This page provides further information on the IS2630 Webphone modifications highlighted in the Bell Labs Technical Journal, Jul-Sep 2000, Paper 14.
A brief description of the hardware changes required to transform a shannon phone (Lucent/Philips IS2630) from dial-up Web phone into an IP enabled appliance supporting VoIP. For example a SIP Webphone enabling SIP calls over IP, Web browsing and email as well as calls over analog lines and Class 6 switch capabilities (IP/line). The IS2630 or "shannon" phones were originally created by Philips + Lucent Consumer product (a merger that lasted 2 years) and the Lucent Inferno Venture (1996-1999). It is estimated that 10,000 or more such phones were produced in 1998-1Q 1999.
A Web phone is a cross between a single-board computer and a traditional telephone (an embedded computer mother-board with digital audio support, and a touch-sensitive screen). Some of the first web phones became available in Fall 1998 and in 1999, including the Philips IS2630 and the Alcatel Webtouch phones. Such devices combine a complete analog phone device and a diskless processor providing email, browser and a variety of organizer applications (call list and directory manager, notepad, calendar, etc.). These original analog Web phones are limited by the speed of dial-up modems, prohibiting VoIP.The following hardware updates combined with a new (faster) version of the Inferno OS and Limbo software have removed the original limitations of these devices and provide 10BT Internet access making these devices excellent Web-enabled business or home appliance to leverage the combination of voice services and data access within a small footprint. These IP Web phones are useful appliances to showcase emerging Lucent switching products and services.
Lucent Web phone
The IP Web phones are unlike today’s personal computers, they are connected all the time, are always available to receive and send data. They restart (power up) and become operational in about 10 seconds, are ready for emergency calls, appear as robust and ubiquitous as POTS telephone. Yet the IS2630 IP Web phones use a StrongArm 1100 processor (Intel), 16 Mbytes of memory, 4 Mbytes of flash memory (for stored applications and data), a light weight custom Operating System (The Inferno OS on the IS2630) and an application suite providing: VoIP, browsing, email, software video rendering, and phone top applications.
The original IS2630 phones receive the following changes to enable IP data and voice services:
Shanip
additional board design Shanip
board realization (front) Shanip
board realization (back)
| Resistor | Value | Capacitor | Value |
| R1 | 470 | C1 | 1-10u |
| R2 | 4.7k | C2 | 47u |
| R3 | 120k | C3 | .1u |
| R4 (init. mike att.) | 1k (loud) 10k (low/best value) | C4 | 1-10u |
| R5 | 4.7k | C5 | 1-10u |
| R6 | 5.6k | C6 | 1-10u |
| R7 | 220 | C7 | 1-10u |
| R8 | 68 | C8 | .1u |
The connection to the front of the main shannon board uses an 8 wire color coded RJ-45 cable.The color coding of the RJ-45 and RJ-11 (Aux. in back of phone) connectors follows this table:
PIN # COLOR 1 blue 2 orange 3 black 4 red 5 green 6 yellow 7 brown 8 grey RJ-11 and RJ-45 color code
The second slot of the PCMCIA interface (slot #1 - at bottom of phone) is modified to support optionally 5V PCMCIA cards. The second PCMCIA interface is set to 5V when the power lead is connected to the shanip audio board noted as J1 (e.g. a 2 PIN JUMPER) on the Shanip additional board design.
Alternatively a small switch can be used to turn 5V on the PCMCIA bus (and default to 3v when off). This can be used directly without implementing the shanip audio board. The 5v can be pulled directly from the main (phone) board as shown in the Shannon main board (back view) above: the red wire with the piece of black tape (used to hold it in place during reassembly) is the 5v lead that can be directly applied to the PCMCIA circuit (via a small switch).
Here are the hardware details needed for the PCMCIA 5v changes:
The board used for the bottom PCMCIA slot can be removed (4 screws) so as not to dammage the cpu board during modification, and the electronic components can be implanted as shown.
The top sketch shows the basic circuit used in the above implementation. Fortunately all the shannon main board circuitry is 5v ready for PCMCIA, so 5v can be applied to the card as long as the reset signal is adjusted using the adaptation circuit provided (or equivalent). The bottom sketch shows how rough components can be positioned directly onto the board to realize this circuit. First look at PCMCIA closeup 1 and count the pins, then cut two notches (large enough to fit two pins + 1 component lead + solder) into to top of the PCMCIA bus board. Then compare the position of the notches with the picture below. Then unsolder and pull up the two sets of pins into the notches as shown on bottom sketch. Then proceed to assemble (solder) the components in space available and following the component numbers shown on the bottom sketch. See also the next two pictures for details.
Here is picture showing how T1 is connected. The base lead of T1 is bent and soldered (first) directly into the empty hole (nearest to the edge of the board) left by removing the set of pins from the PCMCIA Reset. The emitter lead of T1 is soldered to the displaced pins (in their notch) that will connect to the reset of the PCMCIA board when in place (Note: the LED is connected to the emitter of T1, NOT the base - the picture does not show the correct angle). The collector lead of T1 is then solderd to one of the ground pins on the board (left on picture).
