Motorola's Seamless Mobility: Neither Seamless Nor Mobile

from the let's-try-again,-folks dept

Tue, Jul 27th 2004 1:53pm — Mike Masnick

We mentioned the non-surprising, non-groundbreaking nature of Motorola's expected announcement concerning a WiFi-enabled mobile phone last week when the company conveniently leaked the info they'd first announced a year and a half ago. Now, after pumping up the PR efforts, it seems that everyone is writing about this WiFi-cellular phone, without bothering to look at the details. However, looking at those details make the phone appear... not that interesting. It's really a very limited device that can only be used with special 802.11a hardware. So, don't think you'll be using the phone at Wi-Fi hotspots any time soon. This is really just a gimmick to try to sell a new mobile phone to business users.

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3 Comments

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Nate, 28 Jul 2004 @ 11:55am

Help me here...
So what exactly is "special" about it being an 802.11a device, other than it doesn't receive nearly as much interference? It isn't a proprietary technology. Matter of fact, I have that particular standard running in my house just fine with multiple vendor hardware (802.11a/b/g in case of guests with outdated hardware using only 802.11b/g).

I make it a point to fill out any comment card/talk to proprieter that I can find at a hotspot location if I have to downgrade my connection to 802.11g or heaven forbid 802.11b when using it.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Mike (profile), 28 Jul 2004 @ 12:28pm
  
  Re: Help me here...
  It's not the 802.11a part that's special, but that the phone will only work with certain WLAN equipment from Avaya and Proxim.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Charlie Sierra, 28 Jul 2004 @ 1:40pm
  
  Re: Help me here...
  The deal with 802.11a is simple economics.
  
  Stress testing of these VoIP products shows that 802.11b APs can only accomodate ~6 simultaneous callers, while an 802.11a AP can handle ~22.
  
  So if this stuff eventually takes off, customers will quickly overload their systems and become pissed off.
  
  Depending on the cost of the software the ill-effects of vendor lockin, one begins to wonder if its not in the interest of the device makers to just add a $1 DECT chip to thier devices and APs.
  
  Just a thought.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]