Motorola, claims that it "broke down the barrier between traditional home and wireless phone service." They are speaking of their new innovative Motorola Residential Seamless Mobility Gateway (RSG) lets consumers use the same mobile device -- and the same number -- as they roam in and out of their homes. The real takeway from this announcement is that this product takes WiFi-to-cellular handover control out of the hands of the carrier and into the hands of the consumer. TMCnet writer Robert Liu has some interesting insights on this news as well. One tidbit is he writes, "The announcement could breathe new life to dual-mode handsets market, which has been greatly hampered by the control that cellular network operators have exerted over the handover exchange process."
Here's the release Motorola put out today.
Creating an Innovative Home Communications Experience
The Motorola RSG family of products packs powerful communication features for your home. The product includes an 802.11b/g wireless access point, a four-port router, and a built-in Voice-over-IP adapter. This technology allows the RSG to run your home network, power standard telephones, and act as a hotspot for your mobile phone.
Further, the Motorola RSG can seamlessly transfer voice calls between the home wireless network (WLAN) and the cellular network without interrupting the call, when paired with a dual-mode handset (DMH) and connected to a network and service that supports this feature. Dual-mode handsets are mobile devices that can access both cellular and in-home wireless networks.
Motorola RSG products give consumers freedom for personal communications: The products eliminate the hassle of finding a good reception zone in the home, and of managing separate bills, individual calling plans, or "bonus" minutes. Consumers can simply dial a number, and the intelligence in the gateway will automatically route the call to the best available network or service option.
Motorola is showcasing the RSG series of products this week at the 2006 International CES trade show (Las Vegas, NV), Central Hall, Booth #8545.
Additional features of the Motorola RSG Series include:
-- Single-Number Access - Calls made from a dual-mode mobile handset in
the home enable consumers to reduce cellular bills.
-- Home Network Connectivity - Access your high-speed data connection from
anywhere in the home with an 802.11 b/g wireless access point and a
four-port wired router. For mobile voice calls, use your home wireless
network to compensate for cellular service "dead-spots" within the
home.
-- Voice Prioritization - Ensure high-quality voice calls while accessing
the Internet.
-- Portability - Easily plugs into any broadband connection.
-- Rich Digital Phone Features - Caller ID, call waiting, three-way
calling, and call forwarding.
-- Multiple lines - Allows for a shared "family" number as well as
individual mobile and landline numbers.
-- Power Management - Optimizes the battery life of users' handset through
802.11e U-APSD, radio resource management, and 802.11k measurement
pilot.
-- Advanced Security - Protect your voice calls and your data with 802.11i
security and pre-authentication, IPSEC/PPTP/L2TP NAT tunneling (for VPN
pass-through), storage for X.509 device certificate and operator public
key as well as mobile pairing.
There are two products in the Motorola RSG family: the RSG2500, expected availability Winter 2006, and the RSG3500, expected availability Summer 2006, which adds the ability to power two lines of primary VoIP telephone service within the home.
"Consumers today want the flexibility of a single number and handset that can be used both in and out of the home, and a solution that can bridge landline, cellular and digital phone services. This latest Motorola innovation breaks traditional concepts of personal communication without sacrificing ease of use or functionality," said Charles Dougherty, Motorola corporate vice president and general manager, Connected Home Solutions. "The Motorola RSG creates one integrated system for communicating in and out of the home, helping consumers realize the economical advantage of simplified billing and improved service."
Introducing an All-In-One Cable Modem Gateway
Motorola today also introduced the SVG2500 Wireless VoIP Cable Modem Gateway, an all-in-one home communications hub that integrates digital phone service and a wireless access point with a reliable Motorola cable modem. Soon, the SVG family will support the fixed-mobile convergence features of the RSG service mentioned above, offering service providers an integrated product for delivering 'quadruple play' offering of voice, video, data, and wireless services to customers.
The Motorola SVG2500 enables the simultaneous use of digital phone and high-speed data services, and also supports a variety of popular phone services including caller ID, call waiting, call forwarding, and more. The product's advanced routing features allow for multiple PCs to be connected without the need for a stand-alone hub or router - reducing both cost and clutter.
