Receive new posts as email.
RSS 0.91 | RSS 2.0
RDF | Atom
Podcast only feed (RSS 2.0 format)
Get an RSS reader
Get a Podcast receiver
| Sun | Mon | Tues | Wed | Thurs | Fri | Sat |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ||||||
| 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 |
| 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 |
| 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 |
| 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 |
| 30 |
This site operates as an independent editorial operation. Advertising, sponsorships, and other non-editorial materials represent the opinions and messages of their respective origins, and not of the site operator or JiWire, Inc.
Entire site and all contents except otherwise noted © Copyright 2001-2006 by Glenn Fleishman. Some images ©2006 Jupiterimages Corporation. All rights reserved. Please contact us for reprint rights. Linking is, of course, free and encouraged.
Powered by
Movable Type
Startup VoIP provider DeFi makes big claims, but delivers worldwide calling from a smartphone for $40 or $50 per month: DeFi has a very stripped down business model designed to appeal to a specific, but large class of traveler. They make software that’s currently available for Nokia S60 phones (E and N series), and later this year for the iPhone, that acts as a kind of VoIP shunt for calling behavior. When you place a call, the software determines whether you’re on a Wi-Fi network, and routes the call out that way; if not, it goes to cell. It also routes inbound calls, and can ring your cell phone’s number if you’re not on a Wi-Fi network and your inbound DeFi number gets a call.
For $40 or $50 per month (1 or 3 inbound phone numbers, respectively, in any of about 30 countries), you get 3,000 minutes (they call it “unlimited”) of calling to and from 75 countries. This includes cell lines in Europe, typically a huge extra for most VoIP plans. DeFi said they signed deals directly with carriers, which they say most VoIP providers have not.
Wi-Fi access works at what they say is “1 million” hotspots, but is really Fon plus several tens of thousands of typical hotel, café, and airport venues. Wi-Fi fees are included for VoIP and data in the monthly subscription. DeFi uses Devicescape behind the scenes to handle no-entry authentication to their Wi-Fi footprint.
The integration is the key point DeFi makes about their product, and may be a stumbling block for an iPhone application. The head of DeFi told me that the company wants their service to require no behavioral changes for customers. Of course, users still have to make sure when they’re in areas in which a cell call would be expensive that they don’t accidentally wander away from a Wi-Fi hotspot. And Apple doesn’t currently allow the kind of integration that would be required for call handling and interception, although DeFi said it’s having no problems in its development work.
Posted by Glennf at 10:49 AM | Comments (0)
Think-tank wonders whether banning in-flight VoIP constitutes a violation of FCC rules about blocking services: The Progress and Freedom Foundation’s Barbara Espin uses the ban on in-flight VoIP by American Airlines (facilitated by provider Aircell) to make a broader argument about what she calls the FCC’s “ad hoc approach to broadband network management issues.” It’s clever. American discloses that calling isn’t allowed, and VoIP isn’t even technically within the FAA or FCC’s purview, as far as I can determine. The FAA could choose to regulate it as a safety issue. PFF generally tilts anti-regulation, and has as what it calls its “supporters” a broad area of multiple system cable operators and telecom firms, including Comcast, which was singled out and fined by the FCC for its undisclosed network disruption of P2P connections.
Espin references Joe Sharkey’s excellent column on in-flight calling in Sunday’s New York Times: Sharkey, a veteran travel writer, who survived a mid-air collision over the Brazilian Amazon a few years ago, looks at varying attitudes about calls made during flights. He quotes Aircell’s Jack Blumenstein saying what I’ve telling folks for months: Aircell has a lot of techniques to block VoIP calls already, and “as we identify new ways that people are trying to do voice calls on the airplane, we just kind of zero in and knock those off.” Many geeks have assumed Aircell is a bunch of unsavvy folks who wouldn’t be able to figure out how to disrupt their clever workarounds for making VoIP. (I keep noting that introducing jitter for suspicious data connections wouldn’t disrupt legitimate applications, but would destroy VoIP call quality.)
