The DECT Forum, the international association of the wireless home and enterprise communication industry, is pleased to announce the availability of CAT-iq White Papers. The White Papers – part 1 “voice” and part 2 “data” – outline the current status and the future profile descriptions of CAT-iq – the technology of choice for voice and data applications.

CAT-iq stands for Cordless Advanced Technology, Internet and Quality, and is the global technology initiative from the DECT Forum, designed for IP-voice services in the next generation networks. CAT-iq focuses on high quality wideband Audio VoIP as well as low bit-rate data applications. The CAT-iq profiles are split between voice and data services, with CAT-iq 1.0 and CAT-iq 2.0 providing features to support key voice enhancements, and CAT-iq 3.0 and CAT-iq 4.0 providing features to support data.

CAT-iq is firmly positioned as a key broadband access technology. CAT-iq has the unique opportunity to continue cordless telephony’s conquest of huge segments of the world’s population, and introduce data services into homes complementing those offered by WLAN and Bluetooth. When reach, standby and talk time, cost and of course voice quality are paramount, CAT-iq is the technology of choice. The Certification process for CAT-iq 2.0 will start in September 2010, enabling market deployment of a new generation of products of various manufacturers before the end of this year.

“The White Papers – part 1 “Voice” and part 2 “data” – provide a comprehensive and detailed portray of the CAT-iq technology and its profiles. With first CAT-iq 2.0 products being available still in 2010, the White Papers will feed the growing interest in CAT-iq as a leading global wireless technology”, says Daniel Hartnett, Chairman of the CAT-iq Working Group within the DECT Forum.

The White Papers are publicly available on the DECT Forum’s CAT-iq website

The DECT Forum, the international association of the wireless home and enterprise communication industry, is pleased to announce that CETECOM ICT Services GmbH (Germany) and Nemko AB (Norway) have been appointed first CAT-iq 2.0 test laboratories.

The CAT-iq 2.0 certification program is on track and will start in September, enabling the market launch of CAT-iq 2.0 products before the end of 2010. The DECT Forum has appointed CETECOM and Nemko as Qualification Laboratories to assess and test products submitted by applicants in accordance with the test plan and the other procedures required by the CAT-iq 2.0 Qualification Program allowing products to be certified according to the specification. In addition to meeting the requirements for CAT-iq certification, both laboratories are accredited by their national accreditation bodies as being compliant with the standard ISO/IEC 17025.

“With the appointment of CETECOM and Nemko as the first test houses for CAT-iq 2.0 certification we are confident that we have selected the most experienced and reliable partners”, says Daniel Hartnett, Chairman of the CAT-iq Working Group within the DECT Forum. “With these appointments, the certification of CAT-iq 2.0 can start in September 2010. I am expecting market launch of certified CAT-iq 2.0 products before the end of this year.”

“We are very pleased to be selected by the DECT Forum as a certified test house for the CAT-iq 2.0 certification”, says Andreas Ehre, Head of Business Development, CETECOM ICT Services Germany. “Our long expertise in global testing and certification services in communication technologies – including our role as qualification test laboratory for CAT-iq 1.0 certification – guarantees that we will be able to meet the strong demands of the DECT Forum and the entire wireless communication industry.”

“Nemko services include full testing and certification of wireless telecommunications products“, says Frode Sveinsen, Chief Engineer, Nemko Norway. “Our laboratories are all highly recognized in their respective markets. We are pleased that Nemko as a test house will be part of the deployment of the CAT-iq technology from the very beginning.“

One year ago Jakajima and DECT Forum organized the CAT-iq global design competition amongst the design students around the globe. 

Here are some ideas. CAT-iq offers much more than just a phone!

For more information go the site of the CAT-iq design competition.

BBC Chairman Michael Lyons, in his foreword to the BBC Trust’s strategic review, expressed his disappointment in DAB and indicated the BBC might be putting more hope into Internet radio.

“The BBC’s newer stations were designed in part to drive digital take up. By 2010, we can see that take up of DAB radio has been slower than expected ten years ago and the BBC’s digital-only stations have not achieved the audiences or impact that was then expected,” he writes. “The BBC is already committed to playing a role in leading the UK radio industry to a fully digital future. A question remains about what that means in the longer term and what the potential is for Internet-based radio platforms to evolve.”

