GigaOM » Kineto Wireless

Should mobile operators embrace over-the-top VoIP?

Kevin Fitchard — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 19:26:19 +0000

Voice-over-Wi-Fi pioneer Kineto Wireless is trying to convince operators that if they can’t beat the over-the-top VoIP challengers like Skype, they might as well join them. Kineto is now selling a VoIP client and platform to operators that would allow them to bypass their own voice networks and offer their own cheap IP telephony services over Wi-Fi, LTE and even 3G.

AT&T has already started exploring such offerings. In November it began offering a smartphone app called Call International that allows customers to make cheap overseas calls. Verizon partnered with its biggest OTT threat, Skype, in hopes of attracting more customers to its data plans (though the service oddly uses its CDMA circuit-switched voice network).

But in both those cases, operators put limits on how the services could be used so customers couldn’t simply move all of their voice minutes over to unlimited or big-bucket data plans. Kineto VP of marketing Steve Shaw said there is still plenty of opportunity for operators to test the boundaries of an OTT services without threatening their traditional voice revenues. In fact, operators have done it once before, he said in an email interview:

To some extent, it’s a little like the calling card phenomenon in the fixed line market 10+ years ago. At the time, it cost quite a bit to make international calls from a fixed line at home. “Over the top” calling cards providers offered a way for people to access their service (via the [plain old telephone service] line) to get cheaper international calls.

In response, the [Bell operating companies]/incumbents could have simply lowered their rates, but instead decided to offer their own calling card service.

People who are price-insensitive or not tech savvy will continue to pay full fare. But for those who are willing to jump through a couple hoops, an over-the-top VoIP app from their own operator may offer a nicely integrated solution with better prices.

By that logic, embracing OTT in half measures may be a way for operators to stave off pricing pressures from VoIP competitors. Rather than lower all of their rates, they just target the segments of their customer base that are jumping ship to lower-priced platforms.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

On T-Mobile, All Wi-Fi Calls Are Free

Om Malik — Mon, 16 May 2011 20:00:38 +0000

It is one of those things that make you ask the question: what took you so long, guys? If you are a T-Mobile USA subscriber and use one of the mobile phones that support UMA, now all your calls made over the Wi-Fi are free. Earlier, all Wi-Fi-based calls counted towards your minute plan, but not anymore.

TMONews.com reported the news last week, and today Kineto Wireless (the company that makes UMA-based systems) confirmed the news in an email newsletter. Although T-Mobile hasn’t issued a press release on the news, a representative from the carrier sent us the following statement with the details:

T-Mobile is excited to expand our Wi-Fi Calling feature, a unique and valuable service T-Mobile has been offering customers for over three years. Starting today, T-Mobile customers can add Free Wi-Fi Calling to their rate plan – at no additional charge – to place calls over Wi-Fi without deducting from their allotment of minutes. This new feature is available at T-Mobile retail stores to all customers on Even More and Even More Plus Postpaid rate plans who have Wi-Fi Calling capable handsets.

The free calling is applicable to the Android phones that have the Smart Wi-Fi app pre-installed and pre-configured for T-Mobile. As a long time fan of Wi-Fi-based calls on T-Mobile, I say this is a great move for T-Mobile. It gives them a good way to hold on to customers defecting to other platforms.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

In the Race to LTE, Kineto Talks up Voice

Stacey Higginbotham — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 21:30:01 +0000

As carriers evaluate their Long Term Evolution 4G network deployments, voice has becoming a sticking point. LTE is an all-Internet-Protocol data network that offers speed, capacity and a lower cost per bit, but what is doesn’t offer is the same circuit-switched voice technology of current cellular networks. This is where Kineto Wireless, the company behind UMA technology that bridges the cellular network to a Wi-Fi network, sees its opportunity.

Kineto is pushing its GAN technology to bridge the 2G and 3G cellular networks with LTE networks. The opportunity for Kineto will be selling equipment that resides inside the carrier network and licensing software on LTE handsets that can route the calls over the appropriate network.

