Motorola Plans Wi-Fi Cell Phones

Otto writes "This AP article over at CNN talks about Motorola's plans to create a cell phone that can seemlessly switch calls between cell networks and VoIP over WiFi, when it sees WiFi available to it. Thus reducing on call costs. Personally, I think it'd be cool just to have a cell phone that could use my own WiFi at home and be cellular when I'm out in the rest of the world."

Comments

Re:Finally! A way to escape the at-home dead zone!

[LostCluster]

Hopefully this would finally be a way to escape the "at-home dead zone" when I try and use my mobile down in the basement and I can get rid of that silly land-line once and for all!

Cell providers already have "mini tower" equipment they can set up in their stores to assure that they never have an embarassing dead spot at their own retail location. They even set those up at business sites to assure an otherwise uncoverable corperate campus gets hit with signal.

I guess it was only a matter of time until they converted such units to a home game model...

Re:Where are they?

[homer_ca]

It's actually not that hard to find a T-mobile hotspot. There's a Starbucks practically on every block. The cost savings argument doesn't make sense though. $30 a month is only $5 less than my cell phone plan. Also, you'll still need a paid VoIP account (about $20 a month) to call regular phones, otherwise you'll only be able to call other IP phones.
Free hotspots are harder to find. In my neighborhood there's one at the food court at the mall and another one at a fast food restaurant. Plenty of unsecured wireless APs on my street too, but the CF Wifi card on my PDA is too weak to connect to them.

Dual Mode Phones FYI

[TheOtherKiwi]

Just FYI, Ericsson and others have had dual-mode DECT/GSM phones since the late 90's and adoption has not been spectacular.

These phones allow you to roam indoors on a DECT local digital connection to your landline and roam outside (or in large buildings) with seamless handover between DECT base stations. They also doubled as GSM but I don't think the handover was automatic, see:

http://www.dectweb.com/Products/dual_mode.htm

Re:woohoo

[EchoMirage]

*cough* GSM?

Cracked.

Re:Finally! A way to escape the at-home dead zone!

[Technician]

I guess it was only a matter of time until they converted such units to a home game model...

A simple passive repeater is no problem to install in a dead zone such as a basement.

A high gain antenna on the roof pointing to the cell tower is connected to an omni antenna in the basement. This provides signal in the dead zone.

A small dish works great as it can be pointed to the tower providing high signal strength to feed the basement antenna. Be sure to use antennas cut to the freuency your cell provider is using. Use a large diamater low loss cable or all system gains will be lost in the first 15 feet of the cable. In extreme cases, eliptical waveguide may be used but it greatly adds to the cost of the project. To prevent cable loss, keep the cable as short as possible. Many houses have high attenuation because of masonary walls or aluminum backed insulation in the walls. A roof mount dish coupled with about 6 feet of wire to a ceiling mounted antenna are sometimes all that is needed to couple the signal from outside into the living space covering even the basement with good signal.