Stuart Corner
Saturday, 30 September 2006 09:32
Opinion and Analysis
Page 2 of 3
And Vodafone last year introduced a very similar service on its 3G network in Germany last year. This week the New Zealand regulator pave the way for its introduction there and Vodafone plans to launch it in 2007.
However the favoured approach these days for fixed mobile convergence is via a dual mode WiFi cellular handset which uses a home or enterprise WiFi network when in range and the cellular network at other times.
It's the basis of BT's Fusion service launched din the UK last year for consumers, and now being extended to the corporate market by BT.
BT of course had powerful reasons for wanting something like this: it does not own a cellular network so needed some way to halt the drift of call traffic from its fixed network and maintain ownership of its telephony customers.
But technology has a way of changing the rules and shifting the balance of power almost before the full consequences of the previous development have played out. Now the cellular operators have a new weapon to keep traffic on their networks and keep the primary relationship with the customer: femtocells.
