Nokia Rocks: WiFi and GSM merge!

Oliver Thylmann on February 13, 2006  ·  Log in to Reply

Now that’s a complicated thing to do! I wrote a Knowledge Base Article for infoSync world once on Roaming, including a touch on Data Roaming. Making sure that my data stream continues without interruption while I roam from my T-Mobile UMTS connection to my FON->ISP23-Germany to FON->ISP12-Belgium to Base-Belgium UMTS is a bit tricky 🙂 Sadly this is probably an ISP Problem and you might not be able to do anything about it, but I’d love it to happen.

Charles on February 15, 2006  ·  Log in to Reply

I am at GSM World and checked out the Nokia 6136 definately the best thing at the show. Blogged about GSM world here: http://www.recursivetechnology.com/archives/000239.php#000239

Do you accept trackbacks?
Charles

Antoin O Lachtnain on February 16, 2006  ·  Log in to Reply

All this UMA stuff seems to me be a hopelessly overengineered, paperwork-laden, patent-ridden solution to a very simple, specific problem. I have a UMA-type solution in operation, but without needing all the UMA overhead. What happens is this: when you ring my office number, my VoIP phone and my mobile phone both ring. Whichever phone I answer first, it gets the call. If I answer the VoIP phone, it costs nothing; if I answer the GSM phone it costs me 16c/minute.

It’s simple to implement through asterisk configuration. There’s no reason why the VoIP phone and the GSM phone couldn’t be combined in one device such as the new Nokia phone.

My poor-man’s-UMA won’t let me seamlessly move between GSM and wi-fi in the middle of a call of course, but who cares really? In practice handover is not really a flier with consumers, because the user will end up paying far higher rates without realising what has happened.

There is also the little problem of how much a incoming call to a UMA phone will cost. Will it be the same as a call to a VoIP line or the same as a call to a GSM phone line? If it’s a call to a GSM phone line (which makes commercial sense) then it’s a complete rip-off because the caller is now paying a massive premium to use a completely free network. (If you do things the way I suggest, then the caller always pays a low rate, and I have to pay the GSM charges if I choose to accept the call on the GSM network.)

UMA proponents will say that you have to tie the wi-fi part into the GSM architecture in order to keep track of where the phone is. This is just not true. There are far simpler ways of keeping track of the phone at the IP layer.

r.s. on February 20, 2006  ·  Log in to Reply

But when the Telco and ISP are one and the same person they probably don’t need Fon. When we take a look at Wanadoo in France and the Netherlands, they announced some thime ago that the name Wanadoo will be changed in Orange…the same as the mobile devision.

At my place I installed Wanadoo family & livebox…why? The 20 Mbps connection is dirty cheap (22 euro’s a month). But what’s inside? Bluetooth standard and the WiFi AP (cardbus) is optional.

Currently they are selling a package deal (and they aren’t the only one); broadband, fixed phone and a mobile phone connection (connected by orange). So what if they decided to use UMA? They “own/manage” your connections…so you as a customer don’t notice if they are using your broadband connection (or your neighbours) or the gsm network for your phonecalls…..Will customers go for the convenience of a flat fee bill with one company and do I care with which network I connect? And do these Telco/ISP’s need fon to achieve this?

Vodafone was experimenting with mobile-IP (broadband/gsm/umts) two years ago at my university and with succes..it worked perfectly.

Don’t misunderstand me…I like the WiFi for free idea and I’m at the end of the development phase of a unique solution/proposition for public locations myself…but it will be hard to sell Fon (inside) as a brand on all WiFi routers if the Telco/ISP’s aren’t willing to co-operate.

regards,
r.s.