Holy Grail time, kids: Nokia announced Wi-Fi/GSM GPRS Wi-Fi card: Nokia has been shipping a Wi-Fi card with a SIM slot to allow authentication and billing via existing cell network back office systems, but this is the real deal, and the beginning of the beginning of cell telco/wISP alignment. I was talking to a colleague yesterday about this very issue: the companies making the cellular equipment will have to drive the market, because cell companies don't have a particular motivation to make it easier for their customers to switch from band to band and service to service. Decreased friction also means you spend more to keep customers and can lose customers quickly. Nokia is taking the lead by offering the devices, and the cell companies will follow that lead and start partnering and building services. It's not as simple as that, of course, but users have driven the deployment of WLANs, and they will resist plain GPRS services, priced expensively, unless they're coupled with the Nokia card and wISP access. [via Alan Reiter; read his analysis.]

8:35:38 PM    comment