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Roaming instinct to cut costs | Money | The Guardian Jump to content [s] Jump to site navigation [0] Jump to search [4] Terms and conditions [8] Sign inRegister Text largersmaller Search: guardian.co.uk Money Web News Sport Comment Culture Business Money Life & style Travel Environment Blogs Jobs A-Z Money Roaming instinct to cut costs The next step in the phone revolution is a mobile that will get cheaper the moment you step inside your home or office Peter Judge The Guardian, Thursday May 4 2006 About this article Close This article appeared in the Guardian on Thursday May 04 2006 on p5 of the technology section. It was last updated at 17:39 on September 10 2007. Last week, Britain quietly gained 11 new mobile phone operators. They will push down the cost of calls, using new kinds of mobile services. Just don't expect to hear much from them just yet.The licences were granted by Ofcom, the communications regulator - the first new mobile phone licences since 2000, when five licences for 3G services were auctioned for Ј22.5bn.The new licences are much cheaper. The prices should be public by today, and are expected to be only a few million pounds. And they are a different kind of licence - for a different kind of phone service. The new operators will use normal mobile phone technology, but won't put up any new cell towers. The licences are for "low-power" GSM antennas, which will usually be indoors. And they'll be selling mobile phones that will magically get cheaper as soon as you are inside your home or office.At the moment, around 30% of calls made on business mobiles are made indoors, according to figures from analysts. The landline is cheaper, but the mobile is easier. Very often, people use the mobile because that's where the number they want to dial is stored. The new operators will get rid of that problem by making indoor mobile calls as cheap as the landline - or cheaper. When you get indoors, your phone will "roam" on to an indoor network, just the same as it roams to a different network when you go abroad.The big difference is that when you roam abroad, your call charges rocket. When you roam to your home network, the charges will go down. The indoor network will be handled by a base station called a "pico-cell", which uses the internet to connect the calls.On the drawing boardPeople have been talking about "converged" phones for some time. The idea is to roll a cordless phone and a mobile into one, and get the best of both worlds. The problem is that two phone technologies means a special dual-mode phone. The only converged service available in this country at the moment - BT's Fusion - uses specially adapted Motorola Razrs. In the summer, it will upgrade to dual-mode phones that use Wi-Fi."Low-power GSM has all the advantages of BT Fusion, but you can use any handset," says Martin Wren-Hilton, who will be leading the indoor mobile services at Carphone Warehouse's subsidiary, Opal Telecom.Any mobile phone will be able to use the new services. The pico-cell will use ordinary mobile phone technology, but at short range, and low power. The service providers will sell a pico-cell and a Sim card that automatically switches to the indoor network when it picks up the signal.This subtle but far-reaching change has come about because some radio spectrum became available. The "guard bands", originally intended to keep older analogue mobiles and cordless phones from interfering, are not big enough for a new national mobile network but are fine for small isolated access points.Unlike other mobile phone spectrum, the new frequencies are shared. Instead of giving one licence for the band, Ofcom is letting a dozen companies use it - as long as they keep to power limits, and agree a code of practice that will avoid any interference."It's a third way between licensed and licence-exempt spectrum," says Wren-Hilton. Wi-Fi is shared, but not licensed, so systems can interfere. Licensed, shared spectrum should avoid that. "We can offer guaranteed quality of service, and the scheme allows many new entrants to the UK mobile phone market."Of the 12 licences issued (see below), only one was to an existing mobile operator, O2. The others have gone to a mixed bag of companies, including big players such as BT, Cable & Wireless and Colt, and smaller specialists.Wren-Hilton's previous company, Coffee Telecom, proposed a consumer service where cheap calls would be available at a network of public hotspots. His new boss, Carphone Warehouse, is expected to put that on the back burner, and start with office systems.It won't happen for about a year, as the technology gets rounded out. Pico-cells will be expensive to buy at first, but they should save money for businesses, thanks to the calls that staff make in the office using the company mobile. As the market develops, pico-cells should be cheap enough for home users.Carphone's biggest competition might be from BT - which claims Fusion gives it a head start. "We're 80% there," said Steve Andrews, managing director of strategy convergence and products at BT. "The Fusion core network is already there."BT has other plans for pico-cells, says Andrews: "It could be good for automatic monitoring, for instance things like refrigerators in retail outlets, that could feed back signals to an access point."Other providers have different ambitions. "We see it as an enabler for us to offer fixed-mobile convergence services across Europe," says Robin Saphra, commercial director of Colt Telecom, a company with multinationals as customers. "It makes sense as a way to avoid roaming charges when moving from office to office in different countries. They are the bane of corporate enterprise customers' life."So far, Ofcom has got Britain to lead the world in low-power GSM, but "we're working with regulators to encourage them to follow Ofcom's practice", says Saphra. Not everyone expects it to go this smoothly. There's much integration work to be done when we plug these pico-cells into broadband connections - or will we have to have a whole new internet router, asks Dean Bubley, of the consultancy Disruptive Analysis. And then there's the difficulty of convincing people to have another wireless network in the house."How exactly are you going to handle the inevitable media hysteria?" asks Bubley. What happens when the Daily Mail starts running scare stories about 'a cell tower in your kids' bedroom'?"WHO'S DOING IT?BTThe only company that sells a converged product, BT believes its Fusion will give it a head start.Cable & WirelessA fixed-line provider, C&W will probably sell in-building GSM, and start with business services.ColtA business-oriented fixed telecoms operator, Colt wants other countries in Europe to open up.Pipex (through Cyberpress)An internet service provider planning a WiMax wireless broadband service, Pipex gets another home service to add to its range.FMS SolutionsA small company that wants to use the technology for the emergency services.Mapesbury CommunicationsPuts Wi-Fi hotspots in Texaco petrol stations among others, and could do public low-power GSM.O2The only winner with national mobile spectrum. Pico-cells could boost indoor mobile coverage, and make a push into business premises.Carphone WarehouseIts subsidiary Opal Telecom is expected to offer indoor access points to businesses by the end of the year.PLDTA Filipino phone company that could be planning a mobile service that lets you phone your family as if you were in the same country.Shyam TelecomAn Indian company that could add pico-cells to its in-building wireless systems.Spring Mobil ABDoes in-building GSM in Sweden, now has more options in Britain.TelewareSells phone exchanges; any mobile phone could become an extension.· If you'd like to comment on any aspect of Technology Guardian, send your emails to tech@guardian.co.uk Printable version Send to a friend Share Clip Contact us larger | smaller Share Close Digg reddit Google Bookmarks Yahoo! 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