VOIP Cell Phones Coming Soon

prostoalex writes "Associated Press reports on the latest cell phones with WiFi support demoed at this year's CTIA Wireless 2006 conference. New models fall back to WiFi hotspot when the user is at home, at work, or cellular signal gets too weak. Biggest surprise? The cell phone conversation is not dropped when the switch between cellular network and WiFi hotspot takes place."

Comments

Shouldn't it be reverse?

[JoeLinux]

Maybe it's just me, but I would think that the preference would be for wifi first, THEN cellular. You'd burn less minutes that way.

But, heck, what do I know? I still think that that coyote is gonna get that RoadRunner some day.

Re:Shouldn't it be reverse?

[ImaNihilist]

It probably should be, but I have a feeling that the switch only goes one way: cellular to wifi.

Re:Shouldn't it be reverse?

[HazE_nMe]

From TFA:

UMA works by tunneling cellular information packets through the Internet when Wi-Fi is available and reverting to cellular towers when it is not.

From what the article said, it does prefer wifi over cell towers.

Re:Shouldn't it be reverse?

[T-Bone_142]

but then the carrier would have to over charge you even more to make up for the money your saving.

Re:Shouldn't it be reverse?

[Wellington Grey]

Maybe it's just me, but I would think that the preference would be for wifi first, THEN cellular. You'd burn less minutes that way.

You clearly haven't been living in a capitalist country for long if you think that companies give a damn about what the consumer wants.

-Grey

Re:Shouldn't it be reverse?

[Siffy]

Companies in a true free market environment have a great deal of concern on "what the customer wants". The problem is that the communication industry in the US is far from actual free market. When customers have choice they buy what they want. And companies better care about that, or prepare to file bankruptcy paperwork.

Re:Shouldn't it be reverse?

[johndapunk]

A good reason not to do this is availibility cell tower slots and resulting customer service issue of dropped calls. Cingular is advertising their great low drop call percentage... what they don't tell you is the number of calls that are not able to be completed. I live in a college town and at busy hours of the day I cannot make a phone call for one to two hour stretches. The thing to consider is that cell towers have a greater service area, so when you leave the WiFi hotspot and try to use the nice big cell tower, you call gets dropped because the tower can not handle your call. This makes people angry that their call got dropped by their provider and may make them want to switch. The whole idea is that falling back onto the WiFi hotspot will give the uptime for calls. Generally the only time cell coverage will drop is when you go inside builds, which is also the place where you have the greatest chance of picking up a WiFi signal. I can't wait for my WiMax phone :-)

Re:Shouldn't it be reverse?

[ClamIAm]

I am almost absolutely certain that whichever vector your data travels through, you'll be locked into one provider. Do you think the Brother Bells will let you make calls over Skype when you're connected at Starbucks? I certainly don't.

Re:Shouldn't it be reverse?

[suv4x4]

"Maybe it's just me, but I would think that the preference would be for wifi first, THEN cellular. You'd burn less minutes that way."

But then that'd be pretty bad for the cellular service providers no. Think of it this way: customers need an incentive to thrash their old cells and buy new ones, and cool new features is that incentive most of the time.

Celllular service providers need a really good incentive not to.. you know.. ensure something 'appens with the phone makers' management, that'd be a shame, right...

Look at it this way: a friggin' MIDI of a populat tune goes for 2-3 dollars on most cells as a ringtone. WHO in their right mind would spend that, if they could, like, beam it from their PC as an mp3?

Uh... wait a bloody minute...

Re:Shouldn't it be reverse?

[giorgiofr]

You clearly haven't been living in a capitalist country for long if you think that companies give a damn about what the consumer wants.

Whereas in a communist country they certainly do.

Re:Shouldn't it be reverse?

[squiggleslash]

I think you misunderstand the technology, which isn't surprising given the article summary.

First, yes, the preference is for calls to be routed via Wifi.

However, no, you don't burn less minutes. The technology under discussion is called UMA. It's a way of tunnelling GSM over 802.11 or Bluetooth (or presumably other future home wireless standards.) The phone call still has to be routed to your carrier (only, over the Internet rather than via the carrier's towers) otherwise your call would get dropped the moment you get out of range of your wireless network.

This is not the same thing as those mobile phones that also support Skype (for example) over 802.11. It's essentially a way for GSM subscribers to make their own home have less coverage blackspots (and help the carrier gain a little more capacity.) Your call costs may go down (or rather, the amount of minutes you get for your dollar may increase), because by doing this you're increasing capacity for the network, but it's possible a carrier will give you "free airtime" when you're in range of your wireless network, generally that's not the way they operate.

There is one major downside BTW, which is that in order to use an access point, it has to be registered with the carrier, and generally you need to manually tell the phone about it (once, obviously, not every time you get in range.) So don't think people are just going to set up ad-hoc wireless networks in well known blackspots just to help Cingular and T-Mobile customers out.

Re:Shouldn't it be reverse?

[gEvil (beta)]

Whereas in a communist country they certainly do.

Do you speak from firsthand experience or are you just pulling stuff from your ass?

Re:Shouldn't it be reverse?

[caseih]

From what the article said, it does prefer wifi over cell towers.

Sure, but if the phone can switch from wifi to cellular and back again without dropping your call, what this really means is that you're still communicating with your provider (using VoIP) and so you're still getting charged for minutes. Of course it is probably possible to use your own provider like vonage or something similar with these types of phones, but you would not be able to seemlessly switch from one to the other (vonage on wifi to verizon cellular) without dropping the call.

Re:Shouldn't it be reverse?

[pNutz]

But you're paying cell rates to tunnel through Wifi, when you could be using a VoIP carrier over wifi. That's $19.95/month for unlimited minutes vs. $100/month or so from a cell provider.

The GP seemed to think that minutes from the cell provider would be cheap or free over Wifi. This is unlikely and not indicated in the article.

Of course, you would have to buy your own phone for Wifi VoIP. At the moment they're like cell phones from 1995 and cost $200-500.

Re:Shouldn't it be reverse?

[giorgiofr]

Do you know anything about me? No? That's why you're using projection to try and understand what I think/know/do. That says nothing about who I actually am, but speaks volumes about what YOU do - pull things from your ass.
For your information, yes, even two days ago I was talking to a girl who ran away from a communist regime and discussing the relative advantages/disadvantages of living in either of the opposing systems. And that's just anecdotal... I might quote many more *actual people* I have talked to and discussed this issue with. But I guess it wouldn't change the mind of an armchair communist who thinks everybody behaves as childishly as he does.

Re:Shouldn't it be reverse?

[screaser]

It really seems to me that -- especially as free/cheap alternatives like this come online -- that the only way cell companies are going to keep customers is to allow all-you-can-use packages (voice and data) at reasonable prices.

Counting minutes? Seriously? Let it go already...

You want your customer to use the product so much that they can't imagine living without it; not to instinctively try to avoid using it whenever possible due to (effectively) micropayments.

Re:Shouldn't it be reverse?

[gEvil (beta)]

Wow. Incredibly mature response on your part. And just to let you know, I used to work for an international telecom company. About half of our development team were from Russia, so apparently I have as much anecdotal evidence as you do. And from what they told me, it wasn't anywhere nearly as bad as the US's jingoistic public school education would have people believe. It wasn't that great, but it also wasn't all that bad. Which interestingly enough, is very much my take on capitalism. It has many great aspects to it, but it also has a handful of negatives to go along with those. My point--every economic system has it's pluses and minuses. Just because you were raised under one doesn't instantly make it the best and all the others are completely evil and wrong, as many of your neighbors and cohorts would have you believe.

Re:Shouldn't it be reverse?

[Anonymous Coward]

In that case, sir, China is calling. Your betrothed, Chairman Mao, waits in eager anticipation.

Re:Shouldn't it be reverse?

