group provides a broad portfolio of wireless chipsets integrating DECT, Wi-Fi, PSTN and VoIP technologies with state-of-the-art application processors. With a growing share of the wireless home telephony market, the Company provides comprehensive solutions supporting all major digital cordless technologies worldwide.

DSP Group serves a broad customer base including leading CE brands, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), original design manufacturers (ODMs), telecommunications operators and service providers. Enabling converged voice, audio, video and data connectivity across diverse consumer products – from cordless and VoIP phones to home gateways and connected multimedia screens – DSP Group proactively partners with CE manufacturers to shape the future of converged communications at home.
 
Solutions & Products
DSP Group delivers a comprehensive portfolio of proven system solutions and products that reduce customers’ development risk, costs and cycles. Our innovative offerings enable CE manufacturers to develop differentiated revenue-generating applications in three main areas:

• Connected Multimedia Screens: Enabling the rapid development of always-on home multimedia devices such as multimedia handsets and infotainment centers, DSP Group offers the XpandR™family of multimedia chipset solutions.
• Home & VoIP Solutions: DSP Group's comprehensive solution for VoIP home and office products, including VoIP phones, home PBXs with DECT access points, and home gateways, is anchored by the XciteR chipset family.
• Digital Cordless Solutions: As the worldwide market leader in DECT and next-generation CAT-iq cordless technology, DSP Group offers the XceedR family of cordless chipsets, which supports cordless phones, cordless headsets and home monitoring/automation devices.

Customers
DSP Group is a flexible customer-centric company that proactively partners with our broad CE manufacturer customer base as well as service providers. Based on a deep understanding of market needs, we encourage customer involvement in our roadmap development, and provide customer access to our internal R&D resources. A reliable long-term industry supplier, DSP Group maintains a proven track record of operational excellence and successful delivery. With over 10 offices across Asia, Europe and North America, we deliver outstanding local service and support worldwide.

Our blue-chip customer base features leading international CE manufacturers, including the world's top consumer brands, which have deployed our chipset solutions at prominent tier-one telecom operators across the globe.

GE Healthcare and Ascom released plans to launch a wireless hospital-wide messaging system, to improve workflow and communication for healthcare providers. This system will enable physicians and nurses to receive clinical text-message and pager alerts throughout the hospital, enhancing clinical workflow.

The agreement aligns the GE Healthcare patient monitoring platform with Ascom’s wireless communication solutions to enable hospitals to customize, filter and send secondary alarms to clinicians’ Ascom VoIP phones, pagers and DECT handsets.

GE Healthcare and Ascom are committed to turning streams of disparate patient monitoring information into an improved clinical workflow for mobile caregivers. By interfacing wireless hardware and middleware with patient monitoring devices, GE Healthcare and Ascom offer hospitals a “one-stop” solution for wireless secondary alarm management. Mobile hospital-wide secondary alarm notifications, via automated text messaging or paging, offer enhancements to workflow by providing clinicians with clinical information anywhere throughout the hospital.

Caregivers are highly mobile, yet require access to patient data to support critical-care decisions in near real-time. According to a recent Spyglass Consulting Group report, 66 percent of hospital-based nurses said their organizations had deployed VoIP-based communications to enable greater mobility, so they can perform their jobs more efficiently at the point of care.

Ascom Wireless Solutions launches a new handset featuring market-leading levels of physical robustness and operating safety. The handset, which will carry the name Ascom d81, has been created specifically to answer the demands of users who work in the most challenging physical environments and require superior levels of alarm protection. For example, heavy industry and petrochemical plants, prisons and psychiatric wards.

Users will appreciate the fact that both the handset and headset connector are IP65 classified - classification that makes the Ascom d81 unique on the market. For workplaces with hazardous areas exposed to explosive gas and dust the Ascom d81 handset will be available in an intrinsically safe version certified according to IECEx, ATEX and CSA.

However, safety can be looked at from another perspective and the Ascom d81 has been designed to offer optimal user protection in a number of scenarios. Potentially, staff at prisons, psychiatric wards, hospitals, hotels and even retail outlets face physical danger on a daily basis and need equipment they can rely on. With this in mind, the Ascom d81 features advanced alarm functions like a man-down / no-movement alarm, silent assistance option and alarm prioritisation. In other words, staff who might be considered as vulnerable can now work more freely and with more confidence, secure in the knowledge that if they need assistance, the new Ascom d81 won’t let them down.

In addition to its robust and protective characteristics, the Ascom d81 is a part of the company’s IP-DECT system and integrates fully with their Centralised Management platform. This means that software updates and upgrades, contact information and much more can be managed over the air, meaning less administration time, smoother application of internal routines and ultimately, a leaner, more productive business.

