Broadcom Announces New VoIP Router Solutions with 3G USB Modem Support

By Rajani Baburajan, TMCnet Contributor

Broadcom Corporation, a provider of semiconductors for wired and wireless communications, announced the new Intensi-fi XLR wireless LAN or “WLAN” VoIP router system-on-a-chip or “SoC” platform solutions with 3G USB modem support.

The new solutions enable system OEMs to develop advanced routers based on Broadcom (News - Alert) wireless silicon integration technology and their proven VoIP software suite, company officials said.

The 3G functionality can be added to these new platform solutions using a USB interface, bringing Internet and network services to homes where broadband is otherwise unavailable.

With 3G modem, customers can utilize their cellular network to create an instant Wi-Fi hotspot for whole home Internet and VoIP services. This would enable consumers to make high-quality phone calls over the Internet.

Since VoIP calls are charged as part of the Internet service instead of a separate regular telephone charge, the service offers additional cost benefits to customers. Additional services like multiple lines, conference call and caller ID are also provided at no additional charge as part of typical VoIP offerings.

The company leverages a 65 nanometer complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor or “CMOS” design process and a high level of integration to reduce the number of system components on-chip, which in turn, lowers the rest-of-bill-of-materials or “RBOM” cost by up to 35 percent, company officials claimed.

In addition to this, the new router SoC solutions further reduce cost by using two-layer printed circuit boards or “PCBs,” making high-end routers more affordable to consumers.

Broadcom's new 802.11n design platform includes router options for low-end to high-end solutions including Broadcom BCM5356U,a single-stream 2.4GHz IEEE (News - Alert) 802.11n router SoC solution; BCM5358U, a dual-stream 2.4GHz IEEE 802.11n router SoC solution; BCM5358, a dual-stream 2.4GHz IEEE 802.11n router SoC solution with VoIP support; BCM47186, a dual-stream 2.4GHz IEEE 802.11n high-performance Gigabit Ethernet router SoC solution with VoIP support.

The new 802.11n router platform features Accelerange technology, a unique set of hardware and software enhancements that ensures more robust wireless coverage, according to company officials.

With its powerful 533 MHz MIPS32 74K core CPU memory subsystem architecture allows for consistently enhanced voice quality even under high Internet data traffic conditions, the company claims.

"By optimizing our wireless solutions for popular consumer use cases, Broadcom is able to address growing industry trends in wireless routers including support for external wide area wireless networking (3G, WiMAX (News - Alert) and LTE) and the ability to run a high quality VoIP stack,” Michael Hurlston, senior vice president and general manager, Broadcom's WLAN line of business, said. “This product family not only supports these two new features, but also provides best in class system integration and wireless performance.”

Earlier in June Broadcom announced its new single-chip 802.11n dual-band 3x3 wireless solution, the BCM4331, at the 30th annual COMPUTEX in Taipei, Taiwan. The BCM4331 Wi-Fi solution achieves 450 Mbps data rates in client devices and over 600Mbps throughput (TCP/IP) in 3x3 AP/router configurations