New Plantronics Voyager PRO Bluetooth Headset With AudioIQ2 Delivers Breakthrough in Sound Quality and Comfort

Advanced Design Combines Superior Noise Cancellation, Wind Reduction and Inbound Audio

Plantronics, Inc. (NYSE:PLT – News) today continued its 47-year legacy of audio expertise and ingenuity with the new Plantronics Voyager® PRO Bluetooth® headset. Plantronics Voyager PRO features AudioIQ2, the next generation of its AudioIQ digital signal processing (DSP) technology, to deliver superior noise and wind cancellation as well as rich, natural inbound audio so you can hear and be heard clearly.

Voyager PRO Bluetooth Headset
(Photo: Flickr Website)

The Plantronics Voyager PRO is the successor to the popular Plantronics Voyager 510 Bluetooth headset, a cult favorite among headset enthusiasts. Like the Voyager 510, the new Plantronics Voyager PRO is designed for mobile professionals who need all-day wearing comfort and excellent audio wherever they are working.

Engineered for Sound Quality
Today’s headset users expect great noise cancellation and Plantronics Voyager PRO delivers it with AudioIQ2 and a unique adjustable dual-microphone boom. While other headsets deliver noise cancellation at the expense of overall audio quality, the boom provides the advantage of capturing your voice close to your mouth so the AudioIQ2 technology can more effectively remove ambient noise, while still maintaining the natural sound of your voice.

The headset also effectively minimizes wind noise — a major cause of disruption during calls. Plantronics Voyager PRO features three layers of WindSmart® technology. Dual external stainless steel microphone screens and acoustic fabrics that surround the microphones together provide substantial physical barriers to wind noise. At the same time, the AudioIQ2 DSP algorithms intelligently decipher your voice from the wind to deliver clear sound to your listener.

Finally, Voyager PRO delivers unmatched inbound audio quality to ensure every word is heard on both sides of a conversation. It features a custom speaker that delivers full-spectrum audio so conversations are richer and more vibrant. The adaptive 20-band equalizer delivers distortion-free audio and works with AudioIQ2 to automatically adjust sound levels based on the noise level around you to ensure maximum audibility.

“Plantronics is singularly focused on one thing — the headset perfected. With the Plantronics Voyager PRO we set out to engineer a high-performance headset for today’s professional user who not only demands unparalleled sound quality on both sides of call, but also insists on comfort and usability,” said Renee Niemi, vice president and general manager of the Plantronics Mobile and Entertainment Division. “Voyager PRO breaks new ground in Bluetooth headsets, and consumers will be delighted by the total experience.”

Engineered for Comfort
The Plantronics Voyager PRO endured an extraordinary 24 rounds of human factors testing to perfect the design for all-day wearing comfort and stability. The behind-the-ear wearing style is perfectly counterbalanced so weight is distributed evenly, rendering it virtually weightless when worn. The Voyager PRO ear tip is made of soft silicone for an optimal fit and features a “sound channel” that helps distribute audio evenly to the ear.

Engineered for the Mobile Professional
The Plantronics Voyager PRO was designed for the mobile professional user. It includes easily accessible power, volume and mute buttons. It can seamlessly connect to two different mobile phones with multipoint technology, and it folds up easily for storage. The Voyager PRO also features voice prompts for low battery warnings and mute status. Finally, the lithium polymer battery provides up to six hours of continuous talk time and five days of stand-by time, exceeding the talk and standby times of most mobile phones.

Pricing and Availability
The Plantronics Voyager PRO is available exclusively at Best Buy and www.bestbuy.com for $99.99. The Plantronics Voyager PRO is also available at www.plantronics.com, and will be available in other major consumer retail and wireless carrier stores beginning in late May. Availability in Asia and Europe will follow in late June and late July, respectively. For more information about the Plantronics Voyager PRO, please visit: http://www.plantronics.com/voyagerpro.