Dag Akerberg is CTO of the DECT Forum and Chairman of the Regulatory Working Group. This working group is participating and contributing in regulatory activities that may influence the access to the DECT spectrum. A global regulatory trend for spectrum utilization (owned by an operator) is to develop a set of common and minimal (least restrictive) technical conditions, rather than specifying a specific technology (e.g. GSM). This concept is called "technology neutrality".

Europe
In Europe the decision ERC/DEC/(94) 03 on spectrum 1880 - 1900 MHz for DECT has been under review. DECT Forum contributed to this review, and the decision was to leave it unchanged. It was agreed that DECT, with its unique technology features, its various coexisting applications, its large number of manufacturers and dealers and its market success, is a justified case for not applying "technology neutrality". The "technology neutrality" concept will however increase the number of technologies that may be used on the spectrum just below 1880 MHz and just above 1900 MHz.

DECT Forum has participated and contributed to the studies for these bands by analyzing the influence on DECT. The relevant reports are "Draft ECC Report 146", now on public consultation until 19th April, and "Draft report from CEPT to the European Commission in response to the Mandate to develop least restrictive technical conditions for 2GHz bands", which will come for public consultation soon. The conclusion is that the minimal technical conditions developed could somewhat increase the probability of harmful interference to DECT systems, but still not beyond levels that well designed DECT systems should be able to cope with.

Noting that the DECT instant Dynamic Channel Selection procedures are optimized for an environment of DECT-like or continuous interference patterns, the following non-mandatory provisions will become increasingly important, not least for countries where only 10 MHz are available: Ability to detect "stochastic" interference patterns (see example for GSM interference ETSI EN 300175-3 clause 11.4.5), ability to escape from a detected "stochastic" interference pattern by not starting search for a "Least Interfered Channel" on the same carrier where the interference was detected, and finally if up-link power control is used, it is recommended that if interference is detected, the first action should be to increase the power.

The DECT Forum RWG will issue a document with more details on the above recommended provisions.

World
 Regarding spectrum outside Europe DECT Forum has been actively promoting the preparation at the FCC of a Notice of Proposed Rule Making (NPRM) based on the DECT Forum Petition from last year. This NPRM is expected to be issued very soon, and contain proposals for changes in the FCC UMTS rules to provide similar robustness towards potential interference from cellular systems as the European regulation. Furthermore, in Japan a proposal for allowing 5 DECT carriers (carrier positions 1895,516 - 1902,528 MHz) to coexist with PHS in the PHS band will come on public consultation during March. For more information please contact the Secretariat.

DECT Forum India has been established in June 2009. Mr. S.S. Motial who has attended the DECT CAT-iq World Conference in Amsterdam heads the DECT Forum India as its Chairman. In his presentation to the audience of the conference he exposed the main objectives of the DECT Forum efforts and recent activities in India:

• Promote and ensure awareness of DECT, CAT-iq, DECT WLL advantages and benefits to telecommunication users, operators, manufacturers and regulators.
• Convince the telecommunication regulators to grant and maintain spectrum for DECT, CAT-iq and DECT WLL standards and technology. 
• Sensitizing the regulator and WPC (National Frequency Allocation Plan) for de-licensing the frequency band for DECT. DFI has made numerous interactions, e.g. concept paper on spectrum allocation for TRAI. 
• Approach of DFI representatives to the Indian Government on lowering of tax and duties for cordless devices.

DECT Forum India is looking for further support from the industry. Interested parties should become a member of DECT Forum India (small and feasible membership fee) with the aim to support the Chairman and give DFI a strong voice towards local institutions in a very interesting and promising market. Mr. Motial's presentation, which gives an excellent overview of demographics and economic fundamentals in India can be downloaded from the DECT Forum website (www.dect.org).

SiTel Semiconductor today announced how its collaboration with Target Compiler Technologies led to the creation of customized audio DSPs for its SC14452 Green VoIP processor. The DSPs combine extreme energy efficiency with high processing performance, enabling industry-leading audio quality and power consumption. Key components of the SC14452 that won a 2009 Frost and Sullivan Green Excellence Award, the DSPs were developed using Target’s IP Designer retargetable tool suite.

Target’s tools allowed SiTel to develop application-specific Gen2DSPs including a C-compiler, which means customers can program the DSPs themselves. The DSPs operate at low frequency to minimize energy consumption, yet provide high processing power. The SC14552 features two of these DSPs, which together deliver 160 MIPS. At the same time, they help minimize power consumption, enabling in-call power figures below 600 mW.

 With these powerful DSPs on-board, the SC14452 delivers outstanding sound quality for crystal clear communications. It can support four concurrent IP connections, independent of the codec chosen. Currently supported codecs include G.711, G.729, G.722, G.726, iLBC and MP3. Highly integrated, this VoIP solution reduces the overall system bill of materials (BoM) for enterprise VoIP desktop phones and IP-DECT base stations. It features integrated DECT, CAT-iq, DECT 6.0 and KDECT support and a dedicated cryptography engine for complete call confidentially.