Posted by Glennf at 9:50 AM | Comments (0)
While driving by the Fremont Troll, I explain the new flat-rate paradigm of carriers, driven by competition from Wi-Fi, Skype, and other factors
Posted by Glennf at 7:32 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
T-Mobile rolls out its latest HotSpot@Home offering, Talk Forever Home Service, in Seattle and Dallas: The service, launching in those two markets on 21-Feb-2008, uses a new Linksys router that has two integral RJ11 phone jacks, and accepts SIM cell authentication modules for each line. T-Mobile can port your home numbers to the built-in lines, which also have 911 location information encoded based on your address.
The fee is just $10 per line per month for unlimited domestic calls—you can choose one or two lines—and includes all the features found on cell phones, such as Caller ID, 3-way conferencing, call forwarding, and others. The router costs $49 with a two-year commitment, and the service requires a broadband connection. (This router was spotted on the FCC’s site in August 2007, so this isn’t much of a surprise; it’s all in the timing.)
This new service works alongside the existing HotSpot@Home offering, which allows converged Wi-Fi and cell calling using one of four handset/smartphone models that T-Mobile offers. Pricing was recently lowered for this service to $10 per month for unlimited domestic calling on up to 4 cell phones, making it an easier win for family plans. You can choose either or both the mobile or landline-replacmenent services, but the newer router is required for landline calling.
T-Mobile will still suffer from the same ills that befall standard VoIP (voice over IP) systems like Vonage, because they can’t guarantee the transit of data reliably between their supplied router over the customer’s broadband connection to their voice gateway. But unlike Vonage, they control a lot of network components, and are less beholden to third parties. And as part of Deutsche Telekom, they’re in a better position to complain and see it through if they’re discriminated against by competitors.
Both HotSpot@Home and Talk Forever Home require a minimum $40 per month voice calling plan. That means if you sign up for both the mobile and fixed plans, you spend a total of $60 for unlimited home calling on a single line; unlimited weekend and evening calling; either 300 minutes with a MyFaves package (unlimited calls to 5 other domestic numbers of any type) or 1,000 minutes with a current standard individual plan promotion; and unlimited mobile calls originating on Wi-Fi, whether at home or in hotspots. (T-Mobile has a 5-year deal in place with AT&T to cover Starbucks locations as AT&T takes over operations this year of the coffeeshop’s Wi-Fi.)
Joe Sims, T-Mobile’s broadband products vice president and general manager, said in an interview that they were looking to “address the remaining reasons people were reluctant to cut the cord” and ditch their home wireline service. They found that 50 percent of those signing up for HotSpot@Home are new customers to T-Mobile, and were happy with the service’s general uptake, but wanted to remove the last stumbling block to bring landline customers (of other telecoms) over to the service. One in 8 households have cell-only service, Sims said.
Sims noted that this is the “very first T-Mobile product with a dial tone.” He also said that the company would have a total of 10 handset models by the time school starts this fall, up from 4 models currently. The World Mobile Congress last week in Barcelona saw the introduction and demonstration of piles of dual-mode cell/Wi-Fi phones, some of which include UMA (unlicensed mobile access), which is the specific technology T-Mobile deployed.
The home line service rolled out to Dallas and Seattle—my home town—can’t handle fax machines or alarm systems yet, which is an important proviso. Electronic fax services like Maxemail can more cheaply replace a dedicated fax line, however, and newer alarm systems can be fitted with cellular calling. If you cut your monthly landline bill by $40 per month or more with this service and your long-distance bill by $20 to $40 per month, you might have the money to shift over to the alarm system.
Sims also commented on the Starbucks deal, noting it was critical to T-Mobile that “our customer experience didn’t change.” I asked if T-Mobile, now having consummated a real roaming relationship—it had some roaming deals for airports and international networks before—might consider other partners, given that their HotSpot@Home service would benefit from a greater number of locations for placing calls. He said, “Going forward, we are looking at other roaming partners. It’s less about the footprint and more about the service.”
Posted by Glennf at 9:01 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
I need to introduce a new concept into Wi-Fi access: not backhaul, but backside utility: That is, how useful is a Wi-Fi location if you can’t sit down comfortably and without risk of expulsion? (An alternative construction might be an “assiness index,” but that’s too offensive for regular use.)
My essential problem with Fon is that there’s no good way to determine how many of what they describe as nearly 200,000 Fonero locations are really hotspots rather than an antenna sticking out of a house or some inconvenient location. To me, a hotspot is a spot with high backside utility. If I can’t sit down, potentially get electrical usage, but at least sling my bag somewhere, I can’t work productively for long.
