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BT's Converged Wi-Fi/Cell Phone
judgecorp writes "BT has been talking for more than a year about "Bluephone" - a cellphone that roams to a wireless network, when you are in the house. Just when we thought it was all hype and vapour, BT is revealing more details. Good news - it will move to Wi-Fi, when Wi-Fi handsets are cheap and good. The first version will still use Bluetooth, because Bluetooth works.
Bad news - it's not a SIP phone, and therefore not really a converged phone. It doesn't roam calls onto the Internet, or even onto the landline, where they would be cheaper. Wi-Fi or Bluetooth is just an alternative for the first few feet of the call. Takes a few calls off the cell network, but doesn't do a lot for the user, apart from giving you just one phone to lose."
From TFA
At the most basic level, voice over Wi-Fi treats voice as just another kind of data. It runs voice over IP and uses SIP addresses to route calls across the Internet. This is anathema to the cell networks, who have no intention of allowing voice over IP. For them, data is a means to squeeze more revenue from reluctant customers, not a means to let customers get voice services for less money.
Sadly this has always been one of the major stumbling blocks, and I'm not sure there is a viable solution in sight.
I know cisco is working hard on this too. A cisco show I recently attended said that they are planning on having a similar product out sometime that will switch from cell to your phone system when you are within range. I thought their target date was sometime this year.
This isn't going to be a replacement for cell phones. I don't think the bluetooth capability is that much of a benefit. Needing the base station really limits where you can use it. They did say that they'd have a WiFi version in 2006 though... that has potential :) Cell + data coverage is just unnecessarily expensive.
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I thought a while back when PCS was first coming out that it was supposed to stand for "Personal Communication Service" and it was going to offer a way to hook up to your home phone system. Basically when you were at home you would be connected through your land line like a normal portable phone and then you would roam onto the network when you were away from home.
I still can't see the purpose of this unless you get bad reception from home.
BT is not nearly ubiquitous enough and doesn't have enough range. Of course, I'm already holding a 1.9GHz transmitter up to my head, I'm not sure I really want to move up to 2.4GHz, but the point is that bluetooth isn't readily available for free all over the world like wifi.
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..with right drivers(I don't know about xp's own) you can use bluetooth handsfrees to talk on whatever VOIP you want.
so.. this is pretty weak.
more than that. there's a fundamental problem over here.. once you make those wifi networks the operators will just lower prices.. so it's kind of worth it and kind of not because you'll never make wifi as good/effective(that means 'cheap') for large amounts of voice users like cellular networks.
(my cellular bills aren't really killing me anyhow, not enough to even bother with skype most of the time)
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
"Bad news - it's not a SIP phone, and therefore not really a converged phone. It doesn't roam calls onto the Internet, or even onto the landline, where they would be cheaper. Wi-Fi or Bluetooth is just an alternative for the first few feet of the call. Takes a few calls off the cell network, but doesn't do a lot for the user, apart from giving you just one phone to lose."
Okay... how is this better than a combined GSM/DECT phone? (They used to make them anyway, do they still?)
I could see the general idea useful in an office which already has a 802.11b/g infrastructure in place to route calls to. But this device doesn't really seem to be aimed at that market. But that could actually be pretty cool if they got some working QoS going and SIP to connect to the central office telephone switch. But this doesn't seem to be it.
Although a real combined 802.11g SIP phone and GSM might just be useful in that respect.
I work in IT for a large (35 sites) K-12 campus. We have Wi-Fi spanning most of the area and I use a Cisco 7920 to make/receive calls anywhere, internal and external.
Granted we're running Call Manager for this to work, but it's pretty sweet none the less.
I read the article, and I don't get it.
Bluephone calls use the GSM network. When they transfer a call to use the Bluetooth link, they just transfer the first few yards of that call.
So your phone is communicating with a Bluetooth base station in your house. How is the base station communicating with the world? The Slashdot blurb says, "It doesn't roam calls onto the Internet, or even onto the landline, where they would be cheaper." What does that leave?
Is the Bluetooth base station communicating with a GSM tower over the air the same way phones do? If so, what are you gaining? Aren't you using the same amount of GSM bandwidth as before, plus some Bluetooth bandwidth?
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My Siemens SX 66 (HTC Blue Angel) does cell/SIP/Skype/etc. now via 802.11/bluetooth/etc. A number of other phones (other incarnations of the HTC Blue Angel as well as the HP 6315) can do all this stuff, too.
And, if you're looking for this sort of thing without the cell phone, there are existing products for that, including the KW2000 IP Connection WiFi Netphone.