Here is a picture of the first prototype 5v modification mounted back onto the main CPU board. This setup actually worked using the Inferno and its driver for ether cards, this has however never been tested with any other OS or driver. This picture is useful to see how to place rough "radio shack style" components directly on the PCMCIA bus board. If you place the components exactly as shown on the picture the PCMCIA bus board will have just enough clearance to fit back into the orginal phone. You will also need to place electric tape on the sides of the metal shield plate that face the modified components before assembly into the shannon phone. On several early prototypes, a small hole was drilled at the bottom of the phone case (and through the metal shield). This enabled to check that 5V was operational (LED light up when a 5v PCMCIA board is inserted and 5V is turned on).
The parts required for the above changes include:
A 5V PCMCIA Etherlink card is hard-wired to the Aux. port in the back of the phone. The Auxiliary port is used for thin ethernet connection to a 10BT LAN for example. Details of the PCMCIA wiring to PINS 1,2,3 and 6 of the RJ-11 female connector:
Component Type T1 PNP >200MHz switching Transistor D1 2V 10mA color LED D2 very low voltage diode -- e.g. Shotky C1 .1u C2 220u R1 10k R2 100k PCMCIA 5V bus upgrade parts list
The shannon phone is then reassembled with the hardware changes:
The IP Web phone experience is greatly enhanced over the original Web phone by the speed of direct Internet access, making this a very attractive device for service delivery to the business office via LAN or wireless LAN, or to the home via DSL, cable modem or high speed wireless.For example, using a 10Base-T network interface card, an IP Web phone enables a quality audio call over IP to proceed unchallenged while very fast online information access is available (e.g. from a browser and while accessing email). In addition the phone functionality and software are seamlessly extensible to the network were servers can provide complimentary applications on demand.
Several (6) Lucent Web phone prototypes have been showcased at Lucent Full Circle conference in San Fransisco (May 15-18 2000). VoIP phone calls within the Lucent Intranet (between employee offices and lab using these prototypes began on June 7 2000. In March a first long distance call between Indian Hill and Huizen (Netherlands) was established using Lucent Softswitch. The call path used 32 routers had un-noticeable dealy at 10 am CDT. In May a first VoIP call was completed over our department's Broadband Fiber Access system (BFA).
The next generation of IP Web phones may well be enabled by a new IP phone platform provided by Lucent Agere. The new hardware based on Lucent Phone-On-A-Chip™ technology, uses USB (bus), enabling platform evolution towards video extensions, video conferencing device and the realization of broadband IP Web phones. Other considered designs include the Intel’s Linux based Web phone platform. Samsung and UMEC may also provide suitable platforms. Next Steps
In the mean time production of these phones has been very limited (modified and reassembled in a basement on spare time). We have a backlog of orders for various projects and a very small supply, we apologize for these delays. As other projects working on packet switching we recognize the need to have an IP phone development kit, if only to be able to showcase (for example) Lucent's emerging packet switching products.
We have limited support for the shannon Web phones targetted for key projects with customer visibility (e.g. trials). Starting June 19 2000, summer employee, Andres Hernandez will work with us to assemble Web phones and perhaps we can start satisfying some of these needs.
A set of 20 shannon phones were upgraded (with these hardware changes) in Summer 2000, and by 1Q 2001, all were upgraded with some version of Inferno and a SIP stack (written in Limbo). In February 2001, these phones were used to provide SIP 3rd Party Call Control 3PCC capability in addition to standard SIP calls through a SIP proxy. Several samples were delivered through trials. In March 2001 the SIP Limbo stack was extended to implement a "By-reason" extension to SIP discussed with Rosenberg et al. enabling busy/failure carry over in the case of 3PCC calls for the first time.
In the future it will be interesting to compare the performance of these Shannon SIP Webphones running Inferno versus Linux. Hopefully this will be an opportunity for Linux to get some upgrade and to start including some of the revolutionary OS features provided by the Inferno OS since 1995 such as Namespace, Styx, Limbo etc...
A 1998 experiment at Bell Labs research project led by Venkatesh Krishnaswamy provided the first demonstration we saw of a Lucent prototype IP Web phones based on modified IS2630 Web phones. These IP Web phones enabled VoIP calls using the Lucent Softswitch from Bell-Labs research and we wshowcased them at the Embedded Systems Conference in Chicago in Spring 1999. We reused the results of this experiment to build the new enhanced version of the IP IS2630 Web phones. We are very grateful for Venkatesh's support and praise the initial work that his team did as well as the Lucent Lucent Inferno Venture that created all the software available on the shannon phones from scratch. This seminal work advanced the state of the art for Internet appliances in 1998 beyond today's implementation by Alcatel and Intel. And of course none of the shannon Webphones would have existed without the amazing research work led by Dennis Richie, Phil Winterbottom et al. done at Bell Labs on Plan 9 and Inferno (1986-1996)...
The above information is provided as is, and there is abolutely no explicit or implied warranty of usefulness or usability. Use this information at your own risk, you may permanently dammage your IS2630.
If you are having trouble with these changes drop me a note, I might even do it for you, who knows. For information on a software upgrade see also shannon minitel upgrade. If you have comments or suggestions, send email.
This page created 6/16/2000 using Linux RedHat 6.1 and Netscape Composer
Additions made on 10/24/2001 (italic) per requests received for 5v PCMCIA information