Making a phone call requires little backside utility. You can stand and walk around the pavement to make a call, often in inclement weather, as long as ambient noise isn’t too high. But at 11 pm in a residential neighborhood, you’re unlikely to make that phone call—or the police might be called.
In speaking recently to the BusinessWeek editor who wrote up the Fon/BT deal, I tried to explain how I debate Fon’s count of 200,000 locations as comparable to 200,000 hotspots, because Fon doesn’t have airports, convention centers, downtown hotzones, parks, or metro-scale networks. All of those vary among their backside utility, the captive-user potential, and the public-access-without-harassment possibility. But they’re all large. Access across 1m sq ft of an airport isn’t comparable to a sliver of use on a street in Barcelona outside someone’s apartment.
Thus I was remiss in my discussion of the BT deal in mentioning that Fon could be a key improvement in BT’s converged calling (unlicensed mobile access or UMA) service called Fusion. BT spun off its cell side, so in order to make Fusion work, they need as many minutes spent at home or at OpenZone hotspots to keep from burning up GSM minutes. If a good hunk of BT’s wired DSL customers flip the Fon switch, then there is, in fact, a high probability that a Fusion user would see a dramatic improvement in how few minutes were fried via GSM. This reduces BT’s cost and improves a Fusion subscriber’s monthly bill, too, if they would otherwise have gone over their minutes’ pool. They would likely see better coverage in areas with poor cell service, too.
So while I want to emphasize that backside utility and public use without harassment are two factors in how you might say whether a location is a hotspot or just lukewarm, applications are a critical component. If I need to look up a fact on my smartphone, and I can use Wi-Fi to do so via a Fonero’s network, that’s very high utility and I don’t need to sit down or linger. If I want to spend 60 minutes reading email on a laptop, I need a seat.
Posted by Glennf at 2:13 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
News outlets are reporting on the FCC filing by T-Mobile for a VoIP/Wi-Fi router: The filing shows an unannounced Linksys WRTU54G Wi-Fi router, much like the ones that T-Mobile is selling along with its HotSpot@Home service to ensure the best quality of service and battery performance for their Wi-Fi/cell handsets when used in the home. The only difference? The router up for certification has two phone jack plugs, similar to those found on telephone adapters used for VoIP services, including other models sold by Linksys.
The fact is that unlicensed mobile access (UMA), the technology underlying T-Mobile’s converged calling plan, matches regular GSM calling over cellular networks with VoIP over the Internet via Wi-Fi. The VoIP part is encrypted using GSM technologies, but between the Wi-Fi/cell handset and the Internet portal on T-Mobile’s network where the voice conversation pops out, the call has all the problems and benefits of pure VoIP.
Writers at TG Daily (the original source of this information) and News.com mistake the reason for the router’s ability to accept up to two GSM SIM cards. The writers talk about how it might be “merely a way to get up to two phone numbers into the WRTU54G” (TG Daily) and that the cards “would also allow users to add up to two additional cell phone lines” (News.com).
Not right. To perform GSM authentication and encryption, a device has to have a SIM. For the router to work interoperably with T-Mobile’s UMA gateways, it has to make VoIP look like encapsulated GSM, which means that a SIM is required. A UMA handset treats a Wi-Fi network like another cell tower. A router with landline-style phones that can make UMA VoIP calls only on the Internet side is actually three layers of pretense: A landline phone is pretending to work like a landline phone; the router is pretending it’s on a GSM network; calls placed are pretending that they’re being made from a cell handset.
It’s a little contrived, but it allows T-Mobile to leverage 100-percent of its existing infrastructure, with perhaps a slight increase in cost on the SIM side. The routers don’t add any additional cost to T-Mobile handling calls, except increased call volume, but 100 percent of that volume would come on the Internet side, far cheaper to handle than on the cellular side.
The big issue in my book is pricing. T-Mobile’s requires at least a $40/voice subscription to use HotSpot@Home. You can then pay $10/month for one line or $20/month for two to five lines for unlimited Wi-Fi minutes, or choose to use minutes from your cell pool for Wi-Fi calls. (The rate rises this fall, apparently, to $20 for one line and $30 for multiple lines, but the initial rate applies indefinitely to anyone who signs up in the early period.)
