I have found the wifi + cell phone momentum quite interesting and covered two early patents leading the trend.
So I’m on a flight and a guy behind me, sitting next to someone worthy of being impressed, talks about what any guy would want to talk about to chat it up, his new cell phone that his company, Cingular, is launching.. Goes like this…
“Yeah, this baby isn’t available yet and it let’s you flip between your WiFi network and your cell network. Since cell towers need to penetrate buildings and doesn’t do so effectively, this system will let you access the WiFi network when you go into a building and the cell network when you’re not. We’ll also be selling routers, though this will work with your Linksys, but our engineers say ours work better with the phone. Its gonna launch in about 30 days for an additional 20 bucks a month as an added service.”
No, no screams of iPhone joy coming from that row, and without a good eye on it, the gear remains a mystery.
Ok, so if i understand this right, I have to pay $20 a month extra to allow AT&T to use my wifi, my purchased router and run the call VOIP saving them costs (theoretically at least)?
If I were to pay this, I’d expect the voip to be free or discounted at the very least.
Wireless companies need to realize the end is coming. Brace for it, develop a plan to still be relevant (like outside wifi areas) and allow easy voip changes with a changing fee schedule perhaps?
As Wifi networks grow, these guys need to stop being old phone guys.
Just my opinion…then again, I once told the guy next to me on a plane I invented the rotary engine…
Love it.. can’t wait
I’m interested at how the WiFi portion will work. My office’s WiFi is encrypted with a rolling key that is granted through RADIUS authentication, without proper authentication access to the network is seriously limited. Plus I don’t know about the rest of the world but all the TCP/IP ports Voip uses are blocked for inbound and outbound on my WLAN so this would block those calls.
If Cingular is planning Ringo’s interpretation of this I think Cingular will get laughed at by IT and Security admins everywhere.
The Cingular service mentioned is the “tether” option for the 8125/8525 phones. It allows you to use your 812X phone as a broadband modem to your laptop. I don’t agree with the extra $20.00 a month on top of the $39.00 a month one must pay for a data plan, but it does work. I have mine tethered to my laptop via bluetooth.
Also, the 812X does work on your WiFi connection (home/office) via setup. There is no additional charge for this.
I just watched a blurb on Fox news (July 6th, 2007 – 3:20 pm) and it seems that it is not AT&T but tMoble who is offering this type of package. Once AT&T signed up with Apple…I have been looking for a new provider and this might be just what Tmoble needs to hold its own against all the iPhone hype. –
This is the link for the tMoble website.
http://www.t-mobile.com/promotions/hotspotathomelearnmore.aspx?WT.mc_n=HotSpotatHm_index&WT.mc_t=OnSite