Sim Cards Will Soon Be As Dead As Dodos
Victor Keegan – Thursday September 28th 2006
This particular article is on the new exciting future for mobile phones. This is now possible because they have made in routing calls that can be made through the internet rather than cellular networks.
If you have a wireless broadband at home or using a Wi-Fi hotspot at a coffee shop, where it then it travels through the Internet for nothing until it incurs a charge for the final bit of its journey.
A call to America could be 1p a minute – unless the recipient also has a Wi-Fi phone, in which case it is free. The cellular networks are redundant or more likely jus have a pay-as-you-go card as backup.
It took hours of chats with company techies to get settings right - not an option open to a casual buyer - and to sort out screen freezes, and hang-ups, on both the Nokia e61 and e60. But when they did work, whether mobile-to-mobile or mobile to a fixed line, it was impressive.
The screen freezing is apparently due to a handset fault that Nokia will soon correct with a downloadable fix. Battery life was short on both models, something that seems to be common to these Nokia business models. Executives at both companies claimed that my experience was exceptional even for something that was still in beta form (ie, not ready for full release) and that they, and others, had been using them successfully. One had just come back from America after using his phone from a hotel with free Wi-Fi to talk to his family in the UK for nothing.
What about the future? I am sure the problems will be solved soon. Success may then depend on how fast free - yes, free - Wi-Fi is rolled out in the UK. At present these phones are mainly used for outgoing calls from places that already have Wi-Fi. They are no good for walking down the street or incoming calls on the move. If you have to pay £6 an hour from a hotel or coffee shop then forget it. But if Wi-Fi is rolled out across cities, as in the US - and some small towns in the UK - and it is a different proposition.
Nothing is really free. You will have to pay a monthly fee to a broadband provider, though there is a strong case for local authorities or government to provide Wi-Fi itself free at point of use, financed by taxes or rates, because of the economic benefits generated. Meanwhile, there is a danger of turf wars between incompatible proprietary systems such as Skype and the common standards agreed by other players. Until the nirvana of universal access arrives, Wi-Fi mobiles will be a supplement to Sim phones, not least because of the need to make emergency calls. But as Wi-Fi spreads - and becomes standard on phones - there will be a strong case for using it with a pay-as-you go SIM card as fallback. And the faster Wi-Fi spreads, the less you will need a Sim card at all. If I was an operator I would be very worried.
This particular article is on the new exciting future for mobile phones. This is now possible because they have made in routing calls that can be made through the internet rather than cellular networks.
If you have a wireless broadband at home or using a Wi-Fi hotspot at a coffee shop, where it then it travels through the Internet for nothing until it incurs a charge for the final bit of its journey.
A call to America could be 1p a minute – unless the recipient also has a Wi-Fi phone, in which case it is free. The cellular networks are redundant or more likely jus have a pay-as-you-go card as backup.
It took hours of chats with company techies to get settings right - not an option open to a casual buyer - and to sort out screen freezes, and hang-ups, on both the Nokia e61 and e60. But when they did work, whether mobile-to-mobile or mobile to a fixed line, it was impressive.
The screen freezing is apparently due to a handset fault that Nokia will soon correct with a downloadable fix. Battery life was short on both models, something that seems to be common to these Nokia business models. Executives at both companies claimed that my experience was exceptional even for something that was still in beta form (ie, not ready for full release) and that they, and others, had been using them successfully. One had just come back from America after using his phone from a hotel with free Wi-Fi to talk to his family in the UK for nothing.
What about the future? I am sure the problems will be solved soon. Success may then depend on how fast free - yes, free - Wi-Fi is rolled out in the UK. At present these phones are mainly used for outgoing calls from places that already have Wi-Fi. They are no good for walking down the street or incoming calls on the move. If you have to pay £6 an hour from a hotel or coffee shop then forget it. But if Wi-Fi is rolled out across cities, as in the US - and some small towns in the UK - and it is a different proposition.
Nothing is really free. You will have to pay a monthly fee to a broadband provider, though there is a strong case for local authorities or government to provide Wi-Fi itself free at point of use, financed by taxes or rates, because of the economic benefits generated. Meanwhile, there is a danger of turf wars between incompatible proprietary systems such as Skype and the common standards agreed by other players. Until the nirvana of universal access arrives, Wi-Fi mobiles will be a supplement to Sim phones, not least because of the need to make emergency calls. But as Wi-Fi spreads - and becomes standard on phones - there will be a strong case for using it with a pay-as-you go SIM card as fallback. And the faster Wi-Fi spreads, the less you will need a Sim card at all. If I was an operator I would be very worried.
posted by Sawan at 12:51 PM
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