Would T-Mobile decide to include the one or two lines in the Linksys router as FamilyTalk additional lines, lumping them into the monthly multiple-line fee, in the interests of making sure to capture more revenue, and perhaps convert more family members on the cell side? Or would there be an additional fee, perhaps $10 per month, to acknowledge the additional calling that would take place? Would integrated voicemail across multiple lines be provided? Could you easily forward your cell to the landlines so that as you arrive home, your calls come in on a cordless not a cell? Is this another tool in T-Mobile’s arsenal against Vonage et al.?
A lot of questions remain to be answered, but it could be a unique combination of services that would increase ARPU (average revenue per user), especially in families, while decreasing the cost of delivering service, and decreasing churn.
Posted by Glennf at 1:48 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
T-Mobile expands HotSpot@Home, a Wi-Fi plus cell system, to the whole U.S.: The company first offered their version of unlicensed mobile access (UMA) system in Washington state last fall. The ongoing commercial trial was apparently a success, and the company pulled the trigger Wednesday morning, June 27. T-Mobile has updated the pricing, handsets, and routers from their Washington trial, although basic service still starts at $20 per month for unlimited domestic U.S. calls originating on Wi-Fi.
UMA service treats trusted Wi-Fi networks as just more GSM cell transceivers. This requires new handsets that have both Wi-Fi and GSM radios, and which can operate both radios simultaneously to allow a seamless handoff between GSM and Wi-Fi (in either direction), just as cell networks hand off between two transceivers. “This is GSM over Wi-Fi,” said T-Mobile spokesperson Tom Harlin.
The advantage of UMA is typically twofold: it infills areas that have poor coverage, such as inside buildings and homes, by using Wi-Fi as it’s intended to work, covering interior spaces; and it’s cheaper to carry service over Wi-Fi and consequently the Internet than it is to shuttle voice calls over a cell network.
T-Mobile’s plan offers unlimited domestic U.S. calling for $20 per month for a single line or $30 per month for two or more lines. A minimum $40-per-month voice plan is required for a single line; $50 for a family plan. You can also choose to make Wi-Fi calls out of a cell minutes pool at no additional monthly charge, which might make sense when you’re looking for better coverage rather than cheaper minutes. An introductory lifetime offer through mid-September offers unlimited individual plan calling for $10 per month and two or more lines for $20 per month; that price remains for as long as a customer keeps the service.
Calls that originate on a Wi-Fi network are unmetered even when you roam onto the cell network. “Any call that originates on Wi-Fi, the whole duration of that call is free and doesn’t use cell phone minutes,” said Britt Wehrman, director of product development. Conversely, calls originating on the cell network tick away your minutes even if you wander onto Wi-Fi.
Continue reading "T-Mobile Takes Cell/Wi-Fi Calling National"
Posted by Glennf at 9:01 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
The Wall Street Journal reports that T-Mobile will extend its converged cellular/Wi-Fi calling plan and hardware nationally: The plan, called HotSpot@Home, has been available in Washington State since October. The Journal calls that “Seattle” and “a few months,” a dramatic understatement of how long T-Mobile has taken to shake the bugs out of this service. I was starting to wonder whether T-Mobile would ever launch nationally. The launch could happen in mid-June.
The converged plan uses a handset with both GSM and Wi-Fi radios built in, allowing seamless roaming among preferred personal hotspots (home, for instance), the T-Mobile HotSpot network in the US, and the GSM network.
When I tried it and wrote it up for The New York Times last fall, the roaming part of the operation—from cell to Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi to cell—wasn’t up to snuff, but I like the Nokia phone I tried and Wi-Fi-based calls sounded great. The Journal says those problems have been ironed out through handset improvements, which I believe. The technology would seem to me to involve a lot of tweaking, rather than overcoming insurmountable odds.
The article notes that the $20 additional monthly fee for unlimited Wi-Fi calling, and $5 per month for subsequent phones in family plans, could be tweaked for the national rollout. In the Washington trial, you can also pay nothing and use normal minute plans to make Wi-Fi calls if you’re after improved call quality in your home instead of more minutes.
An intriguing option I hadn’t heard would be to extend the plan, allowing a landline connection in the home to use the same system, although it hasn’t been set for launch. This is extremely simple to do because it involves no roaming and probably very little hardware—an additional plug on the routers that T-Mobile offers to customers with this plan. The router is free ($50 minus a $50 rebate), and supports WMM Power Save for improved battery life and WMM for voice prioritization over the Wi-Fi network.
