French ISPs: let’s do the four-play foreplay
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Another ISP jumps into the promising VoWLAN market. The French Internet service provider Neuf Telecom is currently experimenting its WiFi/GSM phone called BeautifulPhone among 400 beta testers. With this move, Neuf Telecom becomes the first major national ISP to offer a quad-play: Internet connection, video, phone and voice over wireless networks.
Technically, the BeautifulPhone is in fact a SmartPhone bundled with an application developed by Wengo (the same that recently unleashed the source code of its voice chat application). Skype might not work on it.
How beautiful?
Besides the fact that it could download and player songs and video, it has some two useful applets. The first is a WiFi finder. It blinks or beeps whenever the phone user could reach an appropriate access point. The second is a Yes-or-No phone call indicator, because not every hotspot is able to connect to the Neuf Telecom network, only SFR/Vodaphone mobile network.
But we wouldn’t say it is a beautiful phone, just pretty. Our reasons:
- No incoming calls in WiFi mode, only in GSM.
- The phone bandwidth is limited to 11 Mbps, which puts it back to the early days of wireless connection.
- It uses proprietary applications ― quite usual for a Smartphone application but quite strange for Wengo.
But it’s the first one…
Yes. French biggest ISP Wanadoo is preparing its own dual-mode phone called the LivePhone ― a porte-manteau name after naming LiveBox its broadband modem. Its release date is still undisclosed but no doubt that Wanadoo and Neuf Telecom want to rule the WiFI/GSM market before Free Telecom. The last ISP is the only provider to possess the WiMax national license. Imagine what they could do if they decide to launch their VoIP dual-mode phone.
Feb 23, 2006 | By Nuno
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