Hybrid Fixed and Mobile Telephony

Iorek writes "Both Ericsson and BT have launched telephony products that erode the barriers between mobile phones and landlines. Ericsson's One Phone is a PBX system that can treat any mobile phone as an extension of the corporate phone network, while the BT Fusion handset behaves like a conventional fixed line cordless phone when it's near its base station (Bluetooth connection), and connects to the Vodafone network once it's out of range."

Comments

This is new?

[ivan256]

the BT Fusion handset behaves like a conventional fixed line cordless phone when it's near its base station [...], and connects to the [cellular] network once it's out of range

So? Panasonic made phones like that as early as 1998.

Re:This is new?

[Ethelred Unraed]

Ya. There's a hybrid product called Genion that's been available for years in Germany, since the late 90s.

Cheers,

Ethelred

Re:This is new?

[timthorn]

BT sold a DECT/GSM combo phone from Ericsson a while ago that automatically diverted calls between the numbers. This is novel in that the speech path will dynamically reroute from cellular network to landline as the phone moves in and out of coverage of the home base station. That is an impressive bit of engineering.

Re:This is new?

[networkBoy]

"That is an impressive bit of engineering."

and cool. Mustn't forget cool.
Too bad it won't be in the states till it's obs.
-nB

Re:This is new?

[kayen_telva]

televantage does this also

Re:This is new?

[hoofie]

Its NOT the same - the BT phone routes calls through the Hub and VOIP, rather than a standard analogue connection via PSTN.

interesting

[rwven]

I like the idea but it would been better to use 802.11 instead of bluetooth for a little more range around the house....

One more reason

[Anonymous Coward]

When do we get it in US?

I wont mind working offsite for a while...

I could use this

[udderly]

My phone company has a service that allows you to have three different phone numbers ring when someone calls. Whoever picks up the phone first has the call. I could seriously use this at work, but, of course, they won't offer it to businesses since they think (perhaps rightfully so) that the business could get by with fewer lines. I think that these Ericsson and BT phones would be useful.

Re:I could use this

[tech49er]

How's this different from just splitting one phone-line to 3 handsets?

Re:interesting

[dj_paulgibbs]

It does, it comes with a wireless router/modem - http://www.btfusion.bt.com/

Re:interesting

[udderly]

I like the idea but it would been better to use 802.11 instead of bluetooth for a little more range around the house....

Hmmm...you *would* think that, wouldn't you? I'm always surprised that so many things use bluetooth when it offers so little range. Odd.

This is just the opposite of what you want

[Anonymous Coward]

What we really need is a mobile phone that acts like a corded phone whenever it is out of range of a cell.

Re:This is just the opposite of what you want

[Anonymous Coward]

Erm, that is what it is!

Also, if you enter your home network whilst on a mobile call, the phone will disconnect the mobile call and switch to the broadband internet VOIP call seamlessly whilst not interrupting the conversation.

Re:This is just the opposite of what you want

[foos_guy]

so when you're out of range of a cell tower, you'd have to scramble and find a cord to plug your phone into? this might just be a way for the phone company to get you to subscribe to their wireless plan AND landline... when you're home with this hybrid phone, it'll connect to some home base-station and this base-station connects to a regular landline...

Re:interesting

[ImaLamer]

Hey, why not WiMax and put "cellular" companies out of business all together?

Relatively Old News

[aardwolf64]

When I had my second job at OfficeMax in 1995, we sold a 900Mhz wireless phone that turned into a cell phone once you got a certain distance away. I think it cost around $400. The only thing different between this and the "new" one is the bluetooth...

Re:Relatively Old News

[hattig]

Were they accessible on the same telephone number and could you hold a conversation with seamless switch from the home connection to the mobile connection?

Slashdot requires you to wait between each successful posting of a comment to allow everyone a fair chance at posting a comment.

It's been 4 minutes since you last successfully posted a comment

Re:Relatively Old News

[mpontes]

Yeah, I could have sworn I already saw something like this a long time ago. Seems like Bluetooth and WiFi is the new hype, throw one of them in and suddenly, your old product is new and innovating.