About Plantronics
In 1969, a Plantronics headset carried the historic first words from the moon: “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” Since then, Plantronics has become the headset of choice for mission-critical applications such as air traffic control, 911 dispatch and the New York Stock Exchange. Today, this history of innovation is the basis for every audio product we build for the office, contact center, personal mobile, entertainment and residential markets. The Plantronics family of brands includes Plantronics, Altec Lansing and Clarity. For more information, go to www.plantronics.com or call (800) 544-4660.

Altec Lansing, Clarity, Plantronics, AudioIQ2 , Plantronics Voyager PRO, and WindSmart are trademarks or registered trademarks of Plantronics, Inc. The Bluetooth® word mark and logos are registered trademarks of Bluetooth SIG, Inc. and any use of such marks by Plantronics is under license. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners.

NFC Technology Takes its Next Step With the Nokia 6216 Classic

At the opening keynote of the 3rd annual WIMA conference, held at the Grimaldi Forum in Monaco, Nokia (NYSE: NOK – News) announced its third fully integrated Near Field Communication (NFC) device, the Nokia 6216 classic. The new arrival is Nokia’s first SIM-based NFC device which enables operators to build NFC services on to the SIM card. With NFC consumers will benefit from greater ease of use, more convenient sharing of content – such as images, weblinks, audio files or contact data – as well as secure payment and ticketing transactions, all with just one tap of the device. The Nokia 6216 classic is expected to start shipping in the third quarter of 2009 in select markets with an estimated retail price of EUR 150 before taxes and subsidies.

Nokia 6216 Classic
(Photo: Nokia Website)

“The Nokia 6216 classic will be amongst the first commercial devices in the market complying with operator requirements using the SIM card in connection to secure transactions with Near Field Communications,” says Jeremy Belostock, head of near field communications at Nokia. “With the Nokia 6216 classic in your pocket and the ticketing applications on the SIM you can replace the multitude of cards in your wallet. Having the applications on the SIM consumers can bring their secure applications to their next Nokia NFC enabled phone.”

Owners’ credit card information can be stored securely on the SIM card and waving the device in front of a contactless terminal enables quick payment and simple ticketing services*.

“The launch of the Nokia 6216 classic SIM-based NFC handset is a great step forward for payment and ticketing services,” says Alex Sinclair, the Chief Technology Officer of the GSM Association. “We believe this will drive more rapid deployment of the technology and expect this to signal launch of NFC services in the market by operators.”

In addition to the NFC technology, the Nokia 6216 classic is outfitted with the features people desire from a next generation mobile device, including digital camera, bright display, stereo FM radio and music player, 3G connectivity and a microSD slot which is expandable up to 8GB.

*A compatible NFC SIM card is required in order to be used with contactless ticketing and payment services, and require a service subscription and installation of an appropriate secure application.

About Nokia
Nokia is the world’s number one manufacturer of mobile devices by market share and a leader in the converging Internet and communications industries. We make a wide range of devices for all major consumer segments and offer Internet services that enable people to experience music, maps, media, messaging and games. We also provide comprehensive digital map information through NAVTEQ and equipment, solutions and services for communications networks through Nokia Siemens Networks.

For more information visit http://www.nokia.com

Echelon and T-Mobile Announce Alliance to Reduce the Cost of a Secure Smart Grid Network for Utilities

Echelon Corp. (NASDAQ: ELON – News) and T-Mobile USA, Inc., today announced an alliance to accelerate the adoption of the smart grid in the North American market by reducing the communications cost of smart meters through the deployment of Echelon’s Networked Energy Services (NES) system over T-Mobile’s GSM cellular network. As part of the agreement, Echelon will utilize a first-of-its-kind embedded T-Mobile SIM within a cellular radio module to enable all the Echelon smart meters on a given low voltage transformer to communicate back to the utility over the smart grid, and T-Mobile will offer users of Echelon’s NES system innovative and cost-effective pricing plans for data usage.