[LS]

As someone who HAS moved to China, and has lived in Beijing for one year, I can tell you first hand that everything is customer oriented and personal here. You never have to talk to a machine on the phone, the person behind the counter ignores everyone else until you are dealt with, everything is anonymous (gas, electric, phone, etc through smart cards), you can negotiate prices, and storefronts are generally realistic embodiments of customer needs, i.e. a few simple counters with products, instead of disneylands designed by corporate offices. You usually never have to deal with an anonymous beaurocracy that treats you like a number when you need service. It's quite amazing and strange that things in the supposedly free USA are quite the opposite.

Re:Shouldn't it be reverse?

[LS]

To all the igornant moderators that marked this bit of uninformed sarcasm as insightful, I can tell you as someone who HAS moved to China, and has lived in Beijing for one year, that everything is actually quite customer oriented and personal here. You never have to talk to a machine on the phone, the person behind the counter ignores everyone else until finished dealing with you, everything is anonymous (gas, electric, phone, etc through smart cards), you can negotiate prices, and storefronts are generally realistic embodiments of customer needs, i.e. a simple counters with products, instead of disneylands designed by corporate offices. You usually don't have to deal with an anonymous beaurocracy that treats you like a number when you need service. At the retail level everything is pretty much unregulated, so the system is quite efficient. It's quite amazing and strange that things in the supposedly free-market USA are quite the opposite.

Re:Shouldn't it be reverse?

[tweakt]

"I would think that the preference would be for wifi first, THEN cellular. You'd burn less minutes that way."

Sure, if you're a cell provider willing to sacrifice profits to increase convenience and value for the user, then yes... that makes perfect sense!

Re:Shouldn't it be reverse?

[rob_squared]

Some of us like talking to machines more than people. :)

Re:Shouldn't it be reverse?

[mycall]

Overtime, as this feature before common in every phone, with everyone asking for Wifi to be first, then cellular, some carrier will start the trend and the rest will follow. How often does everyone want a specific feature and no business will provide it?

Re:Shouldn't it be reverse?

[Buddy Bag]

How did a blog about communication get into social issues? Oh Well, in a nutshell, Communism is about, 'the Government rules.' Capitalism is about, 'the company rules.' In the modern world neither system is clearly just that. Things have muddied up alot. Market driven economies tend to exist in greater or lesser proportions in both systems and they really are about, 'the customer rules.' Whether or not China is more responsive than the USA in the marketplace has more to do with things other than who makes the rules. Harvard business school educated executives in the States (who make corporate business rules) have a short sighted (quarterly)profit motive, where Eastern cultures have a more patient and long term economic strategy and world view. And the fact that a counter girl in China smiles at you where you cannot find a counter girl nearby at Walmart (where so many Chinese products are sold) is not telling the whole picture. Now can we talk about cell phones?

Phone number

[Zouden]

Having your cell phone connected through VoIP while at home is all well and good, but what about your phone number? When someone calls your cell number, it's going to have to get switched over to the internet (rather than the cellular network) to get through to your phone. That's going to require help from the carriers, and they probably aren't too happy about this.

Re:Phone number

[Elminst]

Most likely, the phones would be polled every few minutes to see what they're attached to.
In much the same way that the cell towers check to see if your phone is still within range when you're not using it. This is the reason your phone sets off your speakers or makes your monitor twitch randomly

So the system sends out a signal to find the phone based on its last known location. Or the phone checks in with the system every few minutes to give an update on how to reach it.

Doesn't sound like much of a stretch from the current method of locating a cell phone.

Re:Phone number

[Anonymous Coward]

or if you set up an asterisk box at home, dont hand out your cell phone number, and have all the switching take place at your asterisk box, forwardning calls to your mobile via wifi or GMS depending on whatever condition you set.

Re:Phone number

[Anonymous Coward]

"it's going to have to get switched over to the internet"

Why? I think the idea is that cell phone is always, if possible, connected to the cellular network.

If Wifi is available it will be used for outgoing calls.

Re:Phone number

[Elminst]

And I just realized that my comment doesn't really address your real concern; that the internet carriers are going to want a piece of the pie for carrying data for the cell phone carriers.
The upside is that many of them are owned by the same people, eg. Cingular is owned by ATT & BellSouth. Verizon is, well, Verizon.

Although it's mentioned in the article that "internet minutes" may be cheaper that "cell tower" minutes because wifi radio spectrum and the internet are cheaper than running cell towers.

But the problem comes when you're not at home. Pop down to the coffee shop and start talking on your cell phone using the wifi hotspot. You pay the cell company less... but who pays the internet bill for your cell traffic?

Sounds like a new level of peering agreement wars... Yay.

Re:Phone number

[Belial6]

How about the same person that would pay for the rest of your TCP/IP traffic.

Re:Phone number

[svindler]

The mobile operators are happier to take a small cut from your wifi connected mobile that is connecting to their infrastructure over the internet, than to not take a cut from your wifi connected mobile connecting to your own asterisk or to Skype.

And I guess that a lot people will be willing to pay for not having to figure out Skype/Asterisk/whatever on their mobile and telling friends, relatives and business associates which number to call at what times.

Re:Phone number

[FireFury03]

Most likely, the phones would be polled every few minutes to see what they're attached to.
In much the same way that the cell towers check to see if your phone is still within range when you're not using it. This is the reason your phone sets off your speakers or makes your monitor twitch randomly

Actually, GSM phones don't get polled very frequently at all (usually every few hours ISTR). But the phone listens to the base station and if it goes out of range of one and into range of the other it will transmit to inform the network that it's moved. If the phone outright goes out of range then the first the network usually knows about it is when it tries to contact the phone (e.g. to place a call or send an SMS) and doesn't get a response. Which is why there is sometimes a few seconds of silence after dialling an out-of-coverage cellphone before it drops you through to voicemail - it's trying to contact the phone in it's last known cell and when that times out you get forwarded to voicemail.

Polling the phone regularly has the disadvantage that the phone has to transmit acks regularly too and transmitting eats the batteries. Far better for the phone to just listen and only transmit to tell the network that it's moved.

I imagine that the way this system will work is to record both a "last known" cell and a "last known" IP address. The last known IP will be tried first and if it fails then the last known cell will be tried.

I'm not sure how they will bill for the seamless handoff stuff though - maybe the whole thing will be charged at cellular rates, in which case there doesn't seem to be a lot of advantage to the end user.

Re:Phone number

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not an expert, but these are precisely the sort of features that the IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem) is intended to deliver mobile network operators. The IMS is based primarily around SIP which is a widely adopted open VoIP standard.

Given the amount of industry push behind IMS and SIP, I'd be very suprised if the VoIP service in this article was not deployed in this manner. Essentially the IMS should allow a phone to register itself with the telco's network over either the cellular network or the local WiFi hotspot. The decision of which one to use is presumably left upto the handset (although the network may be able to make some decisions here also).

Your point about the carriers not being too happy about this is probably true, as it will doubtless canibalise some of their existing markets. Their bet, I imagine, is on deriving revenue from the new services which a converged network can offer their users.

I'd imagine they'd initially try and derive extra revenue from allowing multiple devices to be proxied via a single number (SIP URI). i.e. When you're in the office on your pc you connect your SIP softphone (skype-like application), when you're away with your mobile you use that etc... People calling you only need to know the one number which will get routed appropriately.

There are a vast number of services which will be built on this infrastructure. The operators just need to open up a little more than they have done in the past. The dillema they face is can they open up and maintain a business model?

Re:Phone number

[squiggleslash]

The carriers love this. It's a system called UMA, GSM routed via TCP/IP. The calls still get routed over their network, they just reach the network via the Internet rather than their radio frequency allocations. It's essentially more bandwidth, the customers pay for the bulk of it, and the customer is essentially fixing blackspots and making their own coverage a little more reliable without the carrier having to do anything.

Despite the use of the term VoIP in the headline, this has nothing to do with Vonage or Skype.

Re:Phone number

[livewire98801]

Seems to me that the cellular connection would be always on. When you recieve a call, it routes over the cell network, then the handset would redirect if it can also connect via WiLan. That would also have the advantage of verifying the connection. If you're behind a firewalled NAT, it's possible to connect to the internet, but not be able to route VoIP traffic.

