TAG | This is where convergence is going |
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| by Stuart Corner | |
| Thursday, 29 November 2007 | |
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Page 2 of 2 The breakthrough underpinning this is less technical and more regulatory. Freshtel, and its lawyers, spent a deal of time with the UK regulator, Ofcom to clear the way for being allowed to present across its network a mobile number issued by another carrier, but it has been granted that. "In any regulatory regime that offers mobile number portability the idea that you can take the number with you because it belongs to you inherently supports the concept that the number represents you and not the network, so with the ACMA there is a range of things that they are looking at. We are talking to them and we expect to be able to make a case for it here." There are two other prerequisites to making this viable. The first is widespread hotspots where there is an arrangement with the hotspot operator to facilitate access. At least one arrangement is already in place in Australia. In October Nokia announced that it was offering free access to the Internet to users of its WiFi enabled phones from almost 4000 hotspots around the country operated by Azure Wireless. The other barrier is that you need a phone that will support the application. The Freshtel software is Symbian based and presently runs only on the Nokia N80, N95 and E65. About 350,000 of these were sold in the UK in the first six months of this year. But as WiFi enabled phones increase in popularity, so will the market for converged offerings like this.{moscomment}
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