The man originally behind the ATA-186, the telephone adaptor widely credited with bringing VoIP into the mainstream, will soon be releasing a new feature-rich and highly programmable IP phone device.

Sipura Technology, a San Jose-based company headed by former Komodo Technology CEO Jan Fandrianto, which developed the ATA-186 now sold by Cisco Systems, will begin shipping its SPA-2000 to service providers and some network product distributors beginning in October.

The unit, which is expected to retail for $120, said Fandrianto, "offers many unique features and advanced functionality, including extensive programmability, security and sophisticated provisioning capabilities."

"At $60 per port, the SPA-2000's value is unmatched in the industry today," he said.

Like the ATA-186, Sipura's offering includes two Plain Old Telephone Service (POTS) ports for connection to traditional analog phones.

But the SPA-2000, unlike the Cisco unit, says Sipura Marketing Director Sherman Scholten, allows each of the POTS ports to be configured independently, meaning the telephone adaptor can be programmed to make and accept calls through two different providers.

Scholten points out, however, that initially the SPA-2000 will be shipped primarily to Voice over IP service providers, who can lock down the unit so that it is used only with their service.

Currently, the company is negotiating with potential distributors to sell unlocked units directly to consumers.

Though the Sipura unit is about half the size of the ATA-186, it packs a great deal more wallop.

Features offered by the SPA-2000 include an off-hook warning tone, selective anonymous call rejection, a message waiting indicator on the unit, all blocking with toll restriction, telephone conferencing on both analog ports and programmable ring-tones based on caller-ID.

Scholten said that end-users who receive their unit from a service provider will notice "subtle improvements" over previous telephone adaptors. "From an operator's point of view, however, the features are very significant," Scholten said.

"We've taken every conceivable feature that a telephony end point can have and made it programmable," he said.

The SPA-2000 will support the G711, G726 and G729 Codecs and will initially be set to communicate via SIP, though it can be programmed to use other VoIP protocols.

Fandrianto sold Komodo and the rights to the ATA-186 to Cisco in 2000. He formed Sipura earlier this year, bringing in Sam Sin as Vice President of Engineering. Sin was a senior engineering manager at Cisco and worked with Fandrianto as engineering manager at Komodo.

Scholten says that Sipura plans to launch a SIP handset early nextyear.