The reporter hasn’t done his homework, because he says that three European carriers are “launching” Wi-Fi phones: BT launched back in January, and seen 40,000 subscribers by early April, according to Light Reading. BT’s plan includes their OpenZone hotspots, home service, and GSM as well. France Telecom’s Unik converged service has done far better, with 100,000 subscribers, due in part to the telecom’s success with a bundled broadband offering that has put 3.5m gateways into homes. These gateways are optimized for calling over Wi-Fi; BT and T-Mobile need to get gateways into homes, which is a higher bar to gain customers.
Posted by Glennf at 8:01 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
EarthLink will test a custom Accton voice over IP (VoIP) over Wi-Fi phone on their metro-scale networks, starting in Anaheim: The service and handset are free during a testing period, and includes only domestic calling in this period. The phone’s charging cradle is also an 802.11g gateway. Anaheim customers can contact the company to sign up for testing; Anaheim is one of EarthLink’s earlier large-scale deployments.
The phone and cradle/gateway are expected to cost $100 at launch. Unlimited domestic inbound and outbound calling will likely be $25 per month, and 500 outbound/unlimited inbound domestic calls would run $15 per month.
The service and phone don’t require a subscription to EarthLink’s metro-scale network, as it will work with any broadband network. Of course, if you want wide-area roaming, their networks are the obvious choice as a provider.
Posted by Glennf at 5:00 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Boingo launches $8/month worldwide VoIP over Wi-Fi plan: The firm had soft-launched this offering before, providing it as an option for Belkin’s Skype phone and offering details to the press. It’s now formally out there as Boingo Mobile—flat-rate, non-metered, worldwide Wi-Fi phone access. Boingo’s Internet access service is a flat $22 per month for US locations, but has metered rates at many non-US hotspots.
Boingo Mobile can be downloaded as a software add-on for Windows Mobile 5-based smartphones and PocketPC handhelds. The company expects operators and handset makers to offer integration, too.
At the 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, Boingo’s technology was shown running on the Symbian OS, the smartphone platform that powers 70 percent of such phones worldwide (and almost none in the US). They will be demonstrating the service on a Nokia S60—70m of this series of phone are already on the market.
Also at the conference, Boingo announced an operator-focused server platform that allows remote setup of the Wi-Fi side of handsets without the user having to make any changes themselves. This allows operators to customize the phone’s service plan, or remotely enable service when an existing user with a capable handset wants to turn on Wi-Fi access.
Posted by Glennf at 5:00 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
The Wi-Fi Alliance says that nearly 100 handsets are certified: The group has certified 82 dual-mode handsets and 10 Wi-Fi-only phones. The idea of certifying voice handsets that incorporate Wi-Fi allows the alliance to ensure both interoperability and better performance. Frank Hanzlik, the alliance’s executive director, said in an interview that this testing helps the manufacturer produce devices that function better in difficult RF environments, as well as align the phone’s function relative to Wi-Fi gateways. The alliance has also been working closely with the CTIA, the cell industry’s trade group.
Hanzlik said that he has been working to raise awareness of the WMM (Wireless Multimedia) extensions that allow voice packets to achieve priority across a network, WPA2 security, and the special WMM Power Save mode, which can extend battery life by 25 to 40 percent on a handset through better management of unnecessary communications with a gateway. Hanzlik expects over time to see WMM and WMM Power Save in more gateways. WMM Power Save could be a simple upgrade for most routers, as it requires no changes in the radio. Incompatible power save modes can actually waste power, and the alliance would like all makers to move towards their certified version.
For large-scale hotspot networks, moving to WMM Power Save could dramatically improve the experience of mobile users making Wi-Fi calls. “When you look at these very, very large operators like T-Mobile here in the US, or some of the folks in the Wireless Broadband Alliance [a worldwide consortium of hotspot operators], we’re trying to get the word out to these folks” to upgrade their networks or plan to include WMM Power Save from the beginning.
Posted by Glennf at 10:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Reuter reports that Fon could move from grassroots to mainstream: Fon, so far, has build its tens of thousands of nodes mostly through individuals who obtain a router from them or flash an existing device with new firmware, and set up shop. Although some ISPs allow and some tolerate sharing a connection via Fon, only a few actively encourage it. This could change, Reuters reports, if a deal with BT goes through.