The cellular connection would only be dropped if the VoIP connection is verified in-call That way if you're outside and still connected to the LAN, but don't have enough signal strengh to keep actual data transfer up, you'd still be okay too.

Re:Phone number

[kiddx]

Well for those people who are using Vonage or ATT this is already the case. Everything is IP based and switched into the telecom networks. For example, my home # is also linked to my cell and work #. When someone calls my VOIP phone @ home it rings my cell, and direct line at work. Very nice, whats even better is the actual caller ID comes through so this isnt some call forwarding feature at the end line this is done at the switching end. It seems these companies have already solved/utilized the ability to interconnect data/voice. I heard that this kind of thing has been going on for the past few years to save money. Didnt MCI or ATT try to circumvent fcc charges by routing voice via IP to Canada and then overseas? or vice versa

Re:Phone number

[Elminst]

The point of this is so that you can use your cell phone when you are NOT in range of the cell network... So having the phone always connect to the cell network defeats one of the main purposes of this technology.

FireFury03 already gave a more clear explanation of what I was trying to say.

FTFA:

[Anonymous Coward]

Wojtek Felendzer held a mobile phone to his ear as he walked across the room, the call automatically switching behind the scenes from a Wi-Fi wireless hotspot to the regular cellular network.

"Can you still hear me?" the Nokia Corp. employee asked.

"Yes," the reporter answered.

"That's good," he said. "This is seamless handover. The voice didn't drop. Nothing bad happened."

what he should have said is:

a small step for a man, a giant leap to piss off gprs network providers

Re:FTFA:

[Anonymous Coward]

"Can you still hear me?" the Nokia Corp. employee asked.

"CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW?"

I don't know why some people feel the need to should when using the phone. My wife does it all the time (cell or regular phone) and it's damn annoying.

(posting AC in case she reads this :)

The biggest surprise?

[BikeRacer]

They cause brain cancer twice as fast! Please mod +3:35AM Funny

Uh-Huh

[BusDriver]

The cell phone conversation is not dropped when the switch between cellular network and WiFi hotspot takes place.

Don't make me laugh. Mobile carriers still can't even get this right with GSM!

"That's good," he said. "This is seamless handover. The voice didn't drop. Nothing bad happened."

Anyone else get the impression Nokia Man sounded just as shocked as I am? :)

[I'm just having a bit of fun - Don't take this post seriously!]

Re:Uh-Huh

[EmbeddedJanitor]

My GSM phone works fine from cell to cell, but what does not work for me is a moving Wifi, even just boring old data. For example, I recently started an ftp while I was walking to a meeting. As I walked, the AP changed but the network was the same (and I was always within AP reach). Still, dropped the ftp connection.

Seamless handover from cell to wifi is non-trivial and will require that the telco provide the skype-like service to deal with the call and the handover. This means that you're still going to get charged big time.

Frankly, I can't see the need. Everywhere I can get Wifi I can get cell, but then I live in New Zealand.

Re:Uh-Huh

[19thNervousBreakdown]

Why would you get charged big-time? A few (hundred) regional servers to make latency as low as possible is going to cost a hell of a lot less than thousands of cell towers.

The seamless handoff doesn't seem that complicated. When you walk into an area with WiFi, the phone contacts the provider's servers, and voice data starts going over a different route. Keep a minimal connection to the cell network so that you can instantly start using it again. I'm not sure how GSM works, but with CDMA, it only uses the bandwitdth it needs, so they're already 95% of the way there. You shouldn't miss any more than ${WIFI_LATENCY} + ${CELL_LATENCY} * 2 packets. Wouldn't be more than a 1/2 second skip in most circumstances. And that's a simplistic and unpolished way of doing it, I'm sure they can come up with better.

Even if they charge the same rate for WiFi, you still have more bandwidth available, voice quality can be better. That having been said, if they want anyone to use this they had better at least charge a lot less for airtime over WiFi. I know it's going to cost them less, and they'll figure out ways to upsell people with this somehow, so if they don't pass along the savings, fuck 'em, I'll purposefully disable it just to cost 'em that extra 1/2 cent an hour. ;)

Re:Uh-Huh

[BusDriver]

I live in New Zealand too (Auckland - what a hell hole though I'm in Napier at the moment)

My post was mostly joking, VF's cell handoff is a lot better than it used to be a couple of years ago. Most problems also were nothing to do with the GSM protocol and more to do with coverage (at least according to what people have told me, I don't claim to be authoritive on this!)

As for your FTP, it's interesting. I work with IP/switched networks for my job, I'm not 100% sure how that should work. I'd think your mac address would appear in two places (the old AP and the new) which probably confuses the ethernet switch.

If the network is something like cafenet, you probably have to wait for the AP to check your MAC address is authorised, that might cause previous sessions to be dropped.

Interesting though, I'll have to look up on how a network should handle what you've mentioned. As long as there's nothing too tricky going on at layer2 (and the old AP doesn't keep the mac address around for ages) I can't see why it wouldn't work.

Re:Uh-Huh

[EmbeddedJanitor]

Yup, as you say cell call dropping when hop from cell to cell is not a GSM issue, but a congestion issue. If the new cell cannot take a new call then it falls on the floor. We're now at a state in most places that we don't see more cell sites being put in, just more capacity being added to existing sites.

Just what we need...

[ImaNihilist]

Something to piss off the big phone companies even more. Once Qwest gets bought out there will only be two left: Verizon and AT&T. Add in the two big broadband providers, Comcast and AOL TimeWarner and you've got a grand total of four companies that will control everything. You better believe that if most voice communications go VoIP/broadband that they are going to have their annual meeting behind closed doors a little early to discuss how everyone needs to start charging a per GB monthly fee for data. Sure, they'll do it under the guise of "extra" speed and lower prices. "Get Comcast Highspeed for just $19.99* per month! 15Mbps speeds! *$19.99 for the first 10GB and just $1 per GB after that" Pft.

Re:Just what we need...

[bhima]

I don't get what you're whining about... It's fair that people pay for excessive transfer volumes. The ISP connection packages in the US have always baffled me... there are so few choices.

Here in Austria we may have fewer ISPs but the number of available packages dwarfs what is available in the US... For example my mum has a package with medium bandwidth but very low transfer volume, this gives her a nice experience on the internet (and the computer updates actually get done) for the nearly the same price as dial up. I have a high bandwidth with a "Fair Use" transfer volume that is un-metered during off hours, and my little brother has the high bandwidth unlimited transfer volume package for his attempt to collect all the porn in the known universe.

It's not the paying for transfer volume that's bad... it's the unethical business practices of American businesses that's bad.

Re:Just what we need...

[bensch128]

Thats funny!!
Mod parent up!

Re:Just what we need...

[vhogemann]

The big phone companies should have IT departments warning them about this kind of thing, I mean, technology is always evolving and getting cheaper!

How long before the entire communications framework, wire and radio, become a public service just like water and electricity? Something that you're granted just for paying you taxes. How long before we can get full convergence of all services, data and voice, and voice traffic become so cheap that it will cost more to charge for the service than to actually provide it?

It's already happening, there is no reason to waste band with cellphone telephony when things like Wi-Max and 802.11n can be more efficient, and compatible with a broader range of equipament!

But, of course until that happens the telcos will try everything to get every cent from the customers.

Ps. Actually I don't know if wimax and 802.11n are more efficient, CDMA is a pretty amazing technology, but I made my point.

Re:Just what we need...

[dodobh]

It's not the paying for transfer volume that's bad

Until you try to actually use the underlying peer to peer architecture and not do what the ISP expect you to do (web surfing and email).

Re:Just what we need...

[bhima]

And this forces you to execeed 15~25 gigs in one month? Obviously you belong to the same group as my yonger brother!

Re:Just what we need...

[Anonymous Coward]

Meanwhile, I'm not in Austria and I get high bandwidth and unmetered data, at a low price.