The Home Gateway Initiative (HGI) announced the significant progress it has made in its smart energy requirements work following a successful Summit held with other leading stakeholder organisations.

The Smart Energy Services Summit was organised by HGI and brought together key industry fora and standards developing organisations - Beywatch, the Broadband Forum, Energy@Home and ETSI (Technical Committees M2M and TISPAN WG5 NGN Home Networking) – who are, together with HGI, all looking to facilitate reductions in energy consumption. Also present at the meeting was a cross section of companies within the field, including broadband service providers, energy utilities, smart meter providers, chip providers, and broadband equipment vendors.

The participants took time to review the HGI’s initial business architecture model and discuss key issues regarding the role of the broadband service providers and energy utilities in providing services to monitor and control energy consumption within the home, both locally and remotely. The enhanced software architecture developed within HGI will allow these services to run and be managed in the home gateway.

The Summit concluded that there is a strong need for HGI service providers to consolidate their service and architecture assumptions within the framework of an HGI requirements document, HGI-RWD017-R3: Requirements for Home Energy Management and Control Service. Following the event, representatives of Beywatch and
Energy@Home, working through Telefonica TID and Telecom Italia respectively, were nominated as co-editors to the document and steps forward are already being made.

Sitel will share their knowledge about Ultra Low Power DECT/CAT-iq with the conference attendees during a presentation, and they will have a booth where their system-on-a-chip solutions will be displayed.

About Sitel
Make the IP switch and go cordless
SiTel offers complete system-on-a-chip solutions of the highest quality and value for cordless applications. We are continually searching for increasingly smaller, faster and more complete chips for our products. Our objective is to be the leading player in the market by implementing technical innovations cost-effectively. We do this by utilizing CMOS technology, which makes it possible to integrate baseband and RF functions, and enables us to supply our products at a very attractive price. 

Enabling our customers make the IP switch, we provide ICs that lead in performance, flexibility and cost. This new IP-based infrastructure will also drive yet more innovative services and applications. Connecting wirelessly using DECT, common household appliances could even be internet-enabled. The possibilities are tremendous.

Ran Klier, VP Cordless and VoIP Product Management, DSP Group,  will talk about operator business models with CAT-iq: how are operators using CAT-iq in their service and product offerings to increase ARPU and customer retention.

An interesting article published in connectedplanedonline.com by Rich Karpinski

Cisco is continuing down the path toward a major consumer products launch. Karpinski suggests five guesses what Cisco is up to:

1. Better looking, more functional consumer routers and Wi-Fi boxes. A
2. Telepresence for the home.
3. Remote energy automation solution.
4. A home automation uber remote control.
5. An over-the-top video box.

Read the complete article.

Telstra has launched a HD Voice video phone which when linked with a new Sennheiser DECT headset delivers crystal clear voice calls that are twice the quality of a traditional handset.

Initially the new Telstra media phone, which comes with its own full colour video screen, will only be available for the business market, however new models could soon be launched for the home market say communication analysts.

Primarily a video phone that works over an IP network, the new Telstra VVX 1500 Business Media Phone (produced by Polycom) incorporates new HD voice technology, which Telstra executives have likened to being like moving "from listening to AM radio sound to CD quality sound".

Users will also be offered a new Sennheiser DECT HD Voice headset which the German Com

pany claims delivers a warm and more natural sound using wideband.
The headphones operate over 180 metres, line of sight, and 55 metres through walls. It has a battery life of eight hours on full talk time.

Stylish, the new video phone has a 7-inch video touchscreen, and supports 6 lines. It also has a Gigabit Ethernet switch, and an integrated 2 megapixel camera. HD voice technology delivers clear audio. It also has motion detection technology which allows the phone to be configured as a security device when a user is absent.

The camera can be activated to deliver an image back to a central security location.

At this stage users will have to be a Telstra hosted IP telephony (TIPT) customer.

The phone can be purchased outright for $1,500 or rented for $45 per month over 36 months. Two phones are need to take advantage of the new HD voice technology.

The attendance fee for the two day conference on 19/20 october 2010, High Tech Campus, Eindhoven, The Netherlands is for:

DECT Forum members
€ 599,- (19% VAT excluded)

Others
€ 699,- (19% VAT excluded)

You can register online and pay online.