SiTel’s drive towards more advanced and flexible System-on-Chip (SoC) solutions is the reason behind the company’s choice of Target’s tools. Target’s IP Designer is the leading retargetable tool suite for the design, programming and verification of application-specific instruction-set processors (ASIPs).

About Green VoIP
Concerns over climate change and fossil fuel supplies have put energy efficiency of all products at the forefront of both consumer and government agendas. For example, the European Commission Regulation on ecodesign (implementing Directive 2005/32/EC) proposes limiting the standby power consumption of domestic and office devices initially to 2 W if the device has a display and 1 W otherwise. A future second phase will further tighten these limits to 1 W and 0.5 W. Similar legislation is currently making its way through Congress in the US.

To help customers respond to these concerns and regulations, SiTel launched the Green VoIP range in 2008. These energy-efficient ICs allow manufacturers to create VoIP solutions that are environmentally friendly and reduce electricity bills. The first Green VoIP product, the SC14450, reduced the net system power consumption for typical applications by 50% to around 800 mW during calls and 550 mW in idle mode. The next Green VoIP processor, the SC14452, pushed down power consumption even further to 550 and 350 mW respectively – meeting the most stringent proposed limits.

Plantronics simplified its growing Unified Communications (UC) portfolio and introduced new audio solutions that help IT departments deploy UC quickly and keep costs down . The new solutions, including a USB desk phone, premium corded headsets and wireless DECT (TM) headsets, deliver brilliant audio, unmatched quality and ease of use across all work environments.

The Plantronics Unified Communications product portfolio is now organized into the following product families:
Blackwire (TM), Calisto (R), Savi (TM) and Plantronics Voyager (R) UC. The simplified product families are designed for easy IT decision making. Many products provide full call control functions for UC applications from partners including Alcatel-Lucent, Avaya, Cisco, IBM, Microsoft and Skype.

Simplifying UC Deployments
The new Plantronics Unified Communications product families give IT departments a single trusted vendor for a wide variety of audio solutions. From executives in the corner office to mobile sales teams to knowledge workers around campus or in the office, Plantronics’ breadth of product options enable clear, reliable conversations across an array of environments. Equally important, the audio solutions are easy to use and install, so IT departments aren’t burdened with support requests.

Plantronics Blackwire: Corded USB Wideband Headsets
Designed for in-office and mobile PC-based conversations, the Blackwire family includes the new Blackwire 420, a foldable headset designed for a mobile worker which can lay flat next to a laptop for portability. It has in-line controls for volume, answer/end and mute. Installation is easy via USB plug-and-play connectivity. The Blackwire line includes five headsets with wideband audio, call control and noise canceling microphones in both mono and stereo.

Plantronics Calisto: Wideband USB Phones
The Calisto family includes the new Plantronics Calisto 540, an Optimized for Microsoft Office Communicator deskphone. The Calisto 540 is ideal for stationary workers who primarily use the PC for voice conversations and want the familiarity of a desk phone. The Calisto family of products also includes a USB speakerphone and a handset.

Plantronics Savi: Wireless DECT USB Wideband Headsets
The Savi family includes new binaural and monaural headband versions of the award-winning Savi Office product. The Savi family of products is designed for knowledge workers who use both a deskphone and the PC for making calls and want the freedom of mobility with the clear audio quality. Savi Office enables inoffice professionals to listen to any PC-based audio such as music players, streaming audio and video, webinars and podcasts, and make calls via the desk phone or PC with a simple press of a button. With Savi Office portfolio, IT departments looking to standardize with one headset system can now offer users a choice in wearing styles.

Plantronics Voyager UC: Bluetooth (R) USB Wideband Headset
For mobile professionals, Voyager PRO UC, introduced in November 2009, combines Plantronics’ awardwinning Voyager PRO Bluetooth headset with a plug-and-play Bluetooth USB adapter to deliver richer wideband audio on softphones along with Voyager PRO’s superior noise and wind cancellation on both mobile phones and softphones. The Plantronics Voyager PRO UC headset supports multipoint technology that allows users to switch between their mobile phone calls and PC calls with the touch of a button. Pricing and Availability

Almost a year ago we mentioned that it would be great to have CAT-iq/DECT products based on Android. At that time many thought that we were insane. It is good that Binatone and DSP have chosen for this direction.

DSP Group and Binatone, a Motorola Official Licensee and a leading consumer electronics firm, announced today that Binatone has chosen DSP Group's XpandR chipset for its multimedia cordless home phone powered by Android(R). The Motorola phone will be available Q3 2010 in the U.S.

The Motorola HS1001 cordless phone offers Internet services such as e-mail and web browsing, via local Wi-Fi connectivity, and a touch screen interface with a virtual keyboard. DSP Group's XpandR chip set, the world's only system-on-a-chip (SoC) solution supporting both Wi-Fi and DECT 6.0, powers cordless communications and a full spectrum of multimedia applications for the home phone.