As these all-IP LTE networks are deployed, handsets will need compatible technology in order to work on the new networks, which means a delay in figuring out a standard and a strategy around voice could delay handsets. Last week, I attended an industry meeting at which executives from operators and equipment vendors discussed the problem and the lack of leadership on the issue. Yesterday, a group of equipment vendors and carriers formed a standards-setting group for delivering voice over LTE networks called the VoLGA Forum.

Today, most voice traffic goes over a circuit switched network — be it over cell phones or landlines. With LTE’s all IP-network, that voice traffic would need to be VoIP, but that’s not something carriers are too excited about. Most of them are concerned about costs and the user experience.

An untested VoIP offering on the LTE network may not deliver great call quality — and most cell phone users still want high quality voice calling no matter how great their love of data or a specific device. As for costs, voice is driving less revenue, and the switch to voice on LTE may require buying new IMS equipment — an investment that network operators seem reluctant to make.

At the opposite end of the continuum, operators could yank a user off their 4G network over to their 3G or 2G networks for voice whenever the user received or wanted to make a voice call. That option could lead to delays in switching networks and would also mean that 4G data services wouldn’t be available during a phone call.

Since the standards group behind 3G protocols hasn’t even come up with its own standard yet, and carriers are eager to get their LTE networks deployed, Kineto is jumping into the void with high hopes.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

Kineto Gets $15.5M for Femtocell Push

Stacey Higginbotham — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 16:54:29 +0000

Kineto Wireless is like the Energizer Bunny, it just keeps going and going. Today the Milpitas, Calif.-based startup said it has raised $15.5 million in additional capital. The round, which included funding from Motorola as part of a broader commercial relationship with the handset maker’s home and networks mobility business, also involved Kineto’s existing investors Oak Investment Partners, Sutter Hill Ventures, Venrock, Seapoint Ventures and InterDigital. An earlier investment from NEC will also tie in with this round. Kineto will use the funding to keep pushing its UMA technology beyond dual-mode handsets and work on a new technology for femtocells.

Kineto’s UMA technology basically provides a software link between unlicensed wireless services, such as Wi-Fi and cellular data networks. It has been used in dual-mode handsets to bridge Wi-Fi and cellular networks, most notably in T-Mobile’s Hot Spot@Home product, and now the company is trying to land it a starring big role in the 3G and 4G femtocell markets. Femtocells, which are personal cellular base stations hooked into a consumer’s existing broadband connection, help boost coverage inside homes and can also be used to offload some traffic from a carrier’s wireless 3G network. In 4G networks, femtocells might be used to bridge gaps in coverage.

Kineto worked with NEC to create a standard to connect femtocells to the home computing network that was based on its UMA technology. However, the companies involved in the standard-setting effort chose a different way to connect femtocells to home networks, and will publish a complete standard in early 2009. This latest round of funding should enable Kineto to support femtocell development and deployments for vendors such as NEC and Motorola as carriers and equipment makers figure out the best way to build out and support wireless broadband networks.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

Nokia Has Doubts About UMA

Stacey Higginbotham — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 19:57:16 +0000

Nokia is uncertain about the future of UMA and may not develop any more dual-band handsets for the standard, according to George Fry, director of technology alignment for the Finnish company. “We’re not seeing use diminishing, but we are seeing deployments level off,” Fry said earlier this week at the Personal Computing and Communications Association meeting.

Fry said that in cases in which an operator such as T-Mobile is trying to fill holes in its coverage without spending more to build out the network, UMA makes sense. But he said he wasn’t aware of any new deployments in the last six months or so. Indeed UMA, a standard that allows for secure hand-off between a cellular and fixed network, has proved somewhat polarizing.

Meanwhile Steve Shaw, associate VP of marketing for Kineto Wireless, notes that UMA is also a key component of femtocells, which are currently en vogue in the telco world. Again, there’s no sense of how wide any sort of femtocell deployment might be, but Shaw, whose company bills itself as the UMA company, isn’t counting the standard out.

While admitting that current UMA deployments requiring dual-mode handsets are few, he points out that Orange does have plans to deploy a dual-band network in the UK, Spain and Poland to augment its program started in France. Maybe UMA will become a useful but limited standard, in a manner similar to the way Infiniband was hyped as a replacement for Fibre Channel and Ethernet, but instead was only adopted by the smaller market for high-performance computing.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.