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."

Great - there goes free unlimited in network calls

[sonofagunn]

I hope this doesn't become too popular! Companies will have to raise prices elsewhere.

Unlimited

[SilkBD]

When will the wireless networks give us unlimited plans as an option... that's what I want to know. VoIP is too buggy... there are numbers that you can't call and faxes don't like it.

well ya know...

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder how long until cell phone companies get rid of unlim mobile to mobile...

Re:Nice idea but...

[stecoop]

what about incoming calls

How about removing the phone companies from the picture and just have basically Route your call like DNS does or like DHCP giving you an IP address. Instead of dialing a phone number you would dial something like voip://yourname.yourhost.com.

Cellular? Bah!

[chainsaw1]

Just take the cellphone out of the picture entirely [zyxel.com]

D-Bus API in skype Asterisk anyone?

[lkcl]

when skype release their linux version with a d-bus API it will be possible to do this yourself.

Re:Unlimited

[epod]

Actually, in Canada, Telus already had an unlimited calling plan in the city of Winnipeg. It was $30 CDN a month, unlimited local calling all the time. It was their marketing gimmick to get into a new market. The only problem is, due to their contact the user is entitled to renew their contract when it expires for the same plan ad infinitum. This has led to those cell phone plans being bought and sold for as much as $3000, since as long as you renew it, you've got an unlimited cellphone for life for $30.

Net2Phone for Internatinoal Numbers

[Anonymous Coward]

I do a similar sort of thing already for international numbers in order to avoid the very high long distance rates that T-Mobile has for international long distance. Using Net2Phone Direct [net2phone.com] you can get a local number somewhere in the United States, which you can call to access their VoIP service. If you set up your account to recognize your number on callerID, it won't ask for your account number or PIN, and then it will ask for the number you wish to call. Thereby, it saves me a fortune on all my international calls. All I need to do is program the local US access number with a wait signal before my friends number, like [phone]w011491795555555, and I'm set. I highly recommend it. Only draw back is that your caller ID doesn't come through to the people you are calling.

Privacy?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, 45 comments and not a single one bemoaning the privacy issues? What has become of Slashdot?

If you sign up for this service, Xcelis will be in a fantastic position of keeping track of ALL the calls you make through your cellphone. Who you called, how long you talked to them, perhaps even what you talked about. Hmmm, Xcelis might just be a front for the American Spy Agency^W^W^W Dept of Homeland Security.

Bad lag!

[entrager]

I have Vonage VoIP service at home on a cable modem connection. When I talk to a cell phone user over my VoIP phone, there is a noticable lag that occurs. I've gotten used to it, but initially my wife and I found ourselves talking over each other all the time because of the 1-2 second delay. It sounds to me like this service will only compound that problem.

Re:Racks of Phones?

[bobcat7677]

Yes, A bunch of fixed wireless nodes wired into their VOIP switches is exactly what they are doing. I have been expecting someone to do this...would have done it myself if I had the facilities & resources to get it started.

It's still a pretty cheesy solution though. What we really need is for the Cellular providers to setup VOIP gateways directly to their private networks (preferably with IAX2 protocol as an option to work with asterisk http://www.asterisk.org/ [asterisk.org]) and then I can broker calls to or from my cell phone, the traditional phone network, or any VIOP network as I please using my asterisk switch. The cell phone provider could charge a small monthly fee to those who want to use the gateway to cover their (relatively minor) costs of providing it and probably make a bit too and everybody could be happy. Are you listening VERIZON...AT&T...NEXTEL? I would think it would be a boon for NEXTEL as their many business & government customers could further integrate their wired and wireless communications making those accounts very happy and almost turnover-proof. Plus NEXTEL could offer services for setting up their clients with this technology integration for a nice hourly rate.

Haha

[Jesus IS the Devil]

It's pretty obvious this is a really dumb idea. Most of the previous responses have detailed the reasons why.

What I really see is PDA phones having WIFI or better yet, WIMAX, connecting to a network and doing VOIP that way, thereby completely bypassing the cell phone company.

That way, when you have WIFI, you call for free (or very low cost). When you don't have WIFI coverage, you dial out using the cell phone network.

Now THAT'S cell phone VOIP! Not this load of crap lol.

Re:Unlimited

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but by cell phone? Thirty bucks Canadian for unlimited minutes on your cell phone for local calls is a pretty good deal. I'd drop my land line in a second if I could do that here.

City Fido's a similar sort of thing, but their plan costs 45 CAD, which is slightly less of a good deal...

I went another direction

[krray]

On a back end web server listening on a re-directed port along with a password and you're prompted with:
ENTER CURRENT #: (let's enter 19998887777)
TRANSFER TO #: (let's enter 15554443333) ...and then the "old" modem in that computer taps C-Kermit and dials specifically:
atdt ,19998887777,,,,5,!,*97,15554443333,,;

So, it calls me (pauses due to finding the cell phone I may be holding), dials "5" for the heck of it (lets me know it is working :), flashes the line, dials my transfer code (*97) and dumps me to the phone number I entered.

Free unlimited calls anywhere I go already ... as long as I can tap a web browser somehow. :)

Unlimited Calling! Not.

[bs_02_06_02]

Everyone has seen the advertising. Plans are sold with free unlimited in-network calling. If you read the boilerplate in your service agreement, you'll see something that reads (paraphrased) abuse of the network (re:unlimited free calling) is subject to termination.

Unlimited free in-network calling doesn't mean UNLIMITED. It means unlimited until they choose to see otherwise, labelling it as "abuse" of their network. They have the right to terminate you for such abuse.
What kind of abuse? It is up to your provider. Don't like it? Walk away. Or live with it. Most people don't abuse it. But there are plenty that try.

inside/outside, leave me alone

[Doc Ruby]

Why don't they just do this with 2 different mobile networks: two sets of phones (1 set from each network with free in-network calls), connected in pairs through their gateway? Then they can market free calls to each network's subscribers, without relying on iffy VoIP, with its lower quality and smaller market of tightwadder customers? I smell a pure, unscalable gimmick.