BT's mobility strategy
Published: 20 Mar 2007 11:50 GMT
... with a number of deals for enabling field forces to manage their workers who are out and about. We also have quite an increase of focus on tracking goods, and increased focus on wireless LAN generally, and applications for hospitals and government.
Several people have suggested that BT is essentially rolling out a mobile network using unlicensed spectrum...
To describe it as rolling out a mobile phone network is the wrong description. What we are doing is enhancing our mobile offer. It's a very competitive market — we want to add more and differentiate from the me-too mobile propositions.
How we see it is this: there is still a big role to play for traditional mobile services, and we've chosen to go down an MVNO [mobile virtual network operator, a type of rebranding] route with Vodafone.
It was suggested to me at 3GSM that BT was dissatisfied with the deal it was getting with Vodafone...
No, we are very pleased with that. There is nothing we can't do with the MVNO that we could have done with Cellnet or O2. In terms of getting to market we are very pleased with our arrangement.
What were trying to do is extend our broadband network from indoors to outdoors. We see a huge growth in interest from consumers and businesses on broadband-rich applications and services. IP and broadband is the best technology today for delivering those services, so why limit those services to the home and office when we know we can differentiate our mobile offer by bringing that to customers out and about?
Eighty to 90 percent will not have that service in geographical terms, so mobile is excellent for fast communications. When you're sitting at home or in a coffee shop or hotel, you can get access to rich communications — you want to try and get the best of both worlds. I don't see that we regret not having a mobile network
What about WiMax? BT seems to be pushing hard for the spectrum to be made available.
Wimax technology sounds exciting. If it does what it says on the tin, it could be a very interesting proposition.
We still haven't decided what role it might play. It would be highly dependent on the penetration of WiMax devices. My forecast for the next 3-5 years is that the most predominant availability of mobile devices will be GSM or 3G coupled with Wi-Fi. For the foreseeable future I think the scenario you would paint would be really walking out the door, being on your mobile, perhaps going back to a VoIP call — essentially doing all applications over broadband.
WiMax has the potential to expand the footprint that Wi-Fi would be fulfilling today [but] I'm not confident to say that will happen in next 4-5 years. We will keep a watchful eye on WiMax to see if we incorporate that in at some point.
We believe it should be made available for whatever technology can be developed to maximise the use of it, and the sooner the better. At the moment, how BT could use it remains a question mark. I don't think a WiMax network would ever go countrywide — it would probably be urban.
It's too early-days. There isn't a strong case for putting WiMax out for mobility purposes in rural areas, although there could be, in certain countries like Pakistan, a case for using it for low-speed broadband. We're going to 8 megabits per second now — a WiMax network can't provide that level of richness in terms of connectivity.
Finally, you've been rumoured to be in talks with the "Wi-Fi community" Fon, regarding the creation of public hotspots in residential and commercial areas, using your hubs. Is this the case?
We have talked to them. We are interested in how we might benefit from extending our footprint in terms of our relationship with them. What form that relationship would take, I cannot communicate at the moment.
It could be a roaming model like with any other company that's got a footprint of hotspots. We need to look at it in the context of what services we want to provide to BT customers, and how we make sure you can connect in more places.
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