DECT guys put a CAT-IQ among the pigeons

AS IF we didn't have enough wireless standards already, the INQ has just stumbled across another one. CAT-IQ - Cordless Advanced Telephony - Internet and Quality.

Worse news still, CAT-IQ is initially going to be used for Internet telephony and home automation. So it's up against Wifi in one corner and the likes of Bluetooth and infra-red in the other corner.

So where has CAT-IQ suddenly sprung from? It's the invention of the DECT forum who formally announced its existence at the ITU Telecom World show in Hong Kong back in December 2006.

They've moved fairly swiftly because this week DECT specialist, Siemens, was showing some CAT-IQ compliant prototypes at the Wireless Symposium in London for release in Q3 2007.

For those still wondering, DECT is the established standard for digital cordless telephony. Initially it didn't work in the USA because the standard frequency (1900MHz) was being used by cellular phones.

But now the FCC has come up with new frequencies that enable DECT phones to be sold in the States.

Luckily for its supporters, DECT has one advantage over its competitors. It boasts its own dedicated frequency so that interference isn't a problem. The opposite applies to Wifi, of course, which has to share spectrum with a whole bunch of other things.

Basically the product which Siemens was showing consisted of two handsets linked to a base station which had an old fashion fixed line connexion plus an Ethernet/router capability so you can connect to the net.

DECT and Internet telephony have been done before - most noticeably by Denmark's RTX. The difference with CAT-IQ lies with trying to offer additional IP style services.

In the Netherlands one phone provider has come up with the bright idea of putting the whole directory enquiry/telephone number database onto the net. So you can see it with a CAT-IQ phone and can dial immediately.

Another use of CAT-IQ will be Internet radio. Your cordless phone base station could become an Internet radio too. Especially useful if it also displays traffic information put out by radio stations.

As a data standard, CAT-IQ is never going to fly. It offers a mere 384 Kbit/s. But its supporters hope that by 2012, CAT-IQ will be built into 3G phones. So the cellular handset will also be the cordless phone. µ

See Also
First FCC approved DECT phone launched

L'INQ
DECT bods