Technology news and Jobs 
Cornered! WiFi VoIP competition to cellular about to get a lot tougher
Cornered! WiFi VoIP competition to cellular about to get a lot tougher | WiFi VoIP competition to cellular about to get a lot tougher |
|
|
|
| Written by Stuart Corner | |
| Wednesday, 09 January 2008 | |
|
These chips are now being shipped to handset manufacturers and Boingo and Broadcom have demonstration units on show at CES 2008 in Las Vegas. Boingo claims to provide access to more than 100,000 hotspots worldwide: those it owns in North America and through partnerships with more than 150 hotspot operators in other countries. This is just the latest development in a series over the past couple o years that have seen WiFi access, and particularly Boingo WiFi access, ramp up as competition to cellular telephony. In October 2007 Boingo announced a global deal with Nokia that enables owners of supported Nokia handsets anywhere in the world to download the Boingo Mobile client software onto their handset and access any hotpot operated by Boingo or one of its roaming partners for $US7.95 per month for what Boingo says is 'unlimited high-speed Internet access'. A year earlier an agreement between WiFi handset maker, SMC Networks, European WiFi hotspot operator, The Cloud, and Skype enabled owners of SMC's Skype-enabled handsets to place calls though any of The Cloud's 8500 hotspots throughout Europe Back in July 2005 Skype announced a partnership Biongo to enable people using Skype on a Windows PC to make phone calls via Boingo hotspots using a customised version of the Biongo software. From the press release announcing this latest initiative, it appears that these chipsets are designed for dedicated WiFi phones not dual-mode cellular/WiFi phones, but that development is unlikely to be long on coming. And it's not just voice: WiFi offers much cheaper, and faster data transfer than HSDPA. At the very least development of seamless WiFi internet access from dual mode cellular/WiFi phones is likely to drive operators more towards "unlimited' data plans, if competitive pressures haven't done so by the time this becomes more widespread. One fly in the ointment through is that most handsets are sold through cellular service providers as part of a service plan. They are hardly likely to push such dual mode handsets aggressively, or make the WiFi connectivity seamless.
Get stories like this delivered daily - FREE - subscribe now When you subscribe get a 12 months license for LiveProject Valued at $99 USD  Download the FREE iTWire desktop alert widget
  |
Tags
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
Subscribe to iTWire's daily e-newsletter now and get a FREE 12 month license to project management software valued at $99 USD. 
