The future of mobile phones
October 10th, 2007 |
Dual mode handsets that will recognize and use a WiFi signal to make free calls over the internet when a signal is available, otherwise reverting to the standard GSM or CDMA network when a WiFi signal is not available.
40% of consumers mobile phone calls take place at home. As consumers replace their land line phone with a high speed internet connection this type of device could become the new standard in telephone technology. The only time you would pay for minutes is when you are off the WiFi network.
16 Responses to “The future of mobile phones”
That’s nice, we’ll finally be able to get rid of our home phone with the circular dialer.
Getting a cell phone was the worst choice I ever made. Now I can’t pretend I’m not home and not answer the phone anymore.
No need to pretend you’re not home. I just pretend I couldn’t find/hear/reach it, or that the phone was out of range/battery.
FWIW, I hardly ever talk on the phone at all, and much less than $40 at home. What I don’t get are the people willing to pay for Comcast Digital Phone like they can’t add forty bucks to their wireless plan and get more minutes than they know what to do with.
* much less than 40% of the time at home.
Neat!
A while back I saw one of the wireless things at a T-Mobile kiosk at the mall. I wasn’t sure what it was they were bundling but I thought to myself “hmmm… I bet Smithers will tell us all about this one day”. No lie! So I didn’t bother inquiring about it. That and I don’t talk to anyone at the mall, especially those that work in kiosks. Small hands — smell like cabbage.
2 things going against that…
1) WiFi hotspots are becoming pay only (e.g. large number of American airports, and some hotels.)
2) Where’s the profit for the carrier? In the american market the phone and carrier are tied together. Cutting out the carrier is going to make somepeople unhappy.
I don’t have anything agains the idea.. just don’t expect it to be free (e.g. if you’re not paying the cell carrier then you’ll be paying the VOIP carrier.. cause I doubt Skype will win this one.)
Your home WiFi is probably not going to become pay only.
You are still going to have to pay a monthly fee to a carrier, you will just be cutting back on the number of minutes that you pay for.
Sorry forgot about you mentioning on the home front. Thinking travel..
Actually I would expect some sort of package deal would happen. T Mobile and Vonage some how creating some sort of deal for example. Could be interesting but I wouldn’t expect it to be cheaper per se. Worse would be Qwest as a provider where they could offer an end to end package and make it sound cheaper, but…
I’m just a pessimist when it comes to perdicting what phone companies would do, I just don’t see them being really caring about the customer.
Q-West sucks…they are why I dumped my land line entirely. I have never encountered a worse company (though Sprint is a close second).
Actually I would expect some sort of package deal would happen.
Maybe I did not provide enough information here.
T Mobile is offering this right now. No partnership with Vonage, regardless of your ISP. Qwest would be totally out of the picture as you would be using a coaxial broadband provider like Comcast. But the phone deal would be totally independent of your ISP.
This is only going to get bigger.
Very broadly, the technology is called Unlicensed Mobile Access, it’s been talked about for years, and T-Mobile has been running commercials about it for months.
Of course, you already get nights and weekends for free with pretty much every plan, so you’re basically paying the wireless carrier for the privilege of freeing up their tower during peak hours. Maybe it saves you a few bucks… but it costs them even less.
Yup… read the articles after my reply… so T Mobile Hotspot at home… interesting. So it is a package deal as I would expect ( from the link - *Must subscribe to T-Mobile Hotspot @Home service; international calls incur separate additional charges.) And of course Engadget has issues with it. (http://www.engadgetmobile.com/2006/10/24/t-mobile -hotspot-home-finally-launches-in-seattle/)
So you don’t get a VOIP or ISP choice really. And, its not free. So now the comparison is beteween the Hotspot subscription rate vs. prime time usage at home rate. Which is cheaper? For T Mobile, I agree with Champs that it frees up the daytime signal to serve where the profit is higher… Business travellers.
So next is who is the next biggest owner of commerical wifi spots like the T Mobile hotspots and who will approach them first with a similar idea? Or buy out somebody like Skype and just add Skype minutes to your plan.
I agree this is big… but it’s just in the opening phases and I don’t think T Mobile has the lock on it yet. (Plus it’s a way for T Mobile to save themselves from poor coverage in America, at least according to the reviewers, I don’t use them so I don’t know first hand.)
I don’t think T Mobile has the lock on it yet. Plus it’s a way for T Mobile to save themselves from poor coverage in America
I don’t believe that the technology is proprietary for T Mobile to have a lock on it.
I travel a fair amount and have very little problems with my T Mobile signal unless I get out into the middle of nowhere. I can then decide that, since I am in the middle of nowhere I may as well turn my phone off.
I think T Mobile is running with this idea in order to escape having to commit to the launch of the next generation network protocol like 3G.
pcomeau, I’m not worried about the lack of choice in VoIP or ISP options, that’s something I expect the carrier to handle… for now. And it’s not so much about profiting from daytime hours so much as it is maximizing revenue out of every (expensive) MHz of spectrum available. The more they can level out those peak, daytime loads, the better.
Smithers, UMA is a broad GSM initiative, so T-Mobile definitely doesn’t have a log on it. I agree that the Tmo signal is fine just about anywhere I want to use it (though my particular phone does not roam on all their frequencies). They have been pushing HotSpot as an alternative for years, but at this point, their 3G rollout is happening next year, so I don’t know if this is buying much time. Staying very technical, they’re going to have the same problems as any GSM carrier (T-Mobile or AT&T) to go all out with 3G because the underlying technology is kind of stinky (from a technology standpoint). Both Verizon and Sprint are miles ahead with their CDMA-based, national EV/DO networks.
And speaking broadly…
If you think about it, this is almost entirely a return to the way things were with wireless to begin with, except the landline is replaced by (what is likely a) wired broadband connection, and you can use the same phone & number for “home” and “mobile” calling.
Whether it’s a good idea to have a 2.4GHz WiFi/Bluetooth radio next to your head… I don’t know. It won’t be more than a few years before we definitively figure out whether all this radiation is killing us or not.
I need stuff to do at work.
Champs & Smithers… I’m mainly thinking out loud in my ealrier comments and appreciate both of your insights.
I’m curious to see how it plays out over time. I think T Mobile has gone in the right direction with being open to othe WiFi networks, but from what Champs is saying that is part of the UMA initiative.
I’m interested to see how the others reply to this. ATT has their head up thier but, as seen by the Apple iPhone lockdown. I expect Qwest will find some way to package the DSL/ISP/Cell services together, but I expect the consumer will get the short end of the stick on that one (it is Quest…) Same if a Time-Warner or Comcast tries to get in on it.
My only other thought is that a rival cell company could now justify buying up somebody like Skype to get jump on the service and fees. But who knows… probably not worth the integration headache.
If I needed a cell phone currently, this would really tip me towards buying T Mobile now. Sadly I’m a hippy so I use Working Assets.