Under the deal, which BT and Fon wouldn’t comment on for Reuters, BT would allow its millions of broadband users to share their networks with Fon, and BT’s Fusion mobile callers—who can call over Wi-Fi or cell using UMA (unlicensed mobile access)—could access Fon’s nodes to place calls. Fon claims 250,000 Foneros, but a smaller number of active nodes.
The Fusion plan would benefit from BT-broadband-backed Wi-Fi nodes because BT can separate VoIP packets on their side of the broadband connection, providing a higher-quality service than a company like Vonage, which must push VoIP packets over the broadband connection out to the Internet, over an unpredictable route.
The article claims that BT could push software to its routers to enable Fon, but I imagine that’s an oversimplification—unless most BT broadband users also received a Wi-Fi router from BT, and it’s a router that they can insert Fon software into.
Posted by Glennf at 7:45 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Apple will ship AirPort Extreme with Draft N in February: The former-computer company—renamed from Apple Computer to just Apple today—has gone Draft N happy. Their version will have no new, special name, and support both 2.4 GHz (802.11b/g/n) and 5 GHz (802.11a/n). Computers shipped to date with Intel Core 2 Duo chips (with the exception of a single iM
ac model) can be upgraded to add Draft N capability through a firmware patch due in February along with the updated base station. The new AirPort Extreme will cost $179. It looks like Apple will not refresh its Extreme Card as all new Macs and other Apple gear, like today’s iPhone due in June, will include 802.11n built in. The device has a new form factor, with similar width and height to a Mac mini and Apple TV.
The iPhone will support EDGE and Wi-Fi: The iPhone is months from shipping, and will run $499 or $599 (4 GB or 8 GB) at introduction. The subscription plan cost from Cingular Wireless, its exclusive reseller, wasn’t mentioned. The iPhone will automatically switch between Wi-Fi and EDGE for retrieving data as networks are available. With a fully enabled Web browser built in, iPhone users will be able to access hotspots that other phone users can only reach with an effort or not at all. There was no mention of converged calling over Wi-Fi and cell, or even VoIP applications—which makes sense given Cingular’s voice focus. Apple said you cannot make calls (at this point) over Wi-Fi. That may change by introduction, or may be a future plan as AT&T plots Cingular’s converged future.
Finally, the Apple TV, the release name for the codenamed iTV, will stream and store content: The $299 device, shipping in February, has Ethernet, 802.11n, HDMI (high-def audio/video), and composite video, as well as analog and optical digital audio outputs. It can synchronize content with one networked computer, Mac or Windows, and stream content from five networked machines. It sports a 40 GB hard drive.
I’m here at Macworld Expo, and will file more Wi-Fi-related news if it comes up.
Posted by Glennf at 12:47 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
Vonage signs three contract to resell EarthLink’s metro-scale Wi-Fi networks its voice customers: Interesting synergy, because it’s a wholesaler-retailer relationship, not exactly a strategic partnership, because EarthLink is generally constrained to offer non-disriminatory wholesale access to all its metro-scale networks by contract with the cities it is working with. While EarthLink has its own VoIP service it’s been selling, and is looking to expand, Vonage is a great reseller of this kind of service, as they will be able to leverage offer Wi-Fi-based VoIP phones this year with the greater coverage of a citywide network.
This highlights, once again, that people will need per-human-being or per-family accounts that many devices can access at different rates than full-price-per-device. This is Devicescape’s whole point of its new service, and its only becoming more obvious over time.
Posted by Glennf at 12:56 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
On the heels of my tests of T-Mobile’s HotSpot@Home converged cell/Wi-Fi calling service, I put together a chart of the offerings: I’ve created a chart you can download as a PDF or view as HTML that compares the major combinations of service offerings for VoIP, Internet telephony, and their Wi-Fi components. For instance, Vonage and Speakeasy’s Home VoIP service are both wireline voice plans that rely on an existing home broadband network. They’re fairly close in intent to pure-play voice as a landline replacement.
