Smart-phone booths

Phone booths and phone banks, relics from a pre-cellular day, may be set for a come-back. We’ve all walked by the vacated spaces where banks of pay phones used to be affixed to walls in airports and hotels, as well as the stands on busy street corners.

Obviously phone booths are connected via the two wires needed for a POTS line which could easily be augmented with a DSL session.  Along with power, the locations can easily be re-born to a ‘smartphone’ world.  Maybe we can dub these “smartphone booths”. 

(Ed note:  That is *not* me walking shirtless in this photo...)

Putting Wi-Fi access points into un-used phone banks makes some sense, particularly with the new Next Generation Hotspot (NGH) and HotSpot2.0 initiatives.  Acompany can use their right-of-way to install and maintain the access points while changing back-end service providers (Boingo, iPass, AT&T, …) to enable their subscriber’s access.  

Declare Your Cellular Independence!

In honor of America’s Independence Day, which we will celebrate tomorrow with hotdogs, burgers and fireworks, some lucky folks can declare their cellular independence.

Mobile subscribers that use Orange UK’s Signal Boost service or T-Mobile US’ Wi-Fi Calling can rely on Wi-Fi for calls and texts in areas they use their phones the most.

That’s why Kineto has teamed with UK technology site MoDaCo in a contest to give away an HTC One X equipped with Signal Boost, powered by Kineto’s Smart Wi-Fi technology. Find out how to enter on the Signal Boost contest page.

With London preparing for the Olympic onslaught of an estimated five million visitors, most armed with smartphones, clever people who can make the most of the Wi-Fi on their mobiles will have a leg up. Wi-Fi has become a critical part of the network capacity solution. Virgin Mobile is deploying Wi-Fi in the Underground. Plus, fixed-line provider BT has pledged it will make 500,000 Wi-Fi access points available.

It will be great. But don’t just take my word for it. The technology continues to get rave reviews.

“I used it on the first Orange San Francisco and the Monte Carlo, and it’s a fantastic app,” commented Christian E. on a recent MoDaCo article. “I really can’t understand why every operator doesn’t have a version for every phone. It saves them money/bandwidth and gives the customers better service, it’s not often you get such a win-win.”

Happy 4th of July!