From years of experience working in the Cellular industry (RF Design Engineer), I don't see any way the cell providers will share the revenue. If you have a marginal signal, just let the other guy serve the data/voice call...I have trouble seeing it happen. If this was easy to do and the providers wanted to do it, they would have done it with voice (remember "one number" portability?). The other issue here is having a data modem that monitors receive signal levels across several different freq bands and then the switches smart enough to remember who is where. I agree that this could be done with one IP, I think that's the goal long term. But company "A" isn't just going to give up revenue to company "B"....and if they do, it will be for a premium.
I think long term GPRS or 1XRTT will be the best solution. Let's face it. Cellular/PCS already has the towers and the bandwidth. Cellular, at least here in the US, already has really good coverage. If you could just have private networks (wireless lan) and macro coverage/service offered by the cellular providers.
I designed cellular for years. In the old days we actually had these "closet" units for fixed station cellular applications in remote homes (Hawaii, N. California). These units simply provided dial tone. I think this was required for Universal Service Funds back in those days. This box didn't use an existing POTS infrastructure, but that's a good idea. I know there are systems in place that are basically a cordless phone in the home and then hand-off to the cellular network. This still isn't quite what you're looking for, but it's still kind of cool. I think you have a valid idea, a black box with a fixed antenna that takes care of all the cellular overhead and basically uses the existing POTS stuff to deliver the voice.
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With NT (Nortel) at $2.21 today, they need to "come togehter" and start making some $$$$
From years of experience working in the Cellular industry (RF Design Engineer), I don't see any way the cell providers will share the revenue. If you have a marginal signal, just let the other guy serve the data/voice call...I have trouble seeing it happen. If this was easy to do and the providers wanted to do it, they would have done it with voice (remember "one number" portability?). The other issue here is having a data modem that monitors receive signal levels across several different freq bands and then the switches smart enough to remember who is where. I agree that this could be done with one IP, I think that's the goal long term. But company "A" isn't just going to give up revenue to company "B"....and if they do, it will be for a premium.
I think long term GPRS or 1XRTT will be the best solution. Let's face it. Cellular/PCS already has the towers and the bandwidth. Cellular, at least here in the US, already has really good coverage. If you could just have private networks (wireless lan) and macro coverage/service offered by the cellular providers.
I designed cellular for years. In the old days we actually had these "closet" units for fixed station cellular applications in remote homes (Hawaii, N. California). These units simply provided dial tone. I think this was required for Universal Service Funds back in those days. This box didn't use an existing POTS infrastructure, but that's a good idea. I know there are systems in place that are basically a cordless phone in the home and then hand-off to the cellular network. This still isn't quite what you're looking for, but it's still kind of cool. I think you have a valid idea, a black box with a fixed antenna that takes care of all the cellular overhead and basically uses the existing POTS stuff to deliver the voice.