Re:Relatively Old News

[aardwolf64]

Well... no. :P

Re:Relatively Old News

[moanads]

Even the bluetooth part is not really that new. There was a company which had similar products back in 2002. They had even set up such a system in the Danish Parilament. More details here

Should be obvious, really. They want on GSM

[CdBee]

Short range = faster switch-over to expensive DSM connection. If they used WiFi they'd have a lot more calls made over the VoIP than over GSM, and lower revenue

Baah!

[GillBates0]

You young 'uns and your fancy schmancy "Hybrid Telephony". Back in my day, we didn't need these teensie Mobile Telephones" with their fancy "Bluetooth connections" to talk. All we had was our strong manly voices and a favorable wind ter carry it across.

I remember the day when my old Missus had 'er first baby. I didn't go around dialling fancy numbers in any fancy telephone. Just walked up the hill, hollered for the midwife and walked back up home. No sirre, no fancy "Hybrid Telephony" for us back then, and we loved it.

Re:Baah!

[JustOK]

You had hills? Bah! And legs t'walk with? Bah! We oozed around in the primordial slop, procreating through mitosis and we loved it!

Re:Baah!

[sconeu]

You had mitosis? We had to wait for something to fall into the slop and cut us in half!

Skype Rules

[Anonymous Coward]

When BT started their VOIP service a few months back, they charged the same price as their POTS calls!
They have since reduced them but not by much.

I already knew about this...

[internetjunkiegeorge]

/. needs to start getting the news a little faster. For example, the earthquake warning that came a full 14 hours after the earthquake. This story was run on Gizmodo yesterday. http://www.gizmodo.com/gadgets/cellphones/index.ph p#bt-mixes-home-with-mobile-108065

Skype

[stevewz]

Now if only I could use Skype while away from my computer (and away from my WiFi network's range).

Re:Skype

[clydoz]

You can already buy a Skype-in local phone number for E30/year. So all you need to do is make your own PBX/redialer that redirects through Skype if the number you're dialing is in your list and online (can even refine policy to let you skype to voicemaili). The only thing stopping this is the relative closedness of the Skype protocols. With a little effort and SIP knowledge you can already replicate most of this behavior. I'm sure Skype's next move will be a pay-for PBX of this sort. Meanwhile, let's get coding!

Re:interesting

[Richthofen80]

Well, I think the reason is because Cellular is a technology, not a brand name, and a lot of people don't understand that. The biggest advantage Cellular technology has is the ability to seamlessly route traffic between towers, so that if someone moves from Cell A to Cell B, that the users never notice.

WiMax and other technologies don't dynamically route. So if you're downloading or calling someone, and you move out of WiMax area A, to WiMax area B, how do you disclose your new IP address to the caller? How do you tell someone left the range of WiMax A? IP technology assumes a fixed IP address; VoIP rely on that fixed IP address to route the phonecalls to your Vonage or other phone.

Cellphones quickly route and identify themselves to the network so that essentially the cellphone companies know where to send and receive calls to. To my current knowledge, no such system exists for Internet Protocol based devices like VoIP.

Will the cell network have preference?

[chargen]

Already, when I store a phone number for a different area code, I do not store it with the '1' in front so as not to make a long distance call. Conveniently when I select that number from my address book and dial it the phone company inserts a '1' in front of the number and dials it long distance as I'm out of my dialing area. This is exactly the kind of slimeball tactic phone companies are famous for.

I wonder if the phones will have a preference to revert to (assuredly more expensive) cell network if the base station signal drops below a set tolerance. I wonder if the phone companies will want suggest that that tolerance factoer will be...?

I need to get my tin foil hat resized...

-chargen

Re:Will the cell network have preference?

[Anne Thwacks]

Vodaphone is a network that charges you to call freephone numbers, so don't expect this to save you money.

Got a spare tin-foil hat?

Re:Will the cell network have preference?

[Detritus]

The digit '1' is not a toll indicator in the North American Numbering Plan. Its misinterpretation as a toll indicator is a historical artifact of the way that many telephone switching systems were setup in the relay era. When you dialed '1', your local step-by-step central office handed off the call to a toll switch, which could route and connect long distance calls. In the modern world, it tells the switch to expect another 10 digits. It does not indicate a toll call. A 11-digit number can be a local call and a 7-digit or 10-digit number can be a toll call. Programming all 11 digits into a dialer ensures that the call will be completed, whether it's local or long distance.

