Cornered!
Cornered! is a blog devoted, most of the time anyway, to telecommunications: local and global issues, technology, people and trends from the perspective of someone who's been reporting, analysing and commenting on the industry since the dark ages (BC - before competition). Sometimes serious, sometimes flippant, sometimes frivolous. Controversial, analytical, informative, amusing, but never boring; a vehicle for examinations of important issues and observations on my encounters and experiences in an industry where polarised views and hyperbole are the norm.

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Technology news and Jobs arrow Cornered! arrow Get ready for another disruption
Get ready for another disruption E-mail
by Stuart Corner   
Saturday, 30 September 2006
ABI research is tipping huge growth in the sales of dual mode cellular/wifi handsets as fixed mobile convergence gathers momentum, but another potentially disruptive technology could help the mobile operators keep traffic on their networks and ownership of their customers.


I remember at least 10 years ago in the early days of GSM the then head of Vodafone Australia, John Rohan, dreaming of the day when the cellphone would become the primary means of telephonic communication.

Falling prices, soaring penetration levels and 'bucket plans' have all brought that prospect much closer to reality but the growth of VoIP over fixed networks is now threatening to slow this momentum thanks to fixed mobile convergence: the bringing together fixed and mobile communications technologies services and tariffs into a seamless service that uses the lowest cost or most appropriate channel.

Australia in fact was a pioneer. Convergence was the key selling point of Hutchison's CDMA service, launched in the mid 1990s. The mobile service came with a fixed number. When you were at or close to home people could call you on that number and pay normal fixed line rates, and when you made a call on your mobile from home you were charged at fixed line rates.  (You could also get calls to your fixed line number when you were away from home but you paid diversion charges.)

The service proved very popular. Too popular. Hutchison ceased promoting it and switched to selling CDMA as a normal cellular service. However in mid 2005 the company revived the concept, only to announce a few months later the shutdown of the CDMA  network.

 
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Cornered! - Telecoms blog
Cornered! is a blog on all things tele-communication from the perspective of one who has observed, analysed commented and reported on the industry since the dark ages (BC - before competition).