Well most of you folks might have used Wi-Fi for voip and other messaging services. When we integrate the existing functionality of Wi-Fi and cellular, you could achieve different levels of convergence.
What I mean by Wi-Fi and cellular integration is a dual mode handset that supports both Wi-Fi and cellular technology. This makes the handset more powerful and you could integrate lot of different applications on the handset.
We are seeing lot of convergence happening in this space. However, voice convergence of Wi-Fi and cellular was something the operators were hesitant to embrace. Partly, this could be because, voice over Wi-Fi could dent the operator’s voice revenue. Also, QOS is another important thing operators were more concerned. Many carriers indeed offer some kind of Wi-Fi in various phone models they offer. However, for the most part, the Wi-Fi is designed for data, not voice. Currently, this trend is tilting towards the Wi-Fi and cellular voice convergence. With UMA support, user’s voice call can be seamlessly transferred from cellular to Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi to cellular based on the signal strengths. Enabling the dual-mode convergence is technology known as Unlicensed Mobile Access (UMA) developed by Kineto Wireless, which is now accepted by 3GPP’s industry standards. I guess dual mode voice convergence was hyped up as the first entry of FMC type application.
So here are some advantages I see with Wi-Fi cellular convergence.
1)Use Wi-Fi as transport for voice calls at home or office with good Wi-Fi coverage. Saves lot of money on the mobile minutes. Perfect for conference and group calls. Reduced prices for voice calls made from public Wi-Fi hotspots.
2)Strong in-home signal coverage. Weak home signal strength is one of the major complains customer have to the operators.
3)Faster data downloads.
4)Replace the landline with the Wi-Fi routers at home. ( I’m a little skeptical about this when it comes to emergency calling; you have workarounds, not sure how its gone pan out)
5)With the power of Wi-Fi on the handset, it can be used to run a lot of different applications that require data access. You could run some of the mobile voip applications like fring, truphone and mig33 from your handset.
6) Based on the Wi-Fi signal strength on the handset, applications can enable or disable different features that require more bandwidth. For e.g.: online gaming, video streaming etc.
7)Wi-Fi connectivity in a dual mode phone can offer five times the throughput versus 3G networks.
8)Convergence can provide an opportunity to the operator to build subscriber loyalty by allowing users to access applications such as email, web browsing, gaming and multimedia streaming.
So let’s look at how the operators are embracing this convergence. Apparently, T-Mobile USA was one of the first operators to harness the power of WiFi. Though T-Mobile doesn’t have its own landline service, they can boast about the Hotspots. Looks like HotSpot has become a crucial part of the company’s wireless broadband strategy. For the past couple of months, T-Mobile has launched three dual mode handsets that support Wi-Fi cellular convergence.
The latest being the Blackberry Curve 83200. ABI Research forecasts that in 2011, more than 325 million converged Wi-Fi / cellular phones will be shipped. This represents a 183% annual growth rate from the 2006 shipment total of 1.8 million. Wi-Fi / Mobile Convergence is expected to be a significant part of the Wi-Fi industry in the next few years, as the industry in total continues to grow at an estimated 25% per year. Other operators supporting this kind of service are Orange, Telecom Italia and TeliaSonera.
This article is written by Guest blogger Ravi. Ravi has been working for startups for more than 10 years now. mostly telecommunication and wireless. Ravi maintains a technology blog.
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