Face it: Austria has some of the absolutely worst internet connectivity in Europe. You pay through the nose, and you get next to nothing.

Re:Just what we need...

[zenslug]

Put some numbers out here to let us know what the pricing is for those packages. I'm disappointed by my options here (Silicon Valley), so I want to see what other places are paying.

Re:Just what we need...

[Anonymous Coward]

If the pipes have been built, we might as well run them near capacity. It doesn't require that more quarters be fed into the hopper on the infrastructure to move more traffic! So all these schemes to keep demand down are pointless if they actually work, because the pipes will sit 40% empty.

If demand for bandwidth keeps going up, more will be provided, cost per gigabyte keeps going down, everyone's lives get better. It's progress, and there isn't even a downside for this one!

Of course, you don't want some people using all the bandwidth and leaving none for others. Traffic shaping is the answer there, not caps or usage fees. ...that came out a bit passionate. Shouldn't drink and post I suppose. :(

Re:Just what we need...

[dodobh]

I handle 20 to 30 Gigabytes of email per month. Peer to peer is above and beyond that (and it isn't movies, or music, or pr0n, just isos).

Here in Japan

[mxpengin]

Big news, Japan has had cell phones with VoIP support since 2004. nice technology .

Re:Here in Japan

[Bacon Bits]

Yep. Infrastructure technologies always come faster to small countries. Less to build.

Don't like it? Move to Monaco!

Re:Here in Japan

[Anonymous Coward]

Err, I think you'll find that it's predominantly a software change to implement this, not hardware, and therefore nothing to do with the geographical size of the country.

Re:Here in Japan

[B0red At W0rk]

Yeah wake me up when they have WiMax SIP based phones. I predict a mom and pop telco industry will rise up to offer cometitive prices just like the first ISPs.

Here's the technical story behind all of this

[Anonymous Coward]

Go to http://www.umatechnology.org/

UMA is the technology that supports WiFi cellular voice. A processing unit (known as a UNC) must be added to the cellular operator's network. The UNC bridges the WiFi-carried voice into the cellular network.

Re:Here's the technical story behind all of this

[Anonymous Coward]

UMA is in many ways just a stop gap solution for the operators, buying them some time before they move to the truly converged network architecture of the IMS. Which is based on the SIP protocol and offers presence features which are sadly lacking from UMA.

Money

[Wellington Grey]

But analysts said Cingular is concerned that offering Wi-Fi calls inside a home could hurt its parent companies' landline businesses. Plus, there's the question of how to charge customers, who might expect free calls.

Yes, we mustn't let new technology get in the way of existing revenue streams.

-Grey

Re:Money

[Siffy]

s/technology/revenue streams
I still don't understand why these companies fight so hard against things that would actually bring them more money and happier customers by simply adapting.

I'm looking forward to a big surprise

[Anonymous Coward]

Biggest surprise? The cell phone conversation is not dropped I already have a WiFi phone. It doesn't even attempt to be a cellphone. It's pure WiFi. It's a UT Starcom F1000. It can't even make it longer than 12 hours without CRASHING. That's not 12 hours of active use, that's not even making a single phone call, that's just sitting there on my desk, right next to my WiFi box, doing nothing. It goes into "downloading firmware" mode and that's it, it needs to be power cycled, and there's no way to stop it from doing this. This was the device I paid $100 for from Broadvoice. If someone could just point me in the direction of a plain old WiFi device that doesn't crash all the time, that doesn't miss my calls, and that reliably links in to my WiFi, I'll be plenty surprised by that, thank you. I have just ordered a conventional phone adapter to replace it. I guess my Starcom will go into my closet somewhere and then I'll sell it on Ebay as an antique 50 years from now for $10,000 which will be enough for me to get a latte, if they still make those and they're still legal.

------------
Contact management, calendar management, phone backup

British Telecom already sells wireless VOIP cells

[evilandi]

British Telecom's "Fusion" service already provides this. It uses a variant of either the Motorola Razr V3 or Motorola V560 cellphone with Bluetooth, and is shipped with a dedicated BT Bluetooth & WiFi ADSL router that handles both the VOIP calls and regular broadband access for home computers. It's available to anyone in the UK with a British Telecom phoneline that supports ADSL broadband - which is over 99% of the population, including almost all rural areas such as mine.

Most people think the calls route over the normal analogue voice line, but the giveaway that it is VOIP is on this page where they state "can make up to three simultaneous calls", obviously this is must therefore be routed over the ADSL side rather than the voice side.

It already prefers wifi over cellular

[Tusaki]

"fall back to WiFi hotspot when the user is at home, at work". I agree that the wording could be better, but they meant to say that these new cell phones hold a list of trusted wifi networks which it will prefer over a cellular connection, such as a home or work wifi network.

How do I know, besides reading the article? I develop for cutting edge cell phones and PDA's for a living.

Re:It already prefers wifi over cellular

[Anonymous Coward]

fall back to WiFi hotspot when the user is at home, at work

I agree that the wording could be better

Indeed, the wording is confusing. Usually fall back means "use a lesser alternative when the preferred alternative is not available".

In this context, "preferred" means "cheaper", and the system should "fall back" to cell only if a trusted wifi is not available, not the other way round.

Or, alternatively: "spring forward to WiFi hotspot when the user is at home, at work". Ha!

Re:It already prefers wifi over cellular

[weave]

I assume that those minutes over wifi aren't going to be free. The call still has to enter the carriers network at some point and they aren't going to invest in this if there is no monetary incentive for them. So if they aren't free, what's the incentive for a consumer to have their calls go over their house wifi instead of using the tower then? What happens when their kid is running bittorrent and clogging up the line?

Re:It already prefers wifi over cellular

[Greyfox]

Yup, though if you could modify it to use SIP instead of the provider's seamless failover, your cell phone would make a spiffy handset for an asterisk box. That'd give you a number of options if you're handling all your telcome stuff through asterisk. For example, you could change your phone system's behavior based on whether you're home or not, route calls to your cellular service when you're away from the house or not logged in to your sip connection, and never give out your cell service number. That'd require an incoming and outgoing line but there are a number of ways that could be set up. Not giving out your cell number and handling calls only through asterisk also let you filter by caller ID number or lack thereof. You'd probably want your cell provider to disable voicemail though, so you can handle it all through one location.

Even without those benefits, going out over your home wireless connection would give a lot of people (Like myself) a lot better connection. Cell service in my area is spotty, so I'd expect wifi to give me a much clearer connection. It'd just take a bit of rearranging of the NAT box to set QOS up so that VOIP traffic gets priority and the kid's bittorrent feeds get a fraction of the total network bandwith. You've probably already done that if you're handling routing, nat and your phone service with your Linux machine. It'd be neat if you could make your Linux distribution simple enough to configure for this sort of thing that you could ship it off to the parents and expect them to set all that up right out of the box, too...

If I could find a sip-capable handset that tries sip over wireless first then falls back to cellular if it fails, I'd be pretty well set for a one-phone, one-number solution for all my telco needs.

Re:It already prefers wifi over cellular

[forrestt]

There is no reason to assume the minutes over wifi aren't going to be free (or at least cheaper). Remember, the most expensive part of a cell service is putting towers everywhere, (and in some places, towers aren't even allowed). If they can route your conversation to wifi, then they have more room on the tower to handle someone else's call. Multiply this a bunch, and you now are able to serve many more people with the current infrastructure. Thus, their expenses remain relatively the same, but their income/profits go up. Also, if they can switch you over to wifi in a remote location (where you spend a large amount of time), you are more likely to buy their service if you currently are unable to reach a tower from that location, but have wifi available. In both of these scenarios their profits go up due to increased user base. I don't see this taking off (and if it doesn't, the cell companies will lose a lot of potential revenue IMHO) if it isn't given away for free.

As far as bittorrent (or any other large bandwidth hog) that is up to the access point to handle. Most AP's give a good amount of distribution to who gets what amount of the total bandwidth.

