Cell + WiFi Combo Service Won’t Turn On US Consumers
We are not so sure how the research firm Ovum came up with this assessment while most consumers don’t know what exactly what dual-mode phone means. But the report in a recent study:
Equipment vendors are too focused on trying to make dual-mode phones big in the in the US, says market research firm Ovum. Instead, they should focus more on different types of fixed-mobile convergence instead. The company predicts that only two percent of all mobile subscribers in the US—which amounts to less than 5.5 million people—will have subscribed to dual-mode services that enable both cell and WiFi capabilities by the year 2010, indicating that the general US market just isn’t interested in dual-mode technology.
Despite Ovum’s lack of faith in dual-mode phones and services taking off, T-Mobile is still moving forward with its @Home service—allowing customers to seamlessly switch between cell and WiFi networks using the same handset and same phone number—having launched in select test markets toward the end of last year. If T-Mobile succeeds in its test markets, all eyes will be on them to see whether consumers really will be interested dual-mode service or whether it will fall flat.
[Source: Arstechnica]
This kind of reports intended to dupe consumer come usually from lobbyists. I think I have seen similar in some European countries along with statements that DVB-H, DVB-T would not take over DVB-S which was complete nonsense