Slashdot Mirror
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."
It does, it comes with a wireless router/modem - http://www.btfusion.bt.com/
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...
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.
Reason, free market capitalism, and individualism
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.
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.
Never email donotemail@WeAreSpammers.com
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.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
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.
VoIP it is. The service needs a BT Broadband line, and the 'hub' routes calls over VoIP.
How many people can read hex if only you and dead people can read hex?