Many advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) systems in the North American market require utilities to deploy their own wireless communications infrastructure, encumbering the utility with the initial cost of building the network and with the ongoing maintenance costs required to keep it operating reliably. Public wireless telecommunications networks have been built to sustain the high-traffic needs of the consumer market and are very reliable. This joint announcement allows electric utilities using Echelon’s NES system to take advantage of the enormous investment that T-Mobile has made in its network and to leverage the 24/7 maintenance commitment of T-Mobile to keep its network operating at maximum efficiency.

Echelon’s NES advanced metering infrastructure is leading the worldwide transformation of the electricity grid into a smart energy network, and T-Mobile USA’s nationwide network serves more than 32 million customers with reliable wireless voice and data services.

“We believe the initiative we have announced today with T-Mobile should fundamentally change the way utilities in North America think about deploying AMI systems,” said Jim Andrus, Echelon vice president of NES Sales Americas. “While the investment in coverage, reliability and security of carriers such as T-Mobile is unmatched by what a utility could do on their own, the operating costs of public networks have traditionally limited their use in the North American market. In contrast, aggressive pricing plans have made the use of the public cellular networks as the backhaul of smart grid systems the norm in Europe. We believe the programs we have put in place with T-Mobile can have the same impact on the North American market.”

John Horn, national director for M2M, T-Mobile USA, said, “Utilizing T-Mobile’s robust wireless network allows Echelon and its clients to focus on smart grid solutions rather than on building and maintaining a costly and complex private communications infrastructure. Through this agreement and the exciting introduction of our new pricing plans and embedded SIM — which will deliver a very small, durable solution built to withstand challenging environmental factors such as temperature and humidity — we expect innovation and adoption of smart grid solutions to accelerate.”

“T-Mobile is excited to play a meaningful role in providing the communications infrastructure for these innovative services to flourish,” Horn added.

About the Solution
The NES advanced metering infrastructure from Echelon consists of a family of highly integrated, advanced electronic electricity meters accessed via a Web services based network operating system over an IP networking infrastructure. More than a simple AMI system focused on billing related services, the NES system enables the backbone of the smart grid, providing utilities with a wealth of information about the status, operation and health of the grid that enables them to reduce operating costs while increasing service quality.

Unlike systems with a dedicated, proprietary radio per metering point, multiple NES meters can share a single IP connection among all the meters on a given low voltage transformer, driving down the per-point connection cost and eliminating the need for the utility to build and maintain a dedicated private wireless network for their meters. When used on the T-Mobile network, one point per transformer will be equipped with T-Mobile’s innovative new embedded SIM card, eliminating the need for the utility to build and maintain a private network for backhaul communications.

By bringing the wide area network connection point down to the neighborhood transformer, this architecture allows a utility to pinpoint problems in its network at a very precise location, eliminating cost and time affiliated with outage detection and improving customer service.

About T-Mobile USA, Inc.
Based in Bellevue, Wash., T-Mobile USA, Inc. is the U.S. operation of Deutsche Telekom AG’s Mobile Communications Business, and a wholly owned subsidiary of T-Mobile International, one of the world’s leading companies in mobile communications. By the end of 2008, 128 million mobile customers were served by the mobile communication segments of the Deutsche Telekom group — 32.8 million by T-Mobile USA — all via a common technology platform based on GSM, the world’s most widely used digital wireless standard. T-Mobile’s innovative wireless products and services help empower people to connect to those who matter most. Multiple independent research studies continue to rank T-Mobile among the highest in numerous regions throughout the U.S. in wireless customer care and call quality. For more information, please visit http://www.t-mobile.com. T-Mobile is a federally registered trademark of Deutsche Telekom AG.

About Echelon Corporation
Echelon Corporation (NASDAQ: ELON – News) is leading the worldwide transformation of the electricity grid into a smart, communicating energy network, connecting utilities to their customers, and providing customers with energy aware homes and businesses that react to conditions on the grid.

