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BT has said that it will launch its fixed mobile convergence service, up till now given the working title “Project Bluephone” at a press conference tomorrow.
BT said the service “will bring together fixed line and mobile phone communications, deliver great benefits to customers and potentially change the communications landscape.” It said that its announcement on Wednesday would give it leadership of the fixed mobile convergence market.
Angel Dobardziev, Senior Analyst at Ovum, had this to say on the matter:
“This will be a highly significant development. There is currently a lot of interest and trials of FMC services among fixed and integrated operators. The FMC Alliance (FMCA) which was formed in July last year, last month swelled to 18 members with combined 240m subscribers. Some players, such as Korea Telecom, have already launched dual mode phones. But none has yet delivered a device that switches seamlessly between cellular and fixed environments during a call. Many believe was one of the key reasons for the failure of past FMC devices, most notably DECT/GSM hybrids of the late 90s (including BT here).
Hence, a lot of eyes will be on BT next week. Fellow FMCA members will look at how the phone works, whether BT has reliably solved the technical challenges around the solution, and will look at hints on BT’s pricing strategy. Mobile operators that have so far stayed away from the FMC developments will look for ways to counter the threat that these services pose to their revenues from in-door mobile usage.
We expect BT to have a solution that will switch seamlessly during call between fixed and cellular environments, considering it has spend such a long time to make sure this is right. We also expect keen pricing from BT, with indoor outgoing calls priced at a discount to mobile, but not quite as low as its fixed prices (e.g. 5p per hour). We believe BT will have to subsidise the handsets and the access point, in order to make the solution attractive in light of the highly competitive mobile market in the UK. The issue to watch will be the quality of indoor calls, as they will not run over the circuit switched PSTN line but through the ADSL connection (which, to confuse things further, share the same copper) as packed switched traffic.
This will also be a test for the range of Bluetooth, which BT will use as the wireless bearer for in-premise traffic, as a local access technology. Bluetooth is seen by many (including BT) as an intermediate solution for FMC devices, before operators move to WiFi, as technical issues around WiFi devices (e.g. battery life) are solved, and they come down in price.
One way or another, BT will be making history next week. If the solution works flawlessly and take up accelerates we will see a mad scramble by peers to copy it, and mobile operators to counter it. If it fails, it may significantly dampen the FMC appetite among operators – for another five years.”