Atheros Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ: ATHR), a leading developer of advanced wireless and wired solutions, announced that its AR6101G ROCm™ (Radio-on-a-Chip) mobile WLAN solution was selected for the new Z-Com WP-520 Honey Pair single-mode Internet Protocol (IP) phone. Sold in pairs, the new phones enable users to make free or low-cost calls using any available wireless local area network (WLAN). Atheros’ AR6101G, the world’s only single-chip VoIP solution, allows Z-Com to offer telecom providers and retailers a highly integrated, ultra low-power design to bring voice-over-Wi-Fi to the mainstream market. Z-Com is a leading Taiwanese-based manufacturer of wireless networking equipment for service providers and home retail products. The Honey Pair phones target business and residential consumers in Europe, Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Latin America, where new IP services are emerging.

With the Atheros AR6101G, the WP-520 handsets can easily connect to WLANs to make high-quality, wireless Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) calls for a truly mobile IP experience. The scalable AR6101G supports rich features like the effortless connection of two Z-Com phones with the press of a button, enabling users to quickly connect with friends and family. In addition, the handset supports instant messaging capabilities using Google Talk™ which brings fun features to users wanting to communicate in real time.

The WP-520 phones are expressly designed to provide consumers with an extremely cost-effective VoIP handset solution. Z-Com chose Atheros’ AR6101G for its reliability, industry-leading WLAN performance and highly integrated design which combines multiple complex functions onto a single chip, including computing, DSP, memory, power management, keypad, and audio and display interfaces. With this high level of systems integration, the AR6101G total component count is reduced by nearly 50 percent versus competitive designs, and dramatically lowers the total bill-of-materials. In addition, the AR6101G delivers lower power consumption than competitive solutions through proprietary power-save modes and techniques like UAPSD (Unscheduled Automatic Power Save Delivery) to provide Z-Com WP-520 handset users with up to five days of stand-by power, or five hours of continuous talk time between charges.

“Atheros’ low-power, high-throughput VoIP solutions enable us to deliver the most cost-effective, feature-rich VoIP handsets providing consumers with the best combination of high-quality voice and uninterrupted connectivity,” said John Shieh, chief executive officer of Z-Com. “Z-Com’s WP-520 handsets are ideal for service providers wanting to offer a low-cost VoIP phone alternative to subscribers, and are also sold through retailers around the world as an inexpensive IP phone.”

“The demand for low-cost voice connectivity among residential and business users worldwide is growing and generally not addressed by current solutions on the market,” said Joseph Bousaba, director of marketing of the Mobile and Embedded Products unit for Atheros. “We are pleased that Atheros’ cost-effective, high-performance VoIP solution is helping Z-Com to satisfy the market requirement for an affordable, high-quality voice experience with the new WP-520 handsets.”

The Atheros AR6101 platform implemented in the Z-Com phones integrates a low-power RISC (MIPS) CPU core, full 802.11b/g functionality and all of the major handset functions. The solution is supported by a complete suite of handset software applications and application development environment. In addition, the chip provides support for advanced features including Quality of Service (802.11e) and industry standard, Wi-Fi Multimedia™ (WMM®), and Wi-Fi Protected Setup™ via Atheros’ JumpStart for Wireless™, the company’s industry standardized simple network configuration software.

All members of the ROCm family offer full-speed, hardware-based security which is compliant with the WPA™, WPA2™ and 802.11i standards. The solution also comes with full driver support for Windows® Mobile CE 6.0 and Linux®-based designs.

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