Rants And Ramblings About Mobile Technology
Anders Borg writing about the fun and crazy world of mobile and Internet service technologies.
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Friday, May 26, 2006
An opportunity for would-be entrepreneurs: fixed-mobile convergence
It's kind of funny we still use both mobile phones and land-line phones, the mobile phone being individual but expensive over time, and the landline phone being common for a household but much less expensive over time.
The broadband ISPs as well as independent players like Skype, Net2Phone, Vonage etc fight for replacing the landline with telephony via broadband, but also has an opportunity to provide the same functionality over mobile networks and Wi-Fi or WiMAX hot spots. As the mobile operator is between you and the other party when calling via the mobile network, providers like Skype can't lower that cost to a "landline killer" level. At least not in Europe. Hence, participation from mobile operators is needed to make the convergence realistic, but do they want to?
People that claim that Wi-Fi hot spots threaten mobile networks don't know what they are talking about. The coverage of Wi-Fi from a global perspective (and even from an urban perspective) is still laughable.
I'm now closing down my landline connection to use only mobile and broadband.
Fixed-Mobile Convergence Called Disruptive - Yahoo! News
The broadband ISPs as well as independent players like Skype, Net2Phone, Vonage etc fight for replacing the landline with telephony via broadband, but also has an opportunity to provide the same functionality over mobile networks and Wi-Fi or WiMAX hot spots. As the mobile operator is between you and the other party when calling via the mobile network, providers like Skype can't lower that cost to a "landline killer" level. At least not in Europe. Hence, participation from mobile operators is needed to make the convergence realistic, but do they want to?
People that claim that Wi-Fi hot spots threaten mobile networks don't know what they are talking about. The coverage of Wi-Fi from a global perspective (and even from an urban perspective) is still laughable.
I'm now closing down my landline connection to use only mobile and broadband.
Fixed-Mobile Convergence Called Disruptive - Yahoo! News
