BT to launch convergent ‘One Phone’
Telecoms giant BT is on the verge of launching the UK’s first handset to act as a mobile phone outside and a cordless phone inside, under the brand name One Phone.
The new product is on trial at several BT buildings in the UK and will represent the first foray into “convergent telephony”, where mobile and fixed line facilities merge.
One Phone has the ability to locate a caller’s position and make appropriate tariff changes, depending on whether it is acting as a mobile or a cordless phone.
Mike Wagner, the former BT sales and marketing director, now head of its mobility division, is responsible for the project.
BT chief executive Sir Peter Bonfield recently told an audience at the University of Zurich: “You pick up your cordless phone in the office and walk in to the street where it automatically connects to the mobile network.
“Then when you arrive home, it may act like a ‘cordless’ again and be tariffed as if a residential fixed phone – in a sort of ‘Home Zone’.”
Bonfield made it clear that BT would concentrate on convergence technology, calling the next millennium “the century of mobility”.
