Mobile VoIP Comes Home
Posted: February 10th, 2007 | Author: Garrett Smith | Filed under: New VoIP Products, VoIP News | 2 Comments »Ericsson Announces personal-sized cellular base station
I have seen a few of these home docking stations previously, but according to Information Week Ericsson has launched a personal cellular base station that allows users to “dock” their cellular phone when the arrive home allowing for the ability to use their cellular data plan to surf the web and make plain old voip calls.
Called the Femto Cell Solution, the cellular base station is a cellular access point that also acts like a Wi-Fi router in the home.
Potential WiFi VoIP Killer?
Even though VoIP hardware is boring, hardware like this could pose a real threat to mobile VoIP ambitions. Why? Cellular providers already have a huge install base. With increasing cellular data speeds and a lack of innovation by plain old VoIP service providers, why would a user want to move over to WiFi, when they can get VoIP over cellular, cellular calls, and internet access? Maybe VoIP hardware isn’t exciting, but this device should certainly wake some people up.
[...] Meanwhile, Garrett Smith over at Smith on VoIP finds something that could kill those mobile VoIP ambitions: a personal cellular base station. Unfortunately, there isn’t much information on this device. The press release from Ericsson suggests this is quite like an Unlicensed Mobile Access (UMA) router. We’ll have to see when the details emerge. [...]
[...] If cellular carriers like T-Mobile do not see a big future in mobile VoIP, you can put money on the fact that they are looking into utilizing personal cellular base stations, such as Ericsson’s Femto Cell Solution, that allow users to “dock†their cellular phone when the arrive home allowing for the ability to use their cellular data plan to surf the web and make plain old voip calls. These devices allow cellular providers to sell into their existing customer base additional services, while leveraging their existing network, all the while elimanting some of the fragmentation that currently exists with having multiple providers for your communications needs. [...]