Log in

View Full Version : LongBoard Fine-Tunes WiFi-to-Cell Roaming


Ed Hansberry
03-31-2004, 05:00 AM
<a href="http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1558113,00.asp">http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1558113,00.asp</a><br /><br />"SANTA CLARA, Calif.—Executives at LongBoard Inc. said Tuesday that they're in trials with a technology that will allow a mobile handset to roam between WiFi and cellular networks without dropping calls. LongBoard's OnePhone application will be rolled out for health-care providers this summer and will gain a European carrier most likely in the fourth quarter, executives said at this week's Spring 2004 VON Conference & Expo here. LongBoard will market its OnePhone software application through resellers to carriers, asking handset makers to adapt their products to support the technology."<br /><br />The overall strategy looks convoluted and error prone to me, but that could be my cynicism with wireless coverage and stability in North America, which may be why they are going to try in Europe first where they have one basic cell phone standard, not, uhm, eleventy two. ;)<br /><br />What devices will be supported? "The LongBoard software will work with the Symbian operating system for handhelds and Microsoft's PocketPC 2003. PocketPC 2002 support is "flaky," Schwartz said, and the software does not currently run on the Palm OS."

rbrome
03-31-2004, 08:03 AM
Not to be mean, but to be realistic, I hope no one's college fund is riding on this company's success. :roll: There are a decent number of companies that have a gazillion times better chance in the market than these guys.

The big one in my book is Kineto. I met with them at 3GSM, and I was pretty impressed. Their technology is already in several carrier trials, and is very flexible and practical. (I swear I don't work for them. :wink:)

They can tunnel the entire GSM or CDMA protocol over IP (inlcluding GPRS / 1xRTT data at broadband speeds), over Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. They're doing three carrier trials right now using special Motorola phones, spanning North America and Europe. They can do both CDMA and GSM (GSM first), and Nortel is their infrastructure partner. Carriers are currently expected to launch Kineto-based solutions in Q3 2004 in Europe, and Q1 2005 in the U.S. 8) Oh yeah, and they do that whole seamless handoff thing, too!