Re:Will the cell network have preference?

[Geoffreyerffoeg]

Already, when I store a phone number for a different area code, I do not store it with the '1' in front so as not to make a long distance call. Conveniently when I select that number from my address book and dial it the phone company inserts a '1' in front of the number and dials it long distance as I'm out of my dialing area. This is exactly the kind of slimeball tactic phone companies are famous for.

What the heck?

A) When you dial within your area code, it's automatically a local call. Unless calls out of your area code are also local for you, how do you expect not to get long distance for them?

B) Why do you not have free long distance?

Re:Will the cell network have preference?

[entrigant]

Perhaps not in the North America Numbering Plan, but it still is with many providers. With a land line from Bellsouth in my home town if I dial 1 + area code before I dial a local number I will be charged for a long distance call even if I am only calling next door. In fact this was the entire point of the parent post. Dialing a 1 might not mean long distance in the standard, but that isn't stopping providers from handling it in that way.

Re:Will the cell network have preference?

[Detritus]

You need to complain to Bellsouth. There were similar problems here with Verizon when 10-digit dialing was introduced. These were quickly fixed. Bellsouth's billing software should be insensitive to whether the subscriber dialed 10 or 11 digits.

Re:Will the cell network have preference?

[NateTech]

Here in Colorado, all switches expect ten digits and all calls are 10-digit calls. We have one of those abomniations called an "overlay"... the 303 and 720 area-codes are the same physical area. The whiney cell companies complained that Qwest wouldn't give them 303 numbers and that people wouldn't call new cell carrier's numbers if they had to dial what appeeared to the uneducated to be a long-distance call.

I am always weirded out when I travel now that people can actually still make seven digit calls in most major cities. After a number of years of dialing ten digits for everything, you get used to it.

On my residential Qwest line, a "1" is REQUIRED to call any long-distance area codes, and ten-digits for local calls within 303 and 720. My cell phone's dialing plan at the switch is set up much smarter (Verizon)... it doesn't care if you dial the "1" or not, it knows it has enough information to place the call either way.

Re:Will the cell network have preference?

[Detritus]

I also live in an overlay area. The first area code expansion was done with a split, subsequent expansions have been overlays. I think the overlay was less disruptive than the split.

It used to be possible to dial local numbers in three different area codes (DC, MD. VA) with just seven digits. All of the exchanges in the metro DC area were unique. That was before cell phones and pagers exhausted the available phone numbers.

One of the plans for future expansion of the phone system involves mandatory 10-digit dialing for the entire system, eliminating the use of the leading '1'. After that, there are plans to move to longer area codes and telephone numbers.

Re:interesting

[ClosedLoop]

Yes, it is better, and I already have one. Check it out at http://www.abptech.com/mainpages/products/HCL-Wire lessIP5000.html

Re:interesting

[Goth Biker Babe]

What do you consider little range? My phone and my Mac stay connected throughout the house and the phone's not particularly a long range device (I use my phone to control iTunes which is played via Airtunes and an Airport express).

I bluetooth is good enough for headsets its good enough for phones, it uses less power than Wifi and so the battery will last longer, and its simpler to implement. I'm surprised that so many people from stateside don't get bluetooth.

Finally this is BT we're talking about. Their business is telecommunications. They don't want to develop something that actually competes with their service so VOIP it wont be.

It's all soooo 2003...

[Dynamoo]

BT has sunk millions of pounds into coming up with a solution which might have been really cool two years ago, but now looks dated.

Quite apart from the Motorola V560 which is beginning to look like a bit of a relic, the system itself has lots of rough edges, is extremely restrictive and looks like a product in search of a market, not the other way around.

Here's a different take on the BT Fusion / Motorola V560 / Bluephone thing. Not pretty.

Re:It's all soooo 2003...

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, you're all missing the point. The number one complaint by cellular consumers is in building coverage. This BT Fusion solution (based on the Kineto birthed UMA spec) is a quick (and cheap) way to improve in-building coverage for a user. You walk from outside to inside your home (which may not have great coverage) and your phone seamlessly hands off to the BT access point (which incidentally is much better than WiFi since it's not a power hog).

Re:It's all soooo 2003...

[Xugumad]

"So.. if you like Motorolas, use BT Mobile or Vodafone and want BT Broadband AND you are close enough to an ADSL-capable exchange then you are in luck."

