Accton Designs Skype Handset

Accton Technology, a Taiwanese electronics maker, will work with Skype Technologies on a range of Skype-compatible products, the two companies have announced.

Accton representatives said its Skype products will enable customers to use the Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) software without the need for a personal computer. Until now, Skype has been largely used on computers and comes in versions for Windows XP, Mac OS X, Linux, and the Windows Mobile operating systems. However, several companies have said they are developing products, including Wi-Fi telephone handsets, that will be compatible with the popular VoIP phone service.

Cell Phone Design

One of the first products to come from the alliance is expected to be the VM1185T, a Wi-Fi Skype handset that looks like a cell phone. The handset will go into mass production in the first quarter of 2006, said Lucile Lu, a spokesperson for Accton in Hsinchu, Taiwan.

Few details of the VM1185T are available, although the company distributed an image of the product that appears identical to Accton's VM1188T, a Wi-Fi handset compatible with the session initiation protocol (SIP) standard used by most VoIP providers. The VM1188T supports 802.11b/g wireless LAN networks, WPA (Wi-Fi protected access), and WPA2.