SBC Weighs Sharing of Home, Mobile Phone Minutes
The top four wireless carriers are all spin offs of wired carriers. But ironically there wasn't much customer facing synergy between the two when they were all part of the same company. They didn't even offer something as straight forward as single billing. Of course that's happening now. The latest idea is having one bucket of minutes for your landline and mobile. But if you really think about it the only way this is a good deal for carriers is if they charge the same for landline minutes as they do for cell minutes. Anything different would either be to confusing to consumers or undercharge for cell minutes. However from a service perspective this gets closer to what I think would be an ideal service, one number with one vmail box that works at home and your mobile. When I'm at home all my call come to my landline and when I leave they go to my mobile. Yes you can do this with call forwarding services, but i don't want to have to think about it. It should just happen. Hybrid Wi-Fi/cellular phones could offer such solutions in a few years. I wonder if that will force the wireless and wired guys to get back together.
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