Novatel Patent On Efficient Seamless Roaming Hand-Offs?
There's been a lot of talk, and a few early products, trying to do seamless roaming between WiFi and 3G networks. Novatel is now claiming they've patented a method of doing so that doesn't drain batteries by constantly scanning for what networks are available. That would be nice, if it worked, but the real problem with seamless handoffs between WiFi and 3G are business model issues, not technology ones. How do you bill a phone call that's being charged for cellular minutes, but switches to free (or worse, paid) WiFi?
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