The latest AVM Fritz!Box firmware currently available for the models

• Fritz!Box WLAN 3270
• Fritz!Box Fon WLAN 7170
• Fritz!Box Fon WLAN 7270

brings interesting new features. The most interesting for me are the internal SIP Registrar Server and the support for USB HSDPA modems.

The internal SIP Registrar Server allows to use standard SIP phones (via LAN and WLAN) either as software or hardware. Essentially there is no need to buy a phone for usage at home, you may use your Nokia mobile phone instead. This will instantly give you a personal home zone, although in that case you would need WLAN, which is probably undesirable in some cases. The usage of wired phones (ethernet, analog or ISDN) introduces some other limitations but also some benefits, upto the user to choose. I, for my part, cannot create a ethernet cable network at home, so I have to rely on WLAN. The Fritz!Box allows to create up to 10 SIP accounts, that should fit most personal, family and SOHO situations.
I should mention that this firmware seems to bring VoIP features to the 3270 model (I haven’t tested it yet, but the release notes stipulate this). The 3270 has no interfaces for analog or ISDN phones, with the SIP registrar server you may now use SIP phones.

The GUI on my Fritz!Box Fon WLAN 7270 doesn’t show the HSDPA part yet, maybe I need to connect my Huawei HSDPA USB modem to the Fritz!Box and see if the GUI changes, I will keep that for another post however.