Echelon’s NES System — the backbone for the smart grid — is used by utilities to replace existing stand-alone electricity meters with a network infrastructure that is open, inexpensive, reliable, and proven. The NES System helps utilities compete more effectively, reduce operating costs, provide expanded services and help energy users manage and reduce overall energy use. Echelon’s LonWorks® Infrastructure products extend the smart grid, powering tens of millions of energy aware, everyday devices made by thousands of companies — connecting them to each other and the grid. LonWorks based products work together to monitor and save energy; lower costs; improve productivity; and enhance service, quality, safety, and convenience in utility, municipal, building, industrial, transportation, and home area networks.

More information about Echelon can be found at http://www.echelon.com.

Echelon and the Echelon logo are registered trademarks of Echelon Corporation registered in the United States and other countries. Other product or service names mentioned herein are the trademarks of their respective owners.

T-Mobile Announces First-of-its-Kind ‘Embedded SIM’ for Machine-to-Machine Solutions

Tiny, Durable SIM Enables Wireless Connectivity in Extreme Environments Including Smart-grid Infrastructures, Telematics and more

T-Mobile USA, Inc. today announced the first-of-its-kind embedded SIM for Machine-to-Machine (M2M) solutions. Nearly the size of a head of a pin, the durable embedded SIM withstands challenging environmental factors such as temperature, humidity and motion to deliver reliable wireless connectivity. The embedded SIM is ideal for telematics and smart grid infrastructure solutions where environmental factors may reduce reliability and increase maintenance costs of removable SIM-based solutions.

The embedded SIM preserves many of the benefits of a GSM-based SIM solution (authentication, encryption and storage), but at a fraction the size of the traditional SIM you’d find in a mobile phone. In addition to the much smaller size, the embedded SIM differs from today’s SIMs in that it’s built from silicon — not plastic. The embedded SIM is designed to be hard-mounted onto M2M modules, accelerating deployment by allowing customers to go directly from the factory to the field without having to provision and manually insert a SIM card. These features deliver an innovation opportunity for equipment and solution providers to work with T-Mobile in bringing smaller, more durable and cost-effective M2M solutions to market.

“T-Mobile’s embedded SIM solution drives efficiencies, speeds time to market, and extends the life of M2M solutions even in the toughest environments,” said John Horn, national director of M2M, T-Mobile USA. “With our simple, streamlined certification process, we expect partners to have commercial solutions based on this new technology running on the T-Mobile network as soon as this summer.”

Among the first to implement the embedded SIM into its M2M systems is Echelon Corp. In a related announcement today, Echelon and T-Mobile announced an alliance designed to accelerate the adoption of the smart grid in the North American market by reducing the cost of communicating smart meters using Echelon’s Networked Energy Services (NES) system over T-Mobile’s GSM cellular service. This addresses the Communication costs associated with remote meter reading using utility private networks that are traditionally a large expense for utilities.

The availability of pervasive, affordable wireless data connectivity combined with key advancements like the embedded SIM, are removing the barriers to M2M adoption. Industries such as agriculture, automotive, energy, fleet management, healthcare, manufacturing and vending can benefit from these advancements and the intelligent connectivity provided by M2M systems.

“M2M services are experiencing impressive growth, and we’ve predicted that the US enterprise M2M cellular service market will reach nearly 20 million connections by 2012,” said Steve Hilton, vice president of Yankee Group’s Anywhere Enterprise research group. “According to recent Yankee Group research, speeding time to market and simplifying the sales process by compressing the supply chain is critical. T-Mobile’s embedded SIM offering further accelerates the M2M market opportunity.”

T-Mobile USA has experienced strong-year-over year growth in M2M connections since it started its M2M business unit six years ago. T-Mobile’s robust GSM nationwide network provides a reliable infrastructure for always-connected services that help companies reduce operating costs, automate and streamline regular data collection tasks and drive new levels of business control and efficiency. T-Mobile is dedicated to being the easiest mobile operator to conduct business with for M2M solutions by creating a streamlined certification process and a flexible approach to activation. For more information, please e-mail M2Minfo@t-mobile.com.