Re:British Telecom already sells wireless VOIP cel

[jacksonj04]

The only issue is you get an 07 (Mobile) number, so even when you're at 'home' and over the VoIP people calling in still get charged their provider's rates for connecting to mobiles. It's only outgoing calls which benefit from the low cost VoIP.

Biggest Suprise?

[LowbrowDeluxe]

"The cell phone conversation is not dropped when the switch between cellular network and WiFi hotspot takes place."

Speaking as ex tech-support for an VOIP service that will remain anonymous, allow me to say that half the time American VOIP service over anything except fiber-optic can't manage to maintain a phone call period. =p
I'm not sure I believe the Japanese firms are really doing it any better, but they do have a better infrastructure set up, so maybe it does work halfway decently.

It might help if the half of America that jumped on VOIP because it was cheap would at least update the rest of their technology along with it. No matter how good the connection your ISP is giving you is, if you're still using a modem and router that would manage higher data transmission rates if converted to carrier pigeon roosts, your overall experience will be lousy.
And wiring. Ma Bell laid copper wire may be good enough for the telecomms to still wring a profit out of, but it's probably not helping your connection any. Nor are the cords that have been hidden behind your desk getting chewed by cats for the last ten years.
Also, interference from large stacks of electronics piled on your desk, certain brands of laptop and ginormous desktop monitors, halogen lights, and having metals like a fridge, or say, wall full of plumbing between your wireless router and where-ever you're trying to use equipment.
Allright, I'm going to shut up now. Suffice to say, I could go on for two more pages at least.
It's a good technology with 'a lot of potential', but as for something for widespread daily use? That marriage of consumer and product will be about as good as the one to the girl with the 'nice personality'. If they were lying about the personality. =p

And then there's cell phones. Never did the tech support for those, but I saw it.
"Your cell phone isn't working? Hmmm, let me check a few things."
*Anonymous network down across the entire southwest*
"Well, it might be a network problem, we'll get you back up as soon as possible. What? No, only a few people affected I'm sure."

Ah, the lies, the horrible, horrible lies.....

*cough* Sorry, my therapist said I was over it....

*He lied too!!!!*

Re:Biggest Suprise?

[edxwelch]

That's the only reason that the operators allow the phone manufactures to make these phones, because they know the technology doesn't work.

Perhaps this guy can use it

[mgabrys_sf]

Looks like some people need VOIP badly.

A guy in Malaysia got hit with a 281 trillion dollar bill:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12247590/

And believe it or not, the phone company hasn't fessed up to an error as of yet and is threatening full criminal charges for non-payment.

What's the interest on a 281 trillion dollar loan anyway? I think only the US Treasury could tabulate it.

Re:Perhaps this guy can use it

[MichaelSmith]

Thats a good one

It wasn't clear whether the bill was a mistake, or if Yahaya's father's phone line was used illegally after his death.

How? by calling the magellanic clouds?

My wife is Malaysian, and I know how hard it can be to deal with the bureaucracy there.

Re:Perhaps this guy can use it

[slashdotmsiriv]

281 trillion? Do the world's GDP's amount to more than that? He must have been calling Stargate Atlantis ...

Re:Perhaps this guy can use it

[Khyber]

Our own Treasury can't even begin to fathom having 218 trillion in it's own pocket, much less the 9-10+ trillion we currently have in debt.

Re:Perhaps this guy can use it

[MrFrank]

That's one way to balance your national budget.

Amazing Choice of Language and rising DSL Pricing.

[logicnazi]

I really liked how the people interviewed in the article kept saying something like "consumers might expect calling over wi-fi would be free". As if they were somehow being unreasonable or uninformed.

As far as I'm concerned real wi-fi phones which don't even let your carrier know how many wi-fi minutes you are using can't come soon enough. I hate the high prices, ridiculous options and general blood sucking (prices for ringtones) and can't wait till they are the ones begging the technology companies to include support for their off wi-fi network you use when you leave the city or have at least started offering wi-fi type service in cities.

Ultimately of course the upshot of all of this is that we will be paying more for DSL/landline phones as well as for remote cell phone service. In both the landline phone market and the cell phone market massive fixed costs are amortized over a huge number of phone calls. The fixed line phone calls then in effect subsidize DSL service (the phone companies make money on it but wouldn't if they had to do all the maintence/set up the phone lines just for DSL). Similarly all the cellphone calls made in big cities subsidize building cell phone towers in more rural locations. As the distinction between different sorts of data transmission inevitably disappears the price per unit of reasonably low latency Kb must equalize. I mean it really is absurd that it is cheaper to use your phone line for DSL and utilize Skype than it is to call on a real phone. This will force the price of DSL up as it becomes less subsidized by phone calls and the existance of Wi-Fi phones will remove the ability of the cell companies to subsidize the less used more rural towers (unless of course they are just doing things in a really inefficent fashion compared to google/earthlink in SF)

At least this is what happens if the DSL prices aren't constrained by local laws, in which case we will just see more tricks trying to offer tiered access charging for cell phone use (instead of by Mb) or other stupid money generating tricks.

It's aimed at mobile phone companies

[Aceticon]

If you read the article you will notice that this is aimed at saving costs for the mobile companies themselfs, NOT the users.

Notice that the "seamless transition" from of having your mobile communicating over the mobile network to having it use the WiFi network requires a server on the mobile network to support it.

The point here is that many mobile companies also own WiFi hotspot networks. With this kind of phone available they will be able to re-use those networks for mobile coverage, thus freeing more slots on the mobile network (and/or requiring less towers). Commercial WiFi hotspots are typically installed in areas with many potential users around (airports, train-stations, city centers) which are also the areas more congested in terms of mobile calls traffic, thus the potential for savings are very big. If they can get people to also use their own private WiFi hotspots at some, even beter for them.

Maybe some savings will be passed on to the consumers or maybe not. As always, companies try to make as much money as possible, thus they will only pass the savings on to consumers (via reduced prices) if:
a) They still make more money out of it. So for example, expect cheaper (but not free) "home" minutes if you use your own personal WiFi hotspot.
b) They are being squezed by other technologies and need to reduce prices in order to stay competitive.

Hopefully the technology will be implemented in such a way that it might be possible to use it WITHOUT support from the side of the mobile network operator. Quite possibly this first generation won't support it out-of-the-box. Don't expect quite a seamless transition of calls between networks though.

Re:It's aimed at mobile phone companies

[TheRaven64]

No, it's aimed at the end users. Just not yet. You can buy VOIP handsets that connect over 802.11 already. These are significantly cheaper than mobile 'phones. If you live in an area with ubiquitous WiFi, then they may be more economic than a full mobile. As WiFi coverage extends, this will be true for more and more people. This is likely to cut into the profits of the mobile 'phone manufacturers[1] as well as the carriers. Eventually, the VOIP handset market is likely to be as big as the mobile handset market, and the manufacturers want to make sure they have a cut.

[1] Don't make the mistake that many /. readers make of assuming that the handset manufacturers and the carriers have the same adgenda.

Re:It's aimed at mobile phone companies

[squiggleslash]

It helps both. It lowers costs for the carrier (savings which will be passed on to both customers and shareholders in the long term), but also provides the carrier's customers with ways to get around in-home blackspots that a carrier will never, and can never, fix.

Great...

[Cunk]

...yet another technology Verizon will not allow their customers to enjoy. This would be the final straw for me.

Re:Great...

[electronerdz]

Yeah, they won't even let me make phone calls in my own house, so I dropped them. Of course, now my Nextel isn't as great, but at least I know I am getting calls. Now I just need to switch to Sprint since they built a tower 2 miles from my house.

Re:Great...

[LOADLETTER]

Verizon and their same-sex bed partner Q....... are those that keeps us 6-8 years behind Europe & Co. as far as cellphone technologies for the masses. It's prety sad they gets away with it, you can kiss Flarion and other good technology pioneers goodbye too. They live of their lawyers, unfortunately like many http://www.silabs.com/public/documents/pr_doc/prod ucts/Wireless/en/axiomcasedraftFINAL.pdf does these days. they had a good technology given to them - the serve the system with an iron fist and old fashioned flawed chips.

