If you had a wifi-capable Blackberry and T-Mobile in the US, you could use what's called UMA calling- which offers normal uninterrupted voice service over wifi, with seamless handoff mid-call between Wifi hotspots and the normal cellular network (i.e. no dropped calls). The best part about it is the wifi calls don't count against your monthly minutes. It was an awesome service but never really caught on.
We already use Wi-Fi more than cellular; Why not continue the trend?
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Re: We already use Wi-Fi more than cellular; Why not continue the trend?
#22If you had a wifi-capable Blackberry and T-Mobile in the US, you could use what's called UMA calling- which offers normal uninterrupted voice service over wifi, with seamless handoff mid-call between Wifi hotspots and the normal cellular network (i.e. no dropped calls). The best part about it is the wifi calls don't count against your monthly minutes. It was an awesome service but never really caught on.
It's also available on Android. Unfortunately I've flashed mine to have a generic ROM, meaning that I've lost the ability. Hoping to see it ported back in.
Re: We already use Wi-Fi more than cellular; Why not continue the trend?
#23If you had a wifi-capable Blackberry and T-Mobile in the US, you could use what's called UMA calling- which offers normal uninterrupted voice service over wifi, with seamless handoff mid-call between Wifi hotspots and the normal cellular network (i.e. no dropped calls). The best part about it is the wifi calls don't count against your monthly minutes. It was an awesome service but never really caught on.
Groove IP lets you make wifi (or dataplan) calls from your Android through Google Voice.
Re: We already use Wi-Fi more than cellular; Why not continue the trend?
#24Because Wi-Fi kinda sucks at roaming? It's fine if you need a network connection at arbitrary end-points. But IME it's not so fine when you need a sustained connection while moving. (excluding on-train/on-plane wifi and the like , natch)
Agreed, it was very noticeable when listening to online radio in my University campus, since you can get the connection cut off for 20-30 seconds. For this particular use case it's fine as long as you adjust the buffer size, but for VoIP it wouldn't work.
Re: We already use Wi-Fi more than cellular; Why not continue the trend?
#25agreed
Re: We already use Wi-Fi more than cellular; Why not continue the trend?
#26I almost never use wi-fi on my phone. It drains the battery too much. edit: I'm not familiar with cellular hardware tech. My observation is true for my phone, necessarily, because my 3G reciever is active 100% of the time, and turning on wifi is just turning on another component. If this isn't the case for you, do you turn off your 3/4G while you're in a wifi spot? Does it manager this all automatically? Do you have…
I wish the new 802.11 ac standard would've gone the "battery efficiency" route, rather than doubling the performance. Technically, they could choose either doubling the performance or cutting the power consumption in half, but I'm pretty sure they will go the performance route, which really isn't necessary on a mobile phone right now (500+ Mbps).
802.11ac improves range and performance, but the new Bluetooth specs improve range and battery power.
Re: We already use Wi-Fi more than cellular; Why not continue the trend?
#27> “For example a cellular picocell costs from $7,500 to $15,000 whereas a much higher capacity carrier-grade Wi-Fi access point costs around $2,000,” Thanki wrote. “The cost of a Wi-Fi chipset for a consumer device is around $5, whereas 3G cellular chipsets costs around $30. Won't a cell tower cover at least a couple orders of magnitude more area than a wifi access point? Is this analysis silly or am I missing someth…
Yes, plus the cell network has dedicated bandwidth for each client whereas clients will fight for bandwidth on a wifi access point.
Re: We already use Wi-Fi more than cellular; Why not continue the trend?
#28I've been using Republic wireless (hyrbrid wifi phone) for about 6 months now. 99% of the time I forget it's anything other than a regular cell phone. For me it works better than a regular cell phone, because it works in my basement workshop where I can't get reception from most carriers.
How does it work in the car?
My understanding (I signed up for their beta but opted not to sign a contract) is that their service switches over to cellular network when wifi isn't available. I seem to remember them saying that they could maintain a telephone conversation through that switch, but I've not used their service so have no real-world data. In a car, I'd assume you'll be using a cellular network (Sprint if I remember correctly).
They use some heuristic to determine when you're using the cellular network "too much", because their whole pitch is that traffic over a cellular network is more expensive than traffic over the existing ISPs. If you use their cellular network too much, they will terminate your contract - but again, I'm not a customer so I don't know where that line lives.
Re: We already use Wi-Fi more than cellular; Why not continue the trend?
#29I'd love to see some statistics from Apple regarding Wi-Fi only iPad sales versus 3G/4G iPad sales.
Those may be skewed though by the amount of people that simply choose tethering over getting a 3g enabled tablet/device.
I'm one of those people as I have several devices (kindles and tablets) so I prefer paying for one data plan on my phone and tethering vs. individual data plans for each.
Re: We already use Wi-Fi more than cellular; Why not continue the trend?
#30Early in the CDMA days, there was talk of mounting small cellular antennas on utility poles to speed up rollouts, especially in suburban areas.
The problem is, managing tons of little leases is a nightmare, and the people who own telephone poles and streetlights (allowing you to have a few big leases) want an obscene amount of money to hang stuff on their pole.