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The bluetooth/wifi signals are far less powerful than your average cell signal - this makes using it with wifi at home or office awesome, especially for people like me who have no home phone and spend thousands of minutes a month on the phone. It would reduce potentially harmful cell mutation and with less power used to transmit it would get better battery life. Having the phone roam to using the Internet to make calls is a natural progression, and it'll rule.
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Two of my friends have WiFi phones already. They are the coolest thing I've seen in a long time and especially if you live in the city where there are APs at every corner they are just awesome. I want one ASAP!
I'm not sure if this marriage between Wi-Fi and Cellular will be one to last for the ages. I see an direct link between corporations fighting over communication battle lines (Wi-Fi = Open Source and Cellular = Big Business). Big Business would start being your Wi-Fi carrier of VoIP rather than companies like Vonage. This will be a very bloody battle.....
I won't be buying one, but it sounds like a good idea and a good experiment. Heck, just a couple years ago I got my first cell phone - a basic job with a basic, basic plan. Cheap, worked like a charm. The same features existed 10 years previously, but were more expensive, difficult, etc. So I love hearing about new ideas and gadgets like this, because I know it means about 10 years down the line they'll be ready for primetime, ubiquitous, and they'll make my life easier.
I've seen working versions of these from Motorola. Don't ask me the model number though. Is this new news or am I missing something? The Motorola phone auto switches to WiFi in the building, then it's Cingular service outside. I saw it, and played with a working version about a year ago.
Probably old news, but the guys who made Skype made a linux and PocketPC version. So many people already use Skype to talk to each other over IP for free. One could use a PocketPC device and Skype as a WiFi phone very easily. Battery power stinks for PPC's right now, but when they get better, I think the cell phone companies will start to worry then.
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Whoever _this_ "BT" is, they should know that referring to themselves as "BT" (as they do in the linked article and on their own site) is not going to help their agenda of distinguishing who the fuck they are and what their technology does. I wonder who their marketing guys are.
I wonder which mobile devices are less power hungry for voice transmitting. Wi-Fi enabled PDAs or GSM cellphones?
I don't get it. Why do people care about Wi-Fi so much? Do you really want your phone to consume more power and require configuration, a running DHCP server, etc?
Bluetooth was designed for a reason, wi-fi is different. They serve different purposes.
What the editorial meant (I think) is that the system doesn't *roam* between landline basestations. I think it does route calls that you make in your house or office into your landline via a voip infrastructure - so you can use all your saved numbers on your cell phone while sitting and watching TV!
I think that the big bonus is for corporate customers who are often in different offices of their multi national super company, but only reachable by their cell. Using this kind of system they'll get a big cost reduction, which right now is pretty welcome.
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British Telecom has existed as a separate privatised entity since 1981, and styled itself as just BT since 1991.
BT's debut album was released in 1995.
The Bluetooth Special Interest Group was formally announced in 1999.
BitTorrent was introduced to the world in 2002.
There are plenty of good reasons to knock BT the telecom company - I'm a bitter former customer! - but the name isn't one of them.
If your comment title says 'Re: Foo', I'm not likely to read it.
How about a $200 box that is a GSM cell plugged into the ethernet network. I can then roam into it, and prevent others to roam. So then I can use my 'cell/network' to route all calls via the net or LLine. How hard could it be to make a 200feet wide area micro cell thats $200?
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Obviously consumers want free calls, but thats of no interest to the cell companies. For many years however the wireless companies have struggled with a growing problem of network capacity, and wanting to offer a local wireless loop to compete with the wireline. There are many teams at big and small companies working on the problem. Essentially what they ideally would like to do is place a basestation (what they tend to call a picocell) in your home or buisness. It has very limited range, and that is deliberate, they only have so much RF spectrum so to increase capacity there must be more cells and they must therefore have less physical coverage area. Bear in mind that there is no reason why this is only for your benefit, it can offer service to anyone.
The challenge is to make it "friendly" to the rest of the cell network. Traditional cells are planned in great detail and tested, they must offer no service gaps and conflicitingly must not range to far so that they don't interfere with other nearby cells. Thus their power, position, and frequency usage is carefully thought through. Now jump foward to the "home base station", it needs to be like a self install DSL modem, it gets delivered by mail or you buy it at a store and simply plug it into your broadband. Now it has to slef provision its frequency plan to enhance coverage rather than screw it up. It also needs to open a secure tunnel into the cell networks control and voice backhaul infrastructure presumably via your broadband connection which has some serious security concerns for the cell operator. End result they get you to install there infrastructure and provide the real estate.
I met a group of engineers on the overnight train from Beijing to Shanghai who were setting up a test of a prototype in-train wireless network (802.11b) service in the restaurant car. Seing my notebook, they asked me to join in on the test. The system used multiple mobile connections (GSM and CDMA).