Surprise, surprise

[suv4x4]

"Biggest surprise? The cell phone conversation is not dropped when the switch between cellular network and WiFi hotspot takes place."

That'd be the only surprize, since there are phones that use wifi for walkie talkie emulation for some time now.

One could really wonder how is this supposed to work at all, after all the whining from big telcos, how VOIP support needs special quality of service (QoS)to ensure low latency, no skipping, mangling etc. to work.

But then again who believes telcos anyway.

Re:Surprise, surprise

[LowbrowDeluxe]

Honestly, QoS helps a *lot*. What the telcos aren't mentioning is that the reason it's needed is that their networks are a patchwork of incremental upgrades and bought out regional networks that they've never bothered to actually integrate, just slapped a new logo on. In point of fact, you're probably lucky if you're not running on copper that Ma Bell laid down. Heck, if it wasn't for the fact that they'd have to pay her, they'd still have Ethel running the switchboards. I'm all in favor of companies keeping prices down by keeping costs down, but they go way past that. For one thing, they're hardly keeping prices down, and for another, slashing your maintenance and repair budget year after year, and investing in only minimal upgrades rather than actually overhauling are hardly ways to offer quality service of any sort. In point of fact, they're policies that probably end up costing more in the long run, but what does that matter as long as a corporate CEO can show a profit for the past year he's been in office? Especially since he wont usually hold that office for more than five years before retiring obscenely wealthy? Same problem we have with presidents. With the exception that they generally start out obscenely wealthy and get more so. Wait, no, that's about the same too. *cough* Sorry, something pressed my bitter-button today.

Re:Surprise, surprise

[1uk34dd0]

It does work. I use the BT Fusion service here in the UK and the transfer between mobile/cell network and VoIP is almost seemless everytime. http://www.btfusionorder.bt.com/

VOIP capable handsets are already common

[TheRealDamion]

I have two voip capable cellphones, a 9500 and 9300i. There are also the PalmOS wifi enabled phones too most of which can get free VOIP software and make free calls from any free wireless lan.

http://www.europe.nokia.com/nokia/0,6771,77854,00. html -phone
http://www.my-xda.com/comp.html -more phones.
http://www.barablu.com/ -voip software.
http://www.skype.com/download/skype/mobile/ -more voip software

Dual mode is the easy bit

[EmbeddedJanitor]

It's the clean in-call handover that is hard and will require a Skype-like service that is tied in with the telco's cell handling to get the call handover to happen. That is going to lock you in to your telco so they'll still be able to screw you for the call.

Ericsson demoed some Bluetooth handsets that could do clean handover a long while back. THese would use BT to BT for short distance and could then switch to BT--POTS and finally cell. I don't think this was ever commercialised.

Re:British Telecom already sells wireless VOIP cel

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, it's VoIP. I've worked on part of the implementation (Alcatel 5020 CSC)

NASA tapping WIFI / VOIP for voice?

[David Hume]

It probably should be, but I have a feeling that the switch only goes one way: cellular to wifi.

all of this raises an interesting question. Is the NSA currently tapping / sniffing the Interenet for voice? That is, tapping / sniffing VOIP?

And if not, will this hasten the day when NASA does so? I can hear it now. "All of these people are now connected end to end via WIFI and VOIP through their cell phones. We must be able to tap / sniff those conversations.
 

Re:NASA tapping WIFI / VOIP for voice?

[Flendon]

all of this raises an interesting question. Is the NSA currently tapping / sniffing the Interenet for voice? That is, tapping / sniffing VOIP?

And if not, will this hasten the day when NASA does so? I can hear it now. "All of these people are now connected end to end via WIFI and VOIP through their cell phones. We must be able to tap / sniff those conversations.

According to the EFF:

"The evidence that we are filing supports our claim that AT&T is diverting Internet traffic into the hands of the NSA wholesale, in violation of federal wiretapping laws and the Fourth Amendment," said EFF Staff Attorney Kevin Bankston.

So yes, that would include VOIP.

Netgear Wi-Fi Skype phone?

[blankoboy]

I'm sure the question on many slashdotter's minds is: where is the freaking Netgear Wi-Fi Skype phone we were all promised in Q1 2006?

Re:Netgear Wi-Fi Skype phone?

[babbling]

It's here and the faq says it is now planned for a mid-2006 release.

Re:Netgear Wi-Fi Skype phone?

[Linker3000]

Nope, it's "Does it run Linux?' closely followed by them imagining a beowulf cluster of those.

Re:Netgear Wi-Fi Skype phone?

[TheRaven64]

Nope, Slashdot readers are more interested in an open standard for VoIP, such as SIP, than in a closed-protocol service that promotes lock-in to a vendor with questionable business practices. And since SIP-phones have been around for years, we aren't interested in wondering when they are going to be released.

Re:Netgear Wi-Fi Skype phone?

[Anonymous Coward]

Check out the - Zyxel Prestige 2000W V.2 IP Wireless Phone

I think im in love!

Re:British Telecom already sells wireless VOIP cel

[1uk34dd0]

I've been a user of this service for over a month now and have found it to be very reliable. I'd recommend it to everyone. Go BT! ;)

Already have that

[AgentSmit]

For a few months I already own a pda with cell phone and wifi support. I am using a free SIP client to make free unlimited wifi calls with my free sip account. Though the software needs some improvement, it works. However, wifi needs way too much energy. With wifi disabled the battery life is a few days, when enabled it only takes about an hour or two to completely drain the battery, wether I am calling or not! And this is with wifi in 'economy mode', which only makes it usable when reception is very good. Seems to me that for wifi phones to become really popular they have a huge problem to fix.

Too soon

[raides]

Too soon to tell how this will evolve. The first two phones that used VOIP with a cellular backup have beenn out for over a year in Europe. These phones have serious dead zones in coverage no matter what the manufacturer claims. This is why the cellular backup is huge to have on the phone. The biggest problem I have seen with these phones is the design and the secured wifi access issues. Carriers of internet are going to have to work with cellular phone companies if this is to work, if not, then the wifi networks you come across , unless you break the WEP protection to get a key or any protection they might have, the wifi network is useless to you. Also the design of the phone is ugly, the battery is pretty cheap and the phones look like the early models of the first wave of cell phone.

Cell Phone Radiation?

[JohnG307]

What effect will this technology have on the amount of microwave radiation that a user is subject to during an average call? Seems to me that if the cell phone switches through a router only a few meters away, instead of a cell tower several blocks away, that it would be able to drop its power output considerably.

Less microwaves to the head is always a good thing...

Boy I'd love this

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

I'd love to have a phone with WIFI VOIP. In the last two places I've lived in, I cannot get cellular reception in my apartment. If I go outside, it works fine. But once the door is shut, no phone. To deal with this problem, I've subscribed to Vonage. Though I love this solution, it'd be nice to shave off $25/mo. and just use my wireless router.

Re:Boy I'd love this

[Linker3000]

...Is your door lead lined? Are you a vampire? Try keeping the coffin door open a bit when you are lying down!

Mind you, I know the feeling - I can be making a call sat down on my sofa at home and I move my head 2 inches and I've lost the signal.

Three unreliable technologies, together at last

[PhotoGuy]

Good Lord, combining all three of these frustrating technologies together. VOIP, which in my experience, is choppy and unreliable; cellular service, which is generally poor, and getting worse as they cram more calls into the same bandwidth; and wireless, which never lives up to it's speed/distance claims. The cell phone companies can't seem to pull off not dropping calls between freaking cell towers, how can they promise calls won't be dropped with this technology.

I'm pretty skeptical as to how well this will work.

Re:Here in New York! New York!

[dwandy]

sure, wiki agrees that Monaco is number 1 in population density. It's 32,409 people cover a mere 1.95km^2, or 16,620 persons per square km.
New York City, however has 8,168,338 people crammed into 785.6km^2 which would slot it in second place (against countries) at 10,292 persons per square km.