The SVG2500 is easy to set-up and use, featuring plug-and-play installation and an intuitive Web-based diagnostic function for quick troubleshooting. The product is expected to be available in Spring 2006.
Recently in PDAs & Handhelds Category
BREAKING! Symbol has two new ruggedized mobile devices coming out called the MC9094 and the MC9097, running Windows Mobile 5.0 with cellular/mobile phone access, a touch-screen, and a full-sized keyboard + dialpad that aims to dethrone the Blackberry. (Update: See my updated thoughts on the MC9097/MC9094 analogy with the Blackberry below) The difference between the two mobile devices is that the MC9094 supports the GSM cellular standard and the MC9097 supports OFDM and the IDEN two-way paging cellular standard created by Motorola. Both devices will support SMS and Bluetooth. This information is according to documents I obtained from the FCC's website.
If this follows the rest of Symbol's 9000 series, then this model will also feature a noise-cancelling, volume-controlled headset and voice recognition software, as maybe even a bar code scanner (the MC9060 has one, but no cellphone capability). Although, I'd be surprised if the MC9094 and MC9097 follows the MC9060 lead in embedding a bar code scanner, since it looks like Symbol is targetting this product to your traditional "Blackberry-type" user and not just "warehouse inventory/management-type" employees. More to follow when I find out more details...
(Update: Upon further reflection I realized that perhaps 'dethrone the Blackberry' is a bit misleading. Symbol's product is more of a "ruggedized mobile phone" that is bulkier than a Blackberry. It's probably more comparable to the Treo 700 mobile phone, but even that analogy is somewhat of a stretch due to the "ruggedized" casing of the MC9094 and MC9097, which lends itself to specific industries and not general enterprise or consumer usage. Thus, its target market is much different than a Blackberry with a specfic
"niche" audience.)
A new PDA product from Symbol Technologies called the MC70 (MC-70?) is launching that is a "ruggedized" Blackberry-like device running Microsoft's Windows Mobile 5.0. Symbol told me, "This is going to be your 'extreme Blackberry' which targets workers that need a device that won't break. It can go into puddles, you can run over the unit with a Humvee, can get trampled on. It targets nurses, UPS drivers, retail salesforce, anyone in transportation & logistics. There is going to be a major cell phone carrier in U.S. and Europe involved on the day of the launch."
They also talked about how this PDA device will give you remote access to your Windows Desktop. Symbol said, "This is a Windows Goes Extreme type thing - you can now access Windows anywhere, not just the desktop. Symbol is really creating a a new category with this device - there's nothing out like this."
The product will launch on January 5th at ShowStoppers in Vegas. I'm going to try and get a photo and then update this post. (Updated! 1/11/05)
The Z22 organizer gets back to Palm’s roots when it decided that designing one device (a hand-held electronic organizer) to do a few select things would make everyone forget paper organizers, note pads or small pieces of paper scattered all over the place. I started what seems ages ago with the original black & white Palm Pilot and then moved up to the V and Vx and then the Treo 600 (which added cell phone capability). As the products moved from generation to generation, features (and complexity) kept getting added.
Now, the Z22 is designed specifically for people who haven’t seen what a handheld organizer can do (are there still people in the world like that?) and who believe that simple is better.
Infinitely faster and better feeling than its Palm Pilot ancestor (the Z22’s color screen is great!), the Z22 makes everything super simple; a touch of a button or tapping the built-in stylus on the screen brings up your appointments, contacts, tasks and memos. You can also access the note pad, expense tracker, calculator and world clock functions quickly an easily.
The note pad function is particularly cool – for super fast memo taking it captures your handwriting on the screen as a new item. The Z22 can also store photos in its 32MB memory.
It’s available for $99 direct from Palm (http://store.palm.com).
From Engadget:
They’re pretty freaking grainy, but a couple of new pics have turned up of what is supposed to be palmOne’s new Life Drive handheld. There are few notable differences between the Palm in these pictures and the mock-up we had posted up yesterday, like the directional pad is oval-shaped, the buttons have different labels on them, and you can just make out the words “Tungsten” at the top and “palmOne” at the bottom (the pic from yesterday only said “palmOne” at the top). Click to see one more pic.
(Peter Rojas) Read more from this post.