Consumer VoIP gear manufacturer Sipura Technology, of San Jose, CA, has released a firmware upgrade to its SPA-1001 telephone adaptor that for the first time allows the use of two totally independent telephone services over a single handset.

The new function, which Sipura has called a Virtual Services Port (VSP), allows incoming calls from two different services to ring on the same telephone handset attached to a SPA-1001.

For example, the device can be configured to receive calls from a commercial VoIP service that is accessible from any traditional telephone, and from free services, such as Free World Dialup and SipPhone, that operate under their own independent network.

A user can choose which of the two services to use on outgoing calls by modifying the SPA-1001’s configuration to direct calls over the appropriate service based on a dialed prefix.

Each of the services installed on the device, said Sherman Scholten, Sipura’s VP for Marketing, can have its own “unique and distinct dial tone, unique and distinct ring tone, as well as a unique dial plan and unique proxy and NAT settings.

In addition, VSP allows for three way calling functions across both of the services.

“A user can, for example, receive a call on service 1, take the call, hit the flash button, dial another number using service 2 and conference in the third party,” said Scholten.

VSP functionality is currently available only for the Sipura SPA-1001, said Scholten, because “of the need to keep our products simple to use and manage.”

The company has no immediate plans to add the functionality to Sipura’s other telephone adaptors (the SPA-2000, the SPA-3000 and the upcoming SPA-2100), said Scholten. “We are studying it.”

The SPA-1001 firmware revision adding VSP, version 2.1.12se, is available on Sipura’s support site and can be downloaded directly from here.

Voxilla's SPA configuration wizards have been revised to support VSP functionality, said Voxilla Associate Publisher Dameon Welch-Abernathy.

“Entering the second service information in the Line 2 area of the wizard configures the SPA-1001 to fully utilize the two-line functionality,” said Welch-Abernathy.