Inside Story

Figure 2 shows the opened phone, which has reduced component count from the F1000.

Figure 2: F1000G opened
(click image to enlarge)

Figure 3 shows a closer view of the main board back, where you can see that the 11g radio module comes from SyChip, instead of Agere, which supplies the F1000's 11b radio.

Figure 3: Main board back
(click image to enlarge)

The WLAN6100 module (PDF link) itself actually does support WPA2, WPA, WEP, 802.1x, LEAP and AES security, so we can hope that at some point UTStarcom will upgrade the phone to also support these more secure modes.

Figure 4: Maximum transmit power

The WLAN6100's spec sheet lists "+15dBm RF power", but the FCC test report excerpt shown in Figure 4 shows that's only for 802.11b operation. 802.11g peak output power is about half that - around +11dBm / 14mW.

Figure 4: Main board front
(click image to enlarge)

Figure 4 shows the board's front, where the mic, speaker, monochrome display and keypad are mounted.

Since the FCC certification is completed, I'd like to see Vonage set the right example and ship the F1000G instead of the F1000. While it won't currently solve the WEP insecurity problems, the F1000G would at least not force WLANs to slow to accomodate it like the F1000 will.

But so far there's no sign of who will be the first to make this small step toward a better VoWLAN solution available.