One of them was using a small PocketPC device with wireless and Skype quite extensively as a mobile phone, and reported that it worked reasonably well. He even managed to use it over the prototype train network.
If your comment title says 'Re: Foo', I'm not likely to read it.
A lot of posts here seem to be missing the point.
The point is NOT to let you use VOIP with your cell phone. They aren't making this so that you can walk around your house talking on Skype or with some SIP service. I think that the actual reason behind this technology is quite smart.
I have a cell phone. The phone works great and has great reception when I'm out and about, at college, etc. But, I live in a suburban residential area. It is by no means "rural", but still there is not very good cell phone coverage in the area of my house. So, I can use my cell phone wonderfully out in the city area, but not very well around my home, which is the major reason I haven't switch yet to cell-phone-only. I am far from the only person I know who is in this situation. Great reception in general, but weak or no reception at home.
This technology would solve my problem. If I am out and there is cell phone coverage, the phone would use the cell towers. When I walk into my house and the tower reception goes away, the phone would switch right over to my bluetooth access. Sure, it wouldn't be cheap like Skype. But, chances are you'd pay some regular monthly fee (maybe higher than normal...) and this access point would be enabled.
So, the point isn't to make calls cheaper, it's to give you access in the one place that many people don't have it already.
If they use Class 1 Bluetooth (100mW), it has great range: we use it and can count on >50 meters indoors in real-world conditions (walls, steel beams, and so forth). It uses frequency hopping, making it even more robust than WiFi at half the power consumption or less. Bandwidth is much lower than WiFi, but plenty for voice.
Most folks are familiar with Class 2 or Class 3 Bluetooth (2.5mW and 1mW respectively, I think) designed for cell phone accessories and so forth, which are very short-range, and would stink for this application.
Wifi is an awful battery hog.
I've seen these several years ago in the labs of an unmentioned manufacturer of such devices. They will not see the light of day because the large consumers of those devices will stop buying them from their manufactuers if they were to make a device that might put a VERY large hole in their revenues.
Don't hold your breath on this one unless one of the cell manufacturers grows some big ones, or an upstart releases one - and even then, good luck getting it activated on a commercial cellular network.
Cell companies are well aware of the potential threat.
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A recent survey has shown there are now actually more mobile/cell phones in the UK than there are people. With the cheap 'pay as you go' phones and every contract giving you a free one, it's actually quite hard to get a contract without a phone. Right now there are two dead phones laying on the floor behind me which I really should through in the bin/trash. There are also two perfectly servicable phones in a drawer downstairs, one being my old T68i because I got an upgrade, and one being a virtually unused new phone which was unwanted but came with a contract.
For a while I never used the land line, the only thing it was used for was for ADSL and to receive calls from those who haven't learnt yet that it's easier to get me on my mobilel. But then a couple of months ago a set of four DET phones was bought for the house coming to about $15 a phone. We only bought them because our landline phones are old and faulty but because they are easy to use and I've got one next to my desk I now use the landline.
But basically most people I know don't worry about the price differential between land and mobile costs. Everyone who wants a mobile has got one now. And, although clever, I really don't think their will be a market for an either or phone.
If you RTFA, you'll find references to UMA. That is 'Unlicensed Mobile Access'.
The idea in UMA is to route your voice calls from the GSM mobile-switch, over the internet, over your WiFi/BlueTooth Access Point, and in to your phone -- when you are within range of any such access point which lets you in.
As compared to GSM/DECT combo solutions, what you get here is the hand-off capability -- you can start a call out on the street corner, where your call is routed over the neighbourhood cell-tower. You continue talking as you walk into your home (or work-place), your phone detects that it can now connect to the Internet over a WiFi/BlueTooth network, and your call gets switched through it -- VoIP packets and all.
The key component here is something called the 'Unlicensed Network Controller' (UNC) that is accessible (securely) to the mobile over the Internet, and 'pretends' to be a base station controller to the mobile switch.
What the cell-cos gain from this -- something that is effectively a pico-cell installed & maintained by you -- meaning less congestion on the licensed frequencies. Also means that you continue to use their service (their SIM card, their phone number) indoors, even where the cellular coverage is iffy.
If we see proliferation of wireline broadband & semi-broadband to homes, by companies that are not traditional tel-cos, this could be a killer advantage for cell-cos someday.
Some market report seems to be quoting a figure of 55 million by 2010, but with a 2+ billion telephones (wireline & cell) today, this could be a serious underestimate.
Have you guys heard of UPS making their business transition to wireless? (using Wi-Fi and Bluetooth) I'm wondering how it works?