In contrast, Skype’s partners offer Wi-Fi phones but with the exception of Belkin’s—treated separately—Skype phones are meant for unprotected, purposely open, or WEP/WPA/WPA2 secured networks. Few hotspots need apply. Belkin’s Skype phone, with firmware I received and installed today, can use Boingo’s $8 per month mobile service to access over 8,000 hotspots in the US and over 35,000 worldwide. (See article from earlier today.)
I’d welcome any comments on the chart. It’s tricky to present online, as most tabular data is, which is why I’ve relied on PDF.
Posted by Glennf at 4:13 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Boingo Wireless wrote to note that their new VoIP pricing at hotspots includes all locations: On Dec. 7, Belkin announced their Skype phone that would work with a Boingo hotspot service plan. At the time, I assumed that the $8/month fee for unlimited VoIP usage would be subject to the same restrictions that applied to Boingo’s pure data plan: US and Canadian locations are included in their $22/month charge for “unlimited” access, while negotiated metered rates apply to many locations outside North America.
Not so, Boingo says. The VoIP plan is really Boingo Mobile, a new service aimed at the category of mobile devices that sport Wi-Fi. This will be a large category in 2007, with potentially tens of millions of units across games, cameras, phones, and handhelds sold worldwide. And tens of millions might be too low a number. Despite predictions that cell data networks will improve in speed and coverage, there are no cameras or gaming systems that use cell networks for connectivity, and no plans that I’m aware of because of the heavy data demand that real cameras (not phonecams) and interactive games would place on the limited bandwidth of cell networks.
Boingo said that their $8 per month mobile service buys you unlimited access from supported devices at all their locations—no metered charges will apply. Right now, the focus is on phones, but that will change. As Devicescape noted in their beta launch of their method of making it easier to log into Wi-Fi networks from mobile devices, current account systems require a unique paid account for each unique use—you can’t use your T-Mobile account on two laptops at once, but you also can’t use it on a phone, camera, and laptop. New pricing models have to evolve to allow unique devices you own to have their own subscriptions under a super-account you manage.
Boingo’s network now stands at about 35,000 hotspots worldwide with about 19,000 more ready for near-term integration, and 6,000 others in various stages. However, not all 35,000 integrated locations work with VoIP yet, due to software and authentication updates that are in progress.
Posted by Glennf at 12:24 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
In Thursday’s New York Times, you can read my experience with HotSpot@Home: T-Mobile’s converged (unlicensed mobile access or UMA) cellular and Wi-Fi calling plan and hardware is available in only Washington state at this point. I tested the service for two weeks, and was quite impressed with overall quality, but handoffs between cell and Wi-Fi networks needs work. T-Mobile won’t be rolling this service out more broadly until the hiccups have been scared out of it. But for someone who needs mobility, the fixed cost of Wi-Fi calling, and who likes one of the two available phones, it’s a solid offering.
At $20 per month for unlimited calls within the US, T-Mobile can compete with Vonage on pure cost, as Vonage is $25 per month. Skype’s decision today to launch $30 per year unlimited calls within the US (and Canada), or less than $3 per month, puts another spanner in comparing plans.
But let’s be frank. T-Mobile is a phone company, and they know how to run a network. The intent with HotSpot@Home isn’t to make a super-generic Wi-Fi offering. Rather, it’s a way to lower customer costs at the same time as they increase loyalty. Their UMA offering is an integrated, single-bill package that’s a double-play (fixed location, as in the home, and mobile).
Vonage still has a lot of stutters—in their business and in their service—and the lack of a mobile component means you’re managing multiple phone numbers and devices. Would I drop a landline for Vonage? Hardly. And I can’t drop a mobile line, so it doesn’t buy me anything there.
Skype can’t provide reliable service yet—it’s not anywhere near telecom quality on average, although individual calls can be fantastic. I’ve made hundreds of hours of calls on Skype’s network this year, and despite having a 3 Mbps/768 Kbps connection at my office, the call quality and other parameters for Skype-to-Skype and SkypeIn/Out calling is all over the fence. It’s unacceptable to rely on for business calling without accepting that fact. I love, for instance, when calls go out of sync so there’s a several-second offset between myself and the other party.
Now Skype is starting to move into the double play by pushing Wi-Fi only phones, such as those from major Wi-Fi equipment makers. Belkin’s introduction of a Skype phone that can place calls using Boingo Wireless’s puts them closer to challenging cellular operators. And as Wi-Fi expands to broader coverage areas, perhaps Wi-Fi will be an alternative to mobile calling for some users. But I don’t buy it. Voice is very challenging, and Skype is starting already with an uneven service.