So although New York only has about 2/3 the density, it has 250 times the total population. If you're looking for a customer base for some new tech I'd take my odds in New York (despite how rich Monaco is...)

Oh, and although Japan sits well above the United States in total density, Tokyo (the largest city) has a bit more than half the density of New York at 5655 persons per km^2...so I'm guessing population density isn't specifically the problem...

Calls wont drop with a cell/WiFi transition?

[Shishak]

That means that the phone will keep a VoIP session opened with the cell phone providers switch. The cell phone provider can continue to bill you insane per minute rates while you ride on someone elses network. Sounds like a great deal for the cell phone providers. As a VoIP provider I wonder if I can get a cell phone to connect back to me so I don't have to build network either.

Neutral Ground to Dust

[Doc Ruby]

Haha - with Verizon's two-tier internet, your VoIP call won't get the latency and uptime it needs to keep the quality it had before your lost your crappy Verizon wireless signal. Welcome to second-class citizenship, where you pay more for less service. Verizon will probably sell Verizon Wireless a "special DSL package" for extra money, but mixing wireless service from one telco wwith broadband from another will get you cut out and ripped off.

Sprint, AT&T and the other telcos won't be any different. And the only way the cablecos will even get into the wireless phone biz is once they've got a "rate structure" they can bundle like that.

"There is an avialable wireless network..."

[osoese]

I like to call this my laptop in heat syndrome...where I am near a bunch of wireless networks that aren't my own, and my chipset keeps letting me know about it.

Now my cell-phone will have this also, only I know that 'Can you hear me now' doesn't want me to switch off their network willingly, so can I expect to be bombarded with a bunch of barely audible dings alerting me to the existence of a number of wireless networks that might authenticate me or not? I wonder what happens to my call then.

"But U.S. carriers were tightlipped about when they might roll out the service and at what price, despite Nokia and Samsung representatives saying they would start selling functioning handsets in the country this year."
Yeah, I can interpret the word tightlipped for you well enough,...its kind of like "Trust me" in big city speak.

VOIP

[certel]

VOIP is really challenging the networks, both cellular and voice, as the big players are getting worried about cost reduction of keeping old voice lines, etc. Should be interesting.

I need to Ass you a question

[0110011001110101]

I have very little firsthand experience, and so I'm very interested in this "ass" storage system you speak of... what is this and will it fit all my mp3s and digital photos?

Do I need a special cable to "pull" from it as you say?

battery life?

[Psx29]

I imagine battery life is significantly reduced using wifi especially if you're using WAP/WPA encryption (if it's even supported?)

Already using a variant of this

[ylikone]

It was obvious that this was coming, as there are already plenty of cordless phones like the Linksys Cordless Internet Telephony Kit for Skype. Just get skype-in and skype-out service and you're good to go. Extending this idea to cell-phones was a matter of time.

Re:Already using a variant of this

[Anonymous Coward]

nice referal link

Wi-Fi, WiMax Cell Phones = Disruptinve Technology

[cpatil]

Last week, Google Inc. (GOOG) and EarthLink Inc. (ELNK) became the leading bidders for building a Wi-Fi network in San Francisco, a project that would make it the largest city in the nation to offer a free service.
Google has also invested in Fon an open wireless initiative to encourage deployment of Foneros. Google game plans are quite hard to understand

I am not sure where I have read, Gigaom or some other Blog, that Japanese company DoCoMo will leave no stone unturned to kill VoIP based Mobile technology in Japan as they have invested heavily in deploying 4G networks. Well, the Asian (not quite sure of the EU) telecom market is already dirt cheap and I wonder why would VoIP Cell or Mobile phones be sought there, silly, to make it still cheaper ? FREE ? But Asians are cell savvy and look for value added services rather than prices. Quite an interesting puzzle for telecom strategists ;-)

The good news is...

[Art Popp]

The carriers are very happy about this, but, as others have observed the fact that it's VOIP doesn't mean it's "anybody's VOIP" that it works with.

The UMA data network simply allows the carrier turn any WiFi access point into an additional cell tower on their network. The advantage for the consumer, discounted minutes at home. The advantage for the carrier fewer expensive cell towers to cover the same number of people.

In many demographics 40% of people's cellphone calls are made from home. It will be a tremendous savings in standard GSM spectrum to move 40% of the traffic to the 2.4Ghz band.

For the consumer, if your plan had 1000 minutes a month GSM, and an additional 1000 minutes a month over UMA then would you really need to hand $20 a month to a voip carrier? If you spend less than an hour a day talking on the phone, and you make 50% of your calls from home, the answer is no.

UMA phones will let you initiate and receive calls on either the GSM or Wifi networks. UMA phones are designed to hand the call seamlessly between networks. I've used one. They're pretty cool.

This is slashdot...

[LordEd]

Whereas in a communist country they certainly do.

...You obviously meant to say "In Soviet Russia, company sells you!"

Maturity

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow. Incredibly mature response on your part. And just to let you know, I used to [...]

Nobody asked. It was you who questioned giorgiofrs background knowledge, not the other way around. He told you he does know a bit about the stuff you seem very eager to push your point on, so why don't you just keep it down? Having to have the last word reminds me of Adams' Dilbert's PHB:

The important thing is that I win.

How very mature of you.

Re:Maturity

[gEvil (beta)]

Excuse me? I merely asked a very legitimate question of him. Interesting that both he and you accuse me of very much unfounded things (projection as giorgiofrs put it), yet there is no basis for any of that in my posts. And I'll let you have the final word on this, since I really don't care one way or the other for final words.

Biggest surprise?

[dougman]

From the article: "Biggest surprise? The cell phone conversation is not dropped when the switch between cellular network and WiFi hotspot takes place."

Errr... why is this a surprise? I would have thought this feature would have been one of the first requirements in the spec. In fact what consumer would seriously consider a phone that would drop a call mid converstaion? Frankly, if that's the biggest surprise, I'm not expecting much.

Re:Biggest surprise?

[eraser.cpp]

The surprise is because of how difficult it is to do.

What to expect from Verizon

[bhalter80]

When it comes to new technology Verizon seems the most reluctant to offer its full benefits to its customers. So in keeping with that tradition I fully expect that they will implement this. The catch will be that you will have to be in an area not already serviced by Verizon. Not low signal, absolutely no signal. And you will only be able to use the phone features not any of the data services on the phone.

Seems like this is headed the same way as bluetooth. Hopefully Cingular and T-Mobile will get it right

Ummmm....

[TubeSteak]

As far as I'm concerned real wi-fi phones which don't even let your carrier know how many wi-fi minutes you are using can't come soon enough.

If you want to talk to anyone, your cellphone-over-wifi connection needs to get terminated back into the regular phone system somehow.

That's what you pay for and it's why all the internet-only VIOP services are free, because they don't connect you into the PSTN.

Re:Ummmm....

[evilandi]

If you want to talk to anyone, your cellphone-over-wifi connection needs to get terminated back into the regular phone system somehow

That's only true because the phone companies (fixed and cell) are discouraging VOIP from the market through FUD. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. It's a numbers game; where sufficient numbers adopt a particular VOIP standard, the balance will fall in VOIP's favour. The fact that that balance has not yet tipped doesn't indicate that the old PSTN system is somehow a mandatory standard, it just indicates that it's what the majority of morons use.

I don't know anyone, not even my great-uncles and great-aunts, not anyone who doesn't have VOIP-capable kit already in their homes (ie. 40kbps+ unmetered TCP/IP connection, PC, speakers and microphone). Yet nobody can be bothered to use it, because they all believe the phone companies' hype that the only convenient way to call someone is to use a PSTN phone.

When I go abroad 4000 miles away in the USA, I text (SMS) the missus back in the UK to say "Go on MSN" and we chat on MSN with full audio and video, for zero pence-per-minute; free. There's plenty of other apps that do this, too, both freeware and FOSS.

Yet the only reason my missus and I do this, is because I set up my wife's PC to do it.

