Stuart Corner
Saturday, 30 September 2006 09:32
Opinion and Analysis
Page 1 of 3
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.