I’m watching T-Mobile HotSpot@Home very carefully, because they are the largest carrier in the world to push this as a service that they apparently plan to extend to their entire market. Their decisions in response to real-world performance will affect cellular customers and carriers in the US and internationally, and will also affect how VoIP develops in metro-scale Wi-Fi networks.
Update: British Telecom (BT) just launched their UMA service for SMBs (small-to-medium-sized businesses) in the UK. They’re offering the Nokia 6136 and the Motorola A910 handsets; the Samsung P200 will be added next month. They’re not offering unlimited calling for a flat rate, but the tariffs for Wi-Fi home/office/OpenZone calls are quite low: 5 pence (p) or less than US$.10 for up to 60 minutes to a UK landline; 15p to BT mobiles; 25p to other UK mobiles. Cellular rates are 25p maximum to all numbers for calls up to 60 minutes.
Posted by Glennf at 9:10 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
Skype’s unlimited calling to US and Canadian numbers ends Dec. 31, and they’ve have the next step: The promotion was ostensibly to see whether people would use the service when price wasn’t an issue. Sounds like the numbers came in at the level they wanted. The for-fee version rolls out Jan. 1, when $30 per year or less than $3 per month buys you unlimited calls to the US and Canada from anywhere that Skype operates.
This couples with new Skype Wi-Fi phones and plans, like Belkin’s phone that will work with Boingo’s aggregated hotspot network. The Belkin/Boingo plan is $8 per month for unlimited use of Boingo hotspots in the US and Canada; there’s usually a charge in Boingo’s network outside those two countries. The Belkin phone can authenticate with networks encrypted using WEP and WPA/WPA2 Personal, too, for calls on your home network.
Add the under-$3 calling plan, and that’s less than $11 per month for a Wi-Fi-only phone that could work remarkably like a cell phone. Quality of calls will be the real issue.
Posted by Glennf at 10:41 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Belkin announced a new feature for their Wi-Fi-enabled Skype phone that works with Boingo Wireless’s hotspot network today: The $180 list price phone will shortly work with an $8 per month Boingo Wireless VoIP subscription to place calls over the Skype network. As with other Skype phones, calls from the regular phone network via SkypeIn and back out via SkypeOut also work. Belkin’s site says “free unlimited calls” but that refers just to the Skype network. SkypeIn and SkypeOut have applicable charges for use. (The phone was slated for release a few days ago, but Amazon shows it in pre-release status.) Update: Boingo put out its press release a few days later.
The built-in authentication to Boingo’s network—listed at about 8,000 active locations in the U.S. on their hotspot directory—bypasses the problem of joining a Wi-Fi network via a device that lacks a Web browser or easy data entry. You can even register for Skype on the phone. Boingo, by the way, charges metered rates for many non-U.S. locations for general Wi-Fi access, but this VoIP subscription requires no additional fees beyond the monthly charge worldwide. Update: Boingo says that although they list 60,000 hotspots in their network, 35,000 are live and two enormous integration projects comprise nearly 20,000 more that will be live in the near future.
The phone is available in the U.S,. but the company told me the firmware upgrade for Boingo support is due out next Wednesday. The phone supports English, Chinese, and Korean, and will be released after its U.S. launch in Asia, Europe, and Australia.
Similar deals already exist in Europe. Truphone just announced a deal with The Cloud that supports certain Nokia phones with Wi-Fi. SMC recently released a Skype phone that works over Fon’s self-forming international network.
I wrote about Devicescape’s solution to this problem—maintaining login information on a separate Web site—earlier this week.
Posted by Glennf at 11:47 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Radio show on the future of phones: I was interviewed today for a good chunk of public radio station KUOW’s The Conversation program, in which we talked about how phones will evolve—and how far they’ve come. We talked about cell phones, smart phones, satellite networks, voice over Wi-Fi, and quite a lot more. You can see how techie the Seattle audience is around me based on the excellent questions sent via email and on the air. One caller was brave enough to use a Windows Mobile phone to place a Skype call—and he sounded great! (Available as MP3 or RealAudio stream.)
Posted by Glennf at 4:47 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack