VOIP Cell Phones Coming Soon 138
prostoalex writes "Associated Press reports on the latest cell phones with WiFi support demoed at this year's CTIA Wireless 2006 conference. New models fall back to WiFi hotspot when the user is at home, at work, or cellular signal gets too weak. Biggest surprise? The cell phone conversation is not dropped when the switch between cellular network and WiFi hotspot takes place."
Re:Shouldn't it be reverse? (Score:5, Informative)
From what the article said, it does prefer wifi over cell towers.
Here in Japan (Score:5, Informative)
Here's the technical story behind all of this (Score:3, Informative)
UMA is the technology that supports WiFi cellular voice. A processing unit (known as a UNC) must be added to the cellular operator's network. The UNC bridges the WiFi-carried voice into the cellular network.
It already prefers wifi over cellular (Score:2, Informative)
How do I know, besides reading the article? I develop for cutting edge cell phones and PDA's for a living.
Re:British Telecom already sells wireless VOIP cel (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Just what we need... (Score:5, Informative)
Here in Austria we may have fewer ISPs but the number of available packages dwarfs what is available in the US... For example my mum has a package with medium bandwidth but very low transfer volume, this gives her a nice experience on the internet (and the computer updates actually get done) for the nearly the same price as dial up. I have a high bandwidth with a "Fair Use" transfer volume that is un-metered during off hours, and my little brother has the high bandwidth unlimited transfer volume package for his attempt to collect all the porn in the known universe.
It's not the paying for transfer volume that's bad... it's the unethical business practices of American businesses that's bad.
VOIP capable handsets are already common (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.europe.nokia.com/nokia/0,6771,77854,00
http://www.my-xda.com/comp.html [my-xda.com] -more phones.
http://www.barablu.com/ [barablu.com] -voip software.
http://www.skype.com/download/skype/mobile/ [skype.com] -more voip software
Comment removed (Score:3, Informative)