WiFi-SIM Chip for WiFi Phones?

Over the past few days, Katie at GigaOm has been trekking down to Mountain View on hot days to try out the new Google-Fi network. Most recently she went with a Mac and Nokia 770 and tried out Skype and GizmoProject respectively to determine the feasibility and quality of the call.. She concludes:

• If your call is critical and you’re in a big hurry, and not willing to tinker with new technology, stick to your cellular handset. and
• if you’re willing to give up the ease-of-use of your mobile handset, then, Google’s Mountain View network is not bad

Alec Saunders has referenced Katie’s post, commented on his experience and concludes:

The biggest problem, identified in the comments area, is the ubiquitous authentication screens that nearly all public WiFi access points have now. For all intents and purposes, these make the use of non-PC based VoIP (such as dual-mode handsets) impossible.

I have had some recent experience using the VoIPvoice Cyberphone W while visiting clients and prospects, doing demonstrations for an unrelated service on a consulting project. Simply set up the PC, plug in the Ethernet cable, plug in the Cyberphone W, lift up the handset, look up the contact in Outlook, click on the number via Skype’s Outlook Toolbar and make a SkypeOut call — a lot easier than asking what is the number to access a long distance service, dialing the number and entering some form of calling card number. Effectively it was a pleasure to have total control over my long distance setup, as well as the discrete simplicity of making the connection, to bring in audio for a remote portion of the demonstration.

So the question becomes how reasonable is it to expect to be able to control the situation where mobile wireless is the only option while maintaining and/or improving the simplicity of the process? With both my previous Nokia 6310i or my current Nokia N70 evaluation unit I can simply select a name in the Contact list, select which phone number for the selected Contact to call, and click on the Call or Send button to initiate a call. The SIM chip provides the authorization and authentication and the billable minutes start to add up if it is a long distance call.

All the recent posts (Om, Andy) generated by last Sunday’s New York Times article “The WiFi in Your Handset” piqued my curiosity as to what could be accomplished today vs what is required to have a fully operational WiFi phone service. So I went out with my Skype-enabled Dell Axim X50v (624MHz processor – not designed for WiFi Phone service but, as you will see, it proves the concept) to a couple of local coffee shops and my long term Volvo dealer during a routine service visit to try out Skype Mobile for Windows. (Note that an inter-carrier Canadian HotSpot program has been set up so that, regardless of your wireless carrier, you can use the Hotspot of an otherwise competitive carrier.)

• Starbucks’ WiFi, serviced by Bell Mobility, came up with a login screen that wanted an email address and a Starbucks “partner number” to trigger access. The store personnel knew nothing about a “partner number” for the service. Gave up trying to use it – I had had an earlier experience the same day at another location where the “Home Page” came up in French whereas there is usually an option to select one of our two official languages on a Canadian service’s Home Page. It went downhill from there; the latte was good..
• Went to a Second Cup across the street where Rogers, my wireless carrier, provides the HotSpot service; I could retrieve my password on my N70 via an SMