VOIP Meets Cell Phones

pnutjam writes "This looks really interesting. It looks like this company, Xcelis, has a bunch of cellphones hooked to VOIP equipment. Basically you pay them and if you have free in-network calling on your phone you call their phone and then dial out to whomever you want. Voila, unlimited calling to anyone."

Nice idea but...

[DarkHelmet]

I really like the idea but...

This is very inconvenient, because it essentially makes the addressbook on my cell phone useless. I'd love to have something that just automatically routes calls through them. That would definately add to the value of their service.

This, and what about incoming calls? I believe most cell phone companies still count your # of minutes based on people calling you, as well as your outbound calls.

Well, if not already in there

[lottameez]

I suspect the cell phone companies user contract will contain a provision prohibiting you from dialing a service such as this.

Re:Well, if not already in there

[jamonterrell]

no, they will just prohibit you from running a service like this. Voila, all the phones the company has for accepting incoming calls go bye-bye.

Am I the only one who doesn't get it?

[PCM2]

At first I thought this sounded interesting for international calls, but now I see that international calls are not permitted, at least during the trial period. Am I the only one who can't figure out what this is for? I have free long distance on all my mobile phone minutes. I have unlimited calling on off-peak hours and more anytime minutes than I would possibly want to spend on my phone in a given month. Looking at the other plans my provider offers, I'd bet you couldn't even take advantage of some of them unless you had an extra battery for your phone. Who is the target market for this?

Re:Well, if not already in there

[Anonymous Coward]

probably more like a provision that says your cellphone is only for your own personal use and you can not resell service. This way they can sue the company doing this and shut them down.

Re:Can you here me NOW?

[biz0r]

I was just thinking about this myself. Layering abstract technologies like this can only lead to combination of 'bugs' and 'issues' leading towards an overall lower quality service. Now whether or not people will accept this is another issue to discuss...

They'll probably get shutdown but...

[ttroutma]

You could do this for yourself or for a small company which is a great idea!

Re:Why?

[entrager]

Of course it costs them something. Why would I sign up for a 2000 minute plan when I can get unlimited calling to anyone on my 300 minute plan?

If it's successful...

[Anonymous Coward]

All they'll accomplish is eliminating unlimited mobile to mobile minutes for everyone. The cell company isn't going to take a loss or provide service for free. Currently, the mobile to mobile minutes are more of a gimmick to get the friends/family of their customers to switch than anything. If this ceases to be an incentive because services like this make it irrelevant then they'll stop offering them.

Mike

Legislation

[killmenow]

A bill to outlaw this type of service will be written by one or many cellular providers and presented to one or many congresstools in 3...2...1...

Re:Great - there goes free unlimited in network ca

[heir2chaos]

I think you should rephrase. Companies will raise prices elsewhere. They already charge more than they have to for the disservice. However, if they feel they can milk a little more out of you, you know they will.

Re:nothing new

[O]

Heh, knew I'd seen something like this in Wired several years back.

http://wired.com/wired/archive/8.08/fetish.html [wired.com]

Cellular Division

Hang ViperCell antennas on the walls of your company's far-flung locations, connect them to the Ethernet, and pow: Your branch offices are now free-calling zones for cell phones. Using cellular voice-over-IP, ViperCell intercepts calls or messages sent with GSM or PCS phones, then routes them via your network - and your regular cell provider will never know.

ViperCell: price TBA. Cisco Systems: [phone], [phone], www.cisco.com.

Unfortunately, I don't think it ever came to market.

You can get repeaters [google.com] that get put inside your building or car and run to an antenna outside. The passive ones are super cheap, and would be simple to build, too, but I wonder how well they would work in a situation like yours. There are also active repeaters, but those are targeted toward corporations with big buildings and are priced accordingly.

The Home Kit would be a good seller...

[MDMurphy]

I agree that this will likely have a short shelf life. The extreme # of minutes on their cell phones will stand out like a flashing beacon to the cell carriers.

But, a "home version" would be interesting. Two phones with the minimal accounts for unlimited mobile to mobile would still be cheaper than one of the mega minute plans. A kit to connect your "home" cell phone to your Vonage box would do the trick. The cell carriers wouldn't see the insane #'s of minutes on a service providers accounts but just you calling your other phone often. A slick trick would be to allow bi-directional calling with this kit.

In early days of PacBell GSM here in CA they had 1st incoming minute free. I had my SIM in a box with a GPS receiver attached. I could call from a land line every minute, poll for position, hang up under a minute. One month I made 1800 sub-minute calls to my mobile to track my cars location.

They later ammended the plan to not include data calls and then scrapped the 1st minute plan all together, but I got a lot of testing in before they did.

But the price is expensive

[msblack]

With the new flexible pricing plan from Sprint PCS, additional blockes of 100 anytime minutes are just 5 cents a minute. At $9.95 per month, that's 200 extra minutes from Sprint. How many people really need more than 200 additional peak minutes on their plans? And as others have mentioned, the call quality of these "free" minutes is gonna suck.