CAT-iq

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The official CAT-iq logo

CAT-iq ( C ordless A dvanced T echnology - i nternet and q uality, German "cordless advanced technology - Internet and Quality") is a standard for DECT telephony. CAT-iq was presented at the ITU Telecom World 2006 trade fair on December 5, 2006 in Hong Kong.

Basic performance characteristics

With CAT-iq, conventional telephone applications can be linked to IP networks. New applications such as internet radio or web feeds can be used with cordless telephones .

CAT-iq specifies a higher data transmission rate of up to 384 kbit / s between base station and handset. This is achieved with so-called “long slot formats” within the previous DECT frequency band from 1880 to 1900 MHz and from 1910 to 1920 MHz, which is available almost worldwide and is not disturbed by other radio technologies such as Bluetooth or WLAN . At the same time, the voice quality is improved through a higher bandwidth and new voice codecs . The G.722 broadband voice codec is used, which transmits voice packets at a data rate of 64 kbit / s and can thus transmit signals of up to 7000 Hertz. Since the codec is not limited to Cat-iq, there is fundamental compatibility between all devices that support the voice codec without signal conversion, currently especially in the area of ISDN and IP telephony . Another advantage of CAT-iq is the guaranteed compatibility of devices from different manufacturers. In the previous DECT standard, this is not regulated in detail and is often solved in a proprietary manner by the manufacturers . The Adapted Power Control technology provided by CAT-iq offers possibilities for energy saving.

Stages of development

The current standardization process of CAT-iq is divided into several stages:

Functions in voice transmission
  • CAT-iq 1.0 "HD-Sound": ETSI TS 102 527-1 Broadband voice transmission
  • CAT-iq 2.0 "Multi Line": ETSI TS 102 527-3 Extended services for broadband voice signal
  • CAT-iq 2.1 "Green": ETSI TS 102 527-5 HF power control, power saving modes, voice encryption
Functions in data transfer
  • CAT-iq 3.0 "Internet Ready": ETSI TS 102 527-4 'Lite' Data Services (basic data services); Software Update Over The Air (SUOTA) (Wireless software update via HTTP)
  • CAT-iq 4.0 "Intelligent Networking" ('intelligent' network services); planned

Security flaws

The Federal Office for Information Security complains that, compared to conventional DECT (64-bit encryption), additional interfaces and functions are implemented without increasing security, and writes literally: “This leads to a lower level of security compared to DECT . At this point, an improvement in the security of CAT-iq on the part of the DECT forum is required. ”The mandatory implementation of encryption - only optional for DECT - takes place with the DSAA (1) standard as part of the standardization of CAT-iq version 2.1 . What is defined here is “encryption that is similar to the previous one” (ie DECT). The use of AES as an optional encryption algorithm has not yet been approved, but has been included in the new description of the Common Interface Module (CI) of the DECT standard with a key length of 128 bits, regardless of CAT-iq. However, a problem so far has been the lack of implementation by manufacturers and a lack of product information.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ CAT-iq 2.0 - Future of the Telephone Weka Media publishing, accessed on January 22, 2016
  2. ↑ Dipl.-Paed Lars Behrens: Topic of the month: CAT-iq . weka-it.ch (accessed on November 5, 2013)
  3. ^ The Wireless World of CAT-iq
  4. ↑ CAT-iq Certification Overview: Global Technology for Broadband Home Connectivity. DECT Forum 2014 (PDF; 3705 kB)
  5. ↑ Federal Office for Information Security: Wireless communication systems and their security aspects. 2009 (see also Section C.6: "Conclusion")
  6. ↑ Security gap in DECT telephones - cordless telephones can be eavesdropped. taz.de, January 21, 2009
  7. ↑ DECT Security Certification Roadmap 2014 (PDF; 1495 kB) DECT Forum, 2014 ( Memento from March 15, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
  8. ^ Digital Enhanced Cordless Telecommunications (DECT); Common Interface (CI); - Part 1: Overview (PDF file). P. 36/37 European Telecommunications Standards Institute ETSI, August 26, 2013 (date of the PDF file)

Web links