TOKYO-Sharp, a leading vendor in Japan, launched an experiment for mobile voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) using Sharp’s popular personal digital assistant (PDA) Zaurus on 18 December. Mobile IP is winning attention as the next-generation system for mobile communications. However, there are still some issues to be cleared before commercial implementation.
About 1,000 Zaurus users will participate in the experiment, which is scheduled to be conducted through March 2003. These participants install Zaurus Phone, specially developed software for the VoIP system, onto their Zaurus PDAs, and then can make calls to another Zaurus user via wireless local area network (WLAN) networks operated by NTT Communications. Sharp is planning to launch commercial-based services after the experiment.
