Vonage subscribers in the U.K. will soon be able to make mobile phone calls over the Internet, reports C/Net.
Vonage and Wi-Fi hot spot operator The Cloud are working together to launch the service. Vonage subscribers who have paid for a specially enabled Wi-Fi mobile handset can make calls charged at landline rates from any of The Cloud’s hot spots in the U.K.
Vonage users will access The Cloud’s network via their Wi-Fi phone as soon as they are within range. There will be no password or user logon process; users will pick up the Wi-Fi signal strength and be able to make and receive calls immediately. Pricing will be included in the standard £7.99 a month “Residential Unlimited” package from Vonage, which includes unlimited calls to UK and Irish landlines as well as to other Vonage customers wherever they are in the world.
The deal between Vonage and The Cloud will see Vonage customers using their Wi-Fi phone whenever they are in range of a hotspot from The Cloud. These include all major UK airports, First Great Western train stations, Coffee Republic outlets, Little Chef cafes, Swallow Hotels, as well as over 4,000 pubs and regional hotels across the country.
In addition to conventional Wi-Fi coverage, The Cloud is also launching a number of city centre hotzones in Birmingham, Cambridge, Edinburgh, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Nottingham and Oxford, along with the London boroughs of Kensington and Chelsea, Camden and Islington.
Kineto Wireless has teamed with Wi-Fi network integrator Boingo Wireless to ensure full interoperability between Boingo’s Wi-Fi and Kineto Wireless’ (UMA) system.
Initially targeted for UMA-enabled Windows Mobile 5-based devices, the collaboration means mobile and integrated operators will be able to extend mobile voice, data, and IMS services to their customers via the Boingo Roaming System.
Nokia and Motorola, the world’s biggest branded handset makers, both unveiled WiFi cell phones that can switch between cellular coverage outdoors and cheap wireless Internet calling inside — all on a single phone number.
Samsung’s SGH-T709, expected to be available for T-Mobile users, is a new slider phone that allows seamless handoffs from a wide area cellular network to Wi-Fi using Unlicensed Mobile Access (UMA) technology.
The new Motorola A910 (below), the Nokia 6136 and Samsung’s T709 handsets can connect to the Internet via WiFi and can be used as a normal cellular phone using UMA.
UMA merges GSM and Wi-Fi. That could be useful for T-Mobile hotspots or with Cingular/SBC hotspots. Wi-Fi delivered telephony would not use cellular minutes and it could reach indoors when cellular has problems.
But there’s no standard for doing the same with CDMA yet. That could be a problem for Sprint’s planned cable tv offering which would offer WiFi telephony through a cable modem and switch to cellular outside the home. Kyocera Wireless, however, demoed a phone that merges CDMA with voice over Wi-Fi at CTIA. QUALCOMM’s Mobile Station Modem (MSM™) chipsets will offer connectivity to WiFi as well as to existing CDMA networks as well as Quad-Band GSM Standards.
The biggest problem with WiFi phones may be power. The GSM sleep cycle is maybe half a second or so, which means you’re only awake 1% of the time. But you’re not missing any phone calls. That was built into the GSM standard in 1986. Wi-Fi doesn’t have any of these tricks. It’s consuming power all the time. You might be lucky to get more than a few hours standby time.
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