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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."
How long would it take for someone to write a Windows program that made it as easy as executing it to listen in on people's conversations over Wi-Fi? Lots of public hot spots don't use WEP, you know.
Here's a possible extention to this idea... allow the participating WiFi sites to announce the availability of a VoIP link back to the cell-provider's network, basically allowing anybody who roams by to borrow the WiFi as a mini cell tower, and letting the hotspot owner pocket a few pennies of savings on their bill for helping the stranger.
This could become a low-cost way of extending a cell network into rural areas where it's hard to put up a traditional cell tower due to zoning hassles, but virtually anybody could mount a WiFi antenna on their roof next to their TV antenna.
As far as I knew, IDT wasn't a player in the cell phone market, just the landline long distance market...
I'd have more confidence in this going to market if one of the big cellular players like Verizon, SBC/Cingular, or T-Mobile was the one doing this test.
Isn't this going to cause problems say when you walk by a company with lax wireless security and you unintentionally connect to their network and steal their services. Not saying I care but some one has to.
just because your a schizophrenic doesn't mean people arn't really out to get you
Yes!
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!
-AP
Yet another way for people to snoop my phone conversations. I seriously doubt any encryption you could implement on a mobile phone's processor for transmitting voice would be more than trivial to crack. SSH yes, mobile banking, yes, but no way is there you can encrypt my voice conversation.
Suddenly the concept of wardriving has become a lot more interesting. "VoIP wireless hotspot" suddenly becomes synonymous with "Blackmail hole".
--
The last digit of pi is four.
Thus reducing on call costs.
Am I the only person who's not counting minutes or worried about mobile phone costs?
Whatever this `plan' may cost, I'm sure there are comprable conventional mobile phone plans that are nearly as limitless as wi-fi.
It would be cool to have a phone that can talk to my computers via wi-fi, but arguing that it would somehow lower costs... that's a bit too much.
"If anything can go wrong, it will." - Murphy
I have a WiFi router in my appartment, and if this goes mainstream I will open it to the neighborhood, simply because I do not use it so much that I would suffer of sharing it. And I would pay for my DSL anyway, shared or not.
...years ago Telstra (Australias major Telco) trialled a device that was a GSM cellular phone but when within range of a specific base station functioned as a cordless land line...
I think; I may have just been smoking some mighty fine crack and made the whole thing up...
Anyone else in Oz remember this??
err!
jak.
So what happens if you move outside the WiFi coverage during a call? Handover between 3G networks and GSM should be possible, but is it possible to switch from WiFi to normal GSM without disconnecting the call? I believe this requires support from the network as well, meaning that the operators will have their say, too. Correct me if I'm wrong here.
Continuing the VoIP traffic over GPRS data could be possible without new features to the network or disconnecting, but that does not sound very tempting, since the rates for standard GPRS are counted in Euros/MB where I live...
Toy is right. Besides the problem of roaming, power consumption is a huge problem with Wifi. 802.11b is a high bandwidth, long range (compared to Bluetooth at least) protocol. It consumes a lot of power just maintaining a link to the AP. According to this it consumes 800mW while idle with a link up, 950mW while receiving, and 1400mW while transmitting. Wifi might be practical for outgoing calls, but not the other way. You'd drain your battery ust sitting at a hotpot waiting for a call.
The cell phone market (in the US) is now just a bunch of behind-the-times telco companies that missed the cell phone boat to begin with and are trying to make up for it by throwing lobbyists and salespeople at a saturated market anyways.
802.11x is probably the only useful innovation left in cell phones, and the major providers are busy either ignoring it or trying to find a way to hijack the wi-fi hotspots that exist already to incorporate them into their networks and charge us for what *should* be free.
Everybody sees what a *great* job of "innovating" the baby bells have done with their massive, nearly guaranteed profits over the past twenty years. These are the same people who couldn't even turn a profit with Bell Labs.
We'd all be better off if they had a little real competition, if even from users themselves.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
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
Actually, I think this concept has more potential use and adoption than using public hotspots. This would definitely give people who don't want to pay for an expensive POTS (and have cable internet or be lucky enough to have a local telco that doesn't require a POTS line with DSL service). I know alot of people who only have a cellular phone and complain about not being able to have good reception in all areas of their residence. Motorola's implementation doesn't make much sense, IMO.
With "unlimited" plans becoming more and more common, you may want to reconsider that logic.
They would stand to *save* money by having you use your own connection at home.
Karma: -2147483648 (Mostly affected by integer overflow)
Just think of the geeky possibilities.
And images all the babes you could impress!
09F91102 no, 455FE104 nope, F190A1E8 uh-uh, 7A5F8A09 that's not it, C87294CE no. Ah! 452F6E403CDF10714E41DFAA257D313F.
Actually a lot of cell phones have huge processing power that goes totally unused, not to mention that this would be on NEW devices. Think your 10 day standby time is good on a cell phone? There are wireless digital handsets in use in hospitals and universities that get 70 - 80 days of standby (even 150), why? Because they don't have the fancy processors and memory modern game play'n, websurf'n voice dial'n cell phones do. When you're sitting on the can playing Push-Push you're using more CPU than it would take to compress a voice stream.
Encrypting a stream text or voice doesn't much matter it's about data rate not content, when you get a lag in an SSL terminal in virtually every case it's not the cryptography that's causing the delay. Modern public/privet key cryptography scales pretty well for various data rates. The rate of your digital voice conversation on your cell phone is pretty low (which is why it sounds like crystal clear 8 bit crap).
Not to mention that you'd only need to start a new encrypted once and a while (to your provider not the WiFi Network) and NOT every time you make a call. Who cares if someone listens in on your traffic on the WiFi if it's just gibberish going to the Cell company any ways? Or did you think by any means your cell company would let you move to VoIP and connect to anyone OTHER than them?
Puleeze these people practically invented sinister strangle hold service.
Good point. If you have a truly *unlimited* plan, the carrier has incentive to divert you off their system. All of the plans from my carrier, however, have per-minute caps, and its strategy, as demonstrated by snail-mail add-ins and SMS spam, has been clearly directed towards getting me to use *more* minutes.
I am interested to see how this plays out, as I have typically awful GSM coverage at home, but excellent WiFi coverage. This would be all I need to give SBC the boot it has long deserved.
Why would you want to use Wi-Fi, when you have a tried and tested secure, ready-to-use technology like 3GSM? If it really is all about cheap calls, then 3G takes care of those issues anyway. Cellphone providers outside America (Europe-Asia) have woken up to the fact that they aren't going to make any money off voice anymore, as rates are low, and it's tough to raise then in the current situation. This was part of the motivation for upping the bandwidth available to mobile networks, so as to provide users with "value-added services" much like what DoCoMo is already doing in Japan. With so much bandwidth available, voice calls become dirt cheap anyway, since youll instead be paying for that Music Video you just downloaded, e.t.c. WiFi is fine and dandy in the states, but outside it, it's still spotty coverage (and inside too).... You can find all info regarding 3G at GSM World. Yes 3G networks have yet to get off the ground, but that's not because the technology sucks. It's for opther reasons (i.e. ludicrous spectrum license fees, inertia on part of the mobile providers to release 3G handests e.t.c.) Eventually, the mobile networks will be as fast WiFi, and our mobile phones are already just more than that. Why try and fit WiFi onto cellphones when 3G already has the inbuilt billing, encryption and other stuff ready?
My Favourite Meme
Nokia always said they were not going to do this because it cuts in their customers (read: telco's) revenues. But get to think of it, it would be real cool to do 3G. Give all your ADSL customers routers with built in WIFI. Use the leftover bandwith to allow any of your 3G customers passing by to connect via WIFI instead of UMTS. Save a bundle on antennae, less complaints of people who think UMTS gives you cancer....
10 ?"Hello World" life was simple then
I wrote this column a year ago in which I suggested that a dual-mode WiFi/Cellular phone would be a good idea.
:-)
Thanks for listening Motorola!
cell phone that can seemlessly switch calls between cell networks and VoIP over WiFi, when it sees WiFi available to it
No, I want a cell phone that can seemlessly switch my iBook's internet access between WiFi and cell networks when it sees that WiFi is not available. Just consider which situation is more common and design products accordingly.
TapRoot Systems has been working on 802.11b capable phones for some time now.
I live in a rural university town which happens to have a large number of open hotspots in cafes, restaurants, and offices. It also happens to have terrible cell coverage. I'll be first in line for a WiFi capable phone.
First entomology, then virology, and finally bioinformatics systems. Bugs follow me wherever I go.
At 3GSM this year in Cannes, I was briefed by a company called Kineto. Motorola is actually working on several different wi-fi/cell phone technologies, and Kineto's technology is one of them.
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.
That's exactly what Kineto's technology is designed to do. Or, for business accounts, it would use your business' WiFi when workers are in the office.
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!
That's exactly the point of Kineto's technology.
This could seriously hurt cell phone service providers.
Hardly. In fact, some of them are preparing to offer this service themselves!
The "at-home dead zone" is a top complaint among cellular customers. Until now, the solution has been building new towers near people's homes, which, as you get more rural, is increasingly expensive, since they know they are building towers that will always be underutilzied. It's basically a last-mile problem.
For people who can already get broadband at home, this is an elegant and cost-effective soltuon. Carriers love it, because it means less complaints about coverage at home, fewer towers they have to build in rural areas, and, in more urban areas, less congestion on their crowded networks.
This is already in real-world trials - it works. You should see carriers launching this commercially next year with bundled hardware - either Wi-Fi or long-range Bluetooth - and service plans that offer unlimited at-home minutes for very little money.