About T-Mobile USA, Inc.
Based in Bellevue, Wash., T-Mobile USA, Inc. is the U.S. operation of Deutsche Telekom AG’s (NYSE: DT – News) Mobile Communications Business, and a wholly owned subsidiary of T-Mobile International, one of the world’s leading companies in mobile communications. By the end of 2008, 128 million mobile customers were served by the mobile communication segments of the Deutsche Telekom group—32.8 million by T-Mobile USA—all via a common technology platform based on GSM, the world’s most widely used digital wireless standard. T-Mobile’s innovative wireless products and services help empower people to connect to those who matter most. Multiple independent research studies continue to rank T-Mobile among the highest in numerous regions throughout the U.S. in wireless customer care and call quality. For more information, please visit http://www.T-Mobile.com. T-Mobile is a federally registered trademark of Deutsche Telekom AG.

M21145/65 Device Architecture
(Photo: Mindspeed Website)

Mindspeed(R) Unveils Industry’s Largest Crosspoint Switch

New 6.5 Gbps Capable 160×160 Crosspoint Switch Provides 20 Percent More Switching Paths

Mindspeed Technologies, Inc. (NasdaqGM:MSPD – News), a leading supplier of semiconductor solutions for network infrastructure applications, today announced the expansion of its crosspoint switch portfolio with the addition of a 160×160, 6.5 Gbps asynchronous crosspoint switch. Built upon three generations of industry leading crosspoint switches, this device is the largest of its kind, providing 25,600 unique switching paths on a single die.

The fully non-blocking crosspoint switch is protocol agnostic, with each independent channel robustly operating at any data rate up to 6.5 Gbps. The device is ideally suited for a wide variety of applications such as broadcast video routing and switching, blade server, storage and dense wave division multiplexing (DWDM). Implemented in small geometry complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS), the large crosspoint switch is the ideal low power solution for large systems.

“This product represents Mindspeed’s dedication to innovation in crosspoint development,” said Kurt Busch, senior vice president and general manager of Mindspeed’s high-performance analog products. “This state of the art, low-power CMOS device is not only the largest crosspoint switch, but it also offers the highest level of signal integrity and performance.”

Each input features individually programmable input equalization to compensate losses accumulated across the backplane. In addition, all outputs provide output de-emphasis, programmable on a per lane basis. These signal conditioning features are very critical for maintaining signal integrity for high-speed designs system implementations.

Technical Details
The M21165 160×160 crosspoint switch can be configured to switch each channel as individual lanes (lane mode) or in a group of 4 channels (group mode) with low intra-channel skew. The various options of the crosspoint switch and the switch state can be configured with registers accessed through both two-wire and four-wire serial interfaces, or through a parallel interface, offering ultimate flexibility.

The device requires a 1.2V core supply, while the input and output drivers may be powered by a 1.2V or 1.8V supply. When a 1.2V supply voltage is used, the M21165 typically consumes 22W.

The crosspoint switch also features individual, per lane, loss of signal alarms, as well as integrated temperature sensors, easing failure diagnosis.

Pricing and Availability
The M21165 is available for sampling today with production sales targeted for the calendar third quarter of 2009. In prototype quantities, the M21165 is priced at $1200.

A live system application demonstration of the M21165 is on display at the Mindspeed Booth #SU3404 at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) show, held at Las Vegas Convention Center, April 20, 2009 through April 23, 2009.

About Mindspeed Technologies ®

--  Mindspeed Technologies, Inc. designs, develops and sells semiconductor
    networking solutions for communications applications in enterprise, access,
    metropolitan and wide area networks.
--  The company's three key product families include high-performance
    analog transmission and switching solutions, multiservice access products
    designed to support voice and data services across wireline and wireless
    networks, and WAN communications solutions including T/E carrier physical-
    layer and link-layer devices as well as ATM/MPLS network processors.
--  Mindspeed's products are used in a wide variety of network
    infrastructure equipment, including voice and media gateways, high-speed
    routers, switches, access multiplexers, cross-connect systems, add-drop
    multiplexers and digital loop carrier equipment.

To learn more, visit us at www.mindspeed.com