The author thinks AT&T is selling AT&T Wireless, doesn't encourage faith in
the rest of the piece :). In general, full of sloppy phrasing and
half-understood concepts. The 'calls over wifi are set up quicker', for
example, simply confuses the fact that you use VOIP over WiFi with a claimed
advantage of VOIP over PSTN. WiFi has nothing to do with it.
Wi-fi phones today are only being used in closed systems - wireless PBXs, in
effect - and have no effct at all on conventional telcos per se. They only
have an effect if coverage is good enough for people to use them instead of
cellular phones. We had a huge argument here over this last summer, but the
key points are:
Will wifi coverage ever be good enough? Or would you have to look around for
a sign on the wall?
Will people bother to sign up for a separate service?
Will handsets be able to do wifi/cellular handover? Because if not, someone
making a wifi call would have to stand still.
With people already buying bundles of more cellular minutes than they can
use, is the 'cheaper' angle offered by wifi (even if it were true) relevant?
Essentially, the only way to do a usable 'public wifi' voice service is in
partnership with the cellular operators.
B
-----Original Message-----
From: keitai-l-bounce@appelsiini.net [mailto:keitai-l-bounce@appelsiini.net]
On Behalf Of James John McGuire
Sent: 16 February 2004 08:46
To: keitai-l@appelsiini.net
Subject: (keitai-l) Article: Wi-Fi Could Make Cellphones Obsolete
Interesting perspective. Curious as to people's opinions
http://www.netstumbler.com/article.php?sid=1116&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0
Some interesting quotes:
"Wi-Fi can be used to route calls over the Internet typically at much higher
speeds than traditional dial-up connections. "
"Cisco Systems, Inc., one of the nation's largest telecommunications
equipment providers, has equipped 1,000 corporate customers with Wi-Fi
phones since last summer. The company says its Wi-Fi phones are replacing
about 6,000 traditional phones each day."
James
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Received on Mon Feb 16 11:48:00 2004