Business: Cell Phone Network
Cellphone Carrier Emulator Base Station   (+1, -1)  [vote for, against]
Device will force cellphone to use landline and the base as its temporary carrier

Wouldn't it be great when you arrive at home or at the office and your cellphone switch to a "landline" cordless phone function. I mean this base station / will emulate a cellphone transceiver and force your cellphone to ignore its carrier and adopt your base station as its temporary carrier while you are in the perimeter of it. Thus your cellphone minutes are preserved, since you are using your landline (that is connected to this base station). You also have the convenience of speed dialing from your cellphone (which is now just a regular home or office cordless phone) and can access all your phone books functions from your cellphone. About 6 years a go, GTE Mobilnet has a service called TELE-GO, but it still uses your free airtime minutes.

Please let me know if any of you seen anything like this.....

jackson127@hotmail.com
-- jackson127, Sep 26 2002

It's both a cordless and a cellphone. http://www.tfi.com/...s/view/95Q1_A5.html
[Amos Kito, Sep 26 2002, last modified Oct 17 2004]

At Home Cell http://www.halfbake...ea/At_20Home_20Cell
Same idea. [phoenix, Sep 26 2002]

Micro-Cells http://www.halfbake...om/idea/Micro-Cells
Same idea (again). [phoenix, Sep 26 2002, last modified Oct 17 2004]

WiFi Cellphones http://www.gizmodo....arch=wifi+cellphone
The Gizmodo weblog has covered several "coming soon" phones with this feature using WiFi [Cheradenine, Oct 17 2004]

I have second hand, vague information on this. A friend of mine was working for a major telecomm equipment manufacturer that was developing exactly what you describe. However, that was about 2 years ago. He has since retired and has never mentioned the project again.
-- half, Sep 26 2002


Jackson, you can place your email address on your profile page. What's that, you say? Click on your name. (or click on the account: edit link at the bottom of the left menu).

This idea name was wrapped over two lines, with "Cellphone Carrier" on one and "Emulator Base Station" on the next. I thought it was two separate ideas, and was rather looking forward to the second of the two, thinking it had something to do with 80s vintage samplers.
-- waugsqueke, Sep 26 2002


Telecoms evoultion is actually going the other way. At the moment, cellular services are marketed as "premium" with fixed lines being the entry level (cheap) option. Within a few years, cellular voice comms will be the "cheap" default service. Primary rate landlines will vanish, being replaced by broadband with voice comms being piggybacked as an afterthought. So, expect that within 10 years, most fixed phones will start to disappear. The technology to produce the dual-mode cellphone already exists but is considered not worth marketing.

As the cost of the current GSM networks is amortised in the EU and other areas, and WCDMA (3G) is rolled out, the "premium" service will be the high-rate 3g system and the unit costs of the existing GSM system (which after all only provides basic low-rate voice telephony, and very limited data and WAP) will become the entry-level system for most users. Business users will migrate (at a price) to 3G for mobile office & similar.

That's the gameplan as far as I know it.
-- 8th of 7, Sep 26 2002


This is definitely a great idea. I often relate this feature to the *72 feature of Sprint PCS. What you do is redirect all your calls to a specific phone line. It could be your land line. Just dial *72 1 773 567 2345 and it will redirect all calls made to your cell phone to 1 773 567 2345. To terminate use *72 0

Your idea will enhance this feature with intelligent redirection. Great.
-- concept, Jun 09 2003



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