And that's how the phone companies manage to keep us locked into the pay-per-minute PSTN cage. Convenience, and FUD that VOIP is just too hard.

Re:Ummmm....

[logicnazi]

By carrier I meant cell phone carrier. Unlike the other responder I wasn't imagining a situation where you totally avoided phone companies all together. In fact such a situation hardly seems possible as someone is going to be carrying your packets and they will know you are making a call whether you are doing so using an internet phone or a regular phone (you don't really think the telcos aren't tracking the amount of Skype traffic on their networks do you?)

I just meant a situation where sprint can't anally rape me for minutes I use over my wi-fi connection and I fear they will figure out a way to do this up until the point I can have a wi-fi conversation totally without their knowledge. I don't care if my DSL company knows about it, at least unless they start trying to charge me more for voice packets than other packets of similar QOS.

Re:Ummmm....

[nasch]

"I don't know anyone, not even my great-uncles and great-aunts, not anyone who doesn't have VOIP-capable kit already in their homes (ie. 40kbps+ unmetered TCP/IP connection, PC, speakers and microphone)."

Well if you count random /. users as people you know, then you do now. :-)

The Pricing Problem...how to squeeze the customer?

[maillemaker]

From TFA:

"But analysts said Cingular is concerned that offering Wi-Fi calls inside a home could hurt its parent companies' landline businesses.

Plus, there's the question of how to charge customers, who might expect free calls.

"Pricing is always an issue," said Cingular spokesman Ritch Blasi. "Who's network are you going to be using, and do you share minutes? ... People might expect that because they're calling on a Wi-Fi that they're paying for a broadband connection into their home already."

Yeah, of course they are concerned! Of course I will expect that if I'm calling on my own broadband connection it should be free! I think it's crazy that I have to pay Vonage $27 a month to plug me into the POTS network. Do you think I'm going to subscribe to another phone service that will charge me another $27 to do the same thing? No thanks.

I just cancelled both of our cell phones. It was a lot easier to "get unplugged" than I thought it would be. But I was paying $80/month for 2 cell phones, $55/month for cable internet, and $27/month for Vonage. That's $162/month for communications, and that is insane. With the price of gas what it is, I'm having to make choices, and voice communications rank last in my priorities, with broadband internet being highest.

My next "cell phone", if I ever get one again, will be one that hooks into whatever free network is open and works off of my Vonage account.

Steve

Nintendo in Wifi buissnes?

[Anonymous Coward]

Today i read in the local news paper that the british company 'The Cloud' are putting up wifi hotspots in finland (FINALY!) for every mobile operator to use. the thing that made me wonder was that their biggest customers, British Telecom, Vodafone, Skype and what? Nintendo ? anyone of you know about this? sound kinda interesting, makes me wonder what they are planing A link to the finnish article http://www.kauppalehti.fi/4/i/uutiset/etusivu/jutt u.jsp?oid=2006/04/10/1858002

handover

[Britz]

Mobile Handover is a bith, even if you stay in your own network. Some very clever guys managed to make it work for GSM, CDMA, UMTS and the likes. But GSM handover to WiFi and back? Maybe even on just any hotspot that happens to be around? Without dropping the call? Anyone on Slashdot that does this? Because I would love to hear how.

Telcos Here Not Much Friendlier

[Greyfox]

Mom's a reporter and a few years back did a story on a family in Florida whose son signed on to one of those "free internet" deals. The catch? The provider was located in eastern Europe somewhere and in less than a month he ran up a $10,000 phone bill. The further catch? That line supposedly had a long distance restricton on it and should have never have been allowed to make those calls in the first place. The phone company's attitude was "Sorry, you have to pay up anyway."

Last I heard they were still trying to fight it. It should be resolved one way or another by now. I'll have to check around and see if I can get a follow up to the story...

EVDO / 3G ?

[edstromp]

So, could I get one of those Verizon unlimited data plans for $60/month with no voice plan, and make as many cell calls as I want without that silly "per minute" charge?

Just started a cell with Cingular, and was over minutes, upped the plan, but they *still* wanted $150 for overage. Got it all straightened out, but this whole concept of per-minute charge has just *got* to go away.

It's called dividing up the customers

[LeeMeador]

Face it. There is no reason talking on the phone for one minute should cost more than sending and receiving 500K of data. That uses the old way of converting voice to data--64K bits per second. (64,000 bps * 60 secs/min / 8 bits per byte = 480,000 bytes/min)

It is, after all, just data going from point A to point B (and coming back). I don't know the current numbers but, back in the 90's, voice only consumed a few percent of the total of the transferred data.

The network should be good enough to get the data moved in a reasonable time frame.

The devices to convert what the microphone picks up to data packets should not be expensive to buy.

The monthly payment to your ISP should cover the data transfer, even if it is digital voice.

The use of compression should reduce the bandwidth needed by a factor of six (but I'm no expert). That's what I read.

In the US, we add a little bit to our phone bill to subsidize people who live in rural areas. They need longer wires and such than the city folks. That shouldn't add too much to the bill.

The only justification for phone service costing more than that is that we will pay it. It's a classic concept of dividing the market into groups of customers. Some will pay more than others for the same service. You work out a way to get more from those who will pay it while still charging less for those who won't pay more.

Its a tricky thing to work out. The ones who pay more may resist paying more if they know someone else is paying less.

But we have business phones and personal phones and business pays more but they don't really get more. Their phones don't work any better. They don't get extended hours of use. They just pay more for the same thing because they will.

Somehow we have gotten into a situation where the data containing voices costs us more to tranfer than data containing photos or music or email or accounts payable. There is no good reason but the marketers have got us to believe it should be that way.

I think all we are seeing is a market upheaval caused by some people rejecting that premise and others selling stuff to facilitate sending voice data for less.

I should pay an ISP to accept bits from me and transfer them to wherever I want them to go. Some other ISPs will be accepting bits from someone else and sending them to me. For that, they should pay. It's just a messenger service. If they have to subcontract with backbone providers, so be it. They have to charge me enough to take care of that.

I think the "magic" of the technology hides the simple realities from most consumers.

And that's enough babbling for now.

rogue WiFi operators can monitor your VoIP traffic

[tech-law-ny]

The problem is the different privacy practices of the WiFi network
operator. For example, my company intentionally has open WiFi covering
public areas of our office park. But, I don't want my personal calls
there because our IT department can monitor this network (and my
employment agreement gives my consent). They might be doing traffic
analysis and flagging calls to competitors, etc. (maybe I'm setting
up a job interview). Conversely, communication with a Verizon tower
from my Verizon phone in the parking lot is (in practice) safe from
monitoring by my company, and also safe from casual eavesdroppers.

Similarly, I don't want my calls moved from Verizon's CDMA network to
the Fred's Cafe WiFi, where Fred happens to be sitting in the kitchen
with a VoIP sniffer.

ha

[llZENll]

I have VOIP on broadband at home and the quality is just pitiful, I can't even imagine using it over wifi. Even so the telcoms days are limited, if they didn't control the net they would out of biz in the next 10 years, they can only push their overpriced cell phone crap for so long.

Re:Here in New York! New York!

[Bacon Bits]

Actually, I was looking only at area, not population density. You can set up one tower and give the whole of Monaco WiFi and cell service. It's less than a square mile in area. The only thing smaller is Vatican City.

Japan is about the size of Texas and New Mexico combined, or about one tenth the size of the continental US. Since the US is also less densely populated than Japan and also has more total population (about double), even if you want to maximize the coverage by population density you still have to build far more infrastructure than you would in Japan.

Additionally, no matter what country you're in, citizens expect their services to cover the whole of their country, or at least the whole of their state or region. People in the US simply travel farther because their country is larger and less densely populated, so the minimum amount of infrastructure to have a functional network for consumers is also increased.

Geographic and social conditions in this country make Japan more economically feasable. The continental US has ten times the area, but only twice the population. So it would cost you up to ten times as much to build your infrastructure for only double the number of customers. And Japanese tend to be early adopters, so you're likely to get return on invenstment quicker.