That's more or less me. The mobile doesn't make me want to scream "Oh God YES I must have one", but also doesn't look too bad. I have a Vodafone phone, and have ADSL through my BT line. I'm not sure if the article actually means I'd need ADSL from BT Openworld, that might be a nuisance, but...

Then add in the fact that I don't get mobile phone reception in my house, or any of the last few houses I've lived in, or my office for that matter. If this can auto-route my mobile calls to a phoneline I'm near, it's perfect for me (as it is, I set my mobile to auto-redirect to my house if I'm out of range, and that more or less works).

I'm also particularly puzzled about these rough edges you mention?

Re:interesting

[ImaLamer]

What I was basically saying is that once the range gets big enough it's a 'cell' phone.

PARENT IS GOATSE

[Anonymous Coward]

If you can't tell from the link URL

Re:PARENT IS GOATSE

[vandoravp]

Actually it's the even more disturbing pump.jpg-97235 times worse than hello.jpg!

Re:interesting

[KillerCow]

WiMax and other technologies don't dynamically route. So if you're downloading or calling someone, and you move out of WiMax area A, to WiMax area B, how do you disclose your new IP address to the caller? How do you tell someone left the range of WiMax A? IP technology assumes a fixed IP address; VoIP rely on that fixed IP address to route the phonecalls to your Vonage or other phone.

A project which I was on last year: Tetherless Computing Architecture

www.asterisk.org

[Sjobeck]

Get asterisk (or hire me to) & do this yourself.

Re:www.asterisk.org

[julesh]

Huh? How can I make my standard mobile handset talk to asterisk? I don't see any info on that in the documentation...

Great idea!

[MrZeebo]

For a long time, I've been saying that this is exactly what is needed for cell phones to really take off. A lot of comments here are criticizing it, but let me explain why I think this is important so much.

Most cell phone companies have pretty good coverage. But, the #1 place I hear people complain about not having coverage is their home. Coverage is great on highways, in downtown areas, but once you enter a suburban residential area, coverage becomes questionable.

Now, in most homes there is already a landline phone or at least broadband connection. So, why not make use of this pre-existing network which is in just the spot that cell phones are unreliable?

I've felt for a long time that cell phone should come with some sort of base station (like what comes with cordless phones), which you could connect to while in your house. This would be establishing the "last mile" of near-full cell phone coverage.

Most negative comments here seem to see this as providing an alternative way to make a call on your cell phone, but I don't think that's the point. The point, to me, is to provide a way to make call in the one place that most people probably want to, but don't have coverage.

Bravo.

Re:Great idea!

[Anonymous Coward]

You wrote, "For a long time, I've been saying that this is exactly what is needed for cell phones to really take off"

Actually, in most countries cell phones have taken off, with at least some countries having penetration of > 100%

US penetration has been held back by:
* Called party pays charging
* Lack of standard technology (historical)
* Poor coverage - it does not have to be that way, I live in a city of 4M and get coverage almost everywhere except for underground car parks

Hybrid phones?

[tapin]

If you hit the "End" button, does it use a regenerative hangup process?

Can I use the jaws of life to cut through the phone without killing myself in the process, in an emergency?

How many minutes to the gallon does it get?

Re:Hybrid phones?

[Anonymous Coward]

Guess the mods didnt get it... dont worry, tapin, *I* got the joke. ;)

Re:Hybrid phones?

[connect4]

Hey - Don't you mean how many Erlangs to the gallon :)

Good one though

Re:interesting

[jacksonj04]

VoIP it is. The service needs a BT Broadband line, and the 'hub' routes calls over VoIP.

The main reason this will fail spectacularly

[cryptogryphon]

is that incoming calls are charged at the call-to-a-mobile rate even if the recipient is at home.

Re:The main reason this will fail spectacularly

[Anonymous Coward]

In the UK (and in most of the world outside the USA) you don't pay anything to receive a call on your mobile phone.

Nada. Not a bean.

The caller dials a 'special' number so he knows he's paying more.

Re:The main reason this will fail spectacularly

[petermgreen]

i'm in the uk and if your only number is a mobile number it will REALLY put people off calling you for long conversations etc.

it will also make it hard when dealing with certain buisnesses that have policies that only allow calls to mobiles in emergencies.

i have a similar sitation in my university residence room, its embarrasing to have a relatively expensive to call 0870 number as your main phone number.

It seems very unlikely that anyone would want to use one of theese as thier only phone given that it costs others mobile rates to call them. to do so would just be considered highly rude.

otoh as a more versatile mobile replacement for those who don't know about conventonal voip providers like sipgate this could seem very attractive indeed.

So what?

[zentigger]

Ericsson's One Phone is a PBX system that can treat any mobile phone as an extension...

Anyone with 1/2 a clue has been able to make a PBX do this for as long as there have been PBX's and cell phones. What's the news here?
It also means that you are sucking up the minutes for every call. How is this any sort of cost saver?

Nothing new under the sun

[Locke2005]

GTE Mobilnet sold me a phone that was supposed to do this 9 years ago (transparently switch between wireless if near base station or cell if not). Of course, they never actually implemented the service, so I guess it was all just a ploy to get their subscriber count up.

done already,

[PrivateDonut]

Orange was doing this (mobile & landline hybrids) in Australia years ago, that is until they stopped offering the service (I believe) because it had such little demand.

Not world's first

[timecop]

Not world's first.
NTT had this out for a while, though it's not really selling very well:
http://www.docomo.biz/html/product/cordless/n900il .html
The real problem with these is their cost, and the fact that normal people can't purchase them (You have to buy these as a business "solution" wiht prices starting at $2000+).
When in the office, these use company internal wifi network and a supposedly "standard" SIP implementation for VOIP. When outside, they use DoCoMo's new and crappy "FOMA" 3G technology.
I've been trying to get my office to get me some demo units of them, but with prices like these, its unlikely.

I think the thing that's new about this...

[Timbotronic]

is seemless handoff from the home network to the mobile network. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think previous 'hybrid' phones could only connect to one network at a time and you had to make a new call when you switched from ip to cellular networks.

The third network option I'd like to see is peer to peer calling. If you're within range of the other party the two handsets should be able to connect directly. Again, that's possible now with mobile/walkie-talkie hybrids (think Motorola has these) but again there's no handoff when you walk in and out of range.

Apart from obvious savings, P2P calling could introduce some great options like proximity alerts and indication of signal direction when your contacts are nearby. It'd by great for finding friends in a crowd.

Re:interesting

[slyborg]

The key differentiator between this concept and some of the early mode-switching cordless/cellular phones is that the same number is used by the phone whichever domain it is in.

And a number of companies are working on precisely the WiFi approach, for example, BridgePort Networks.

http://www.bridgeport-networks.com/

Re:interesting

[markwalling]

wasn't that already done/theroized

Re:interesting

[TummyX]

Class 1 bluetooth devices have 100m range.

Bluetooth is more appropriate in many areas because bluetooth profiles are easier to support and implement than IP networking.

Asterisk

[Casandro]

As far as I have heared, Asterisk can do something like that.
http://www.crazygreek.co.uk/content/chan_bluetooth
has more info.

Re:interesting

[Spectre_03]

Your partially right however SIP is making large inroads to "cell" coverage capabilities and secondly WiMax is much like WiFi in that it all depends on how it's put together. It is very possible to go from WiMax area A, to WiMax area B and maintain the same IP, as it is also a SIP Proxy's position to assist in those "move's" of IP's.

Cisco's AVVID "could" do more along those lines and in some ways does with SRST and call preservation features but it's a long ways from the same since it does require some somewhat specific circumstances to work. The main feature with them is in the case of loss of control traffic, which is rarely the root cause of failure in a properly designed VoIP network if it is at all critical.

All that being said VoIP does need more work, but it is out there.

Re:interesting

[yodha]

You mean like Motorola Canopy?

Erm, nope.

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a Genion phone, and it's not a hybrid, it's a standard mobile phone. Genion is billing model that lets you make your calls cheaper if you are located inside a specific area, called the "homezone", around 500m in diameter, that you specify when you buy the phone. The homezone prices are advertised as "as low as landline prices", but that's only true if you suck at getting a good deal on landline phone service.

Mobiles on PBX

[dcs]

That's not exactly new. This kind of feature is offered by some telecoms. For example, Brasil Telecom.