Beginning Thursday, September 22, 2005, Hitachi Cable, Ltd. has announced that its wirelessIPtelephone WirelessIP5000 will be compatible with the IP Centrex functions of the "Hikari Denwa Business Type" IP telephony services for business applications offered by Nippon Telegraph and Telephone East Corporation ("NTT East"; headquarters: Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo; President: Toyohiko Takabe) and Nippon Telegraph and Telephone West Corporation ("NTT West"; headquarters: Osaka-shi, Osaka; President: Shunzo Morishita).

In recent years, declining prices and the increasing functionality offered by data communications networks have led to rapid growth of IP telephony services, which use an Internet technology known as voice over IP (VoIP) to provide voice communication services. Methods of implementing IP telephony services at corporations and other organizations include user installation of individual IP telephony exchanges and other equipment, as well as the alternative of using IP Centrex services provided by telecommunications carriers. IP Centrex services make it easy for small and medium-sized offices to adopt IP telephony services, keeping adoption costs low by not forcing users to install individual IP telephony exchanges or other equipment. The number of organizations adopting wireless LAN networking is increasing for various purposes, such as achieving nonterritorial office environments - in which employees are not restricted to designated desks - and reducing the cost of line installation when changing office layouts. The trends are combining to create growing demand for solutions that make it possible to use IP telephony in wireless LAN environments.

Hitachi Cable's WirelessIP5000 is compatible with the session initiation protocol (SIP), which is becoming a standard protocol for VoIP communications in Japan. It's also an open-architecture wireless IP telephone capable of connecting not just to a single designated SIP server (IP telephony exchange) but to multiple SIP servers. Its other built-in functions include an automatic roaming function*1, a dynamic network binding (DNB) function*2, and Web authentication, likely to be adopted for use in public wireless LAN spots. These functions have been evaluated highly in the marketplace, with a number of units already delivered to various clients, including commercial facilities deploying several thousands of units each.

NTT East and NTT West already provide "Hikari Denwa Business Type" IP Centrex services. With this announcement of the WirelessIP5000's compatibility with these services, NTT East and NTT West will now be able to provide solutions to customers considering adopting mobile IP Centrex services.

Hitachi Cable sells the WirelessIP5000 through its sales partners. Compatibility with the "Hikari Denwa Business Type" IP Centrex services from NTT East and NTT West should fuel further growth in the WirelessIP5000's market share for SIP-compatible wireless IP telephones.

*1 A function for judging access-point signal strength and communications error status and switching to the optimal access point when using the WirelessIP5000 in a mobile environment. This function is available both when talking on the phone and with the phone set to standby.

*2 A function for responding to network changes automatically and connecting to wireless LAN access points installed in different network environments, such as those at headquarters and branch offices, at home, and - in the future - in outdoor wireless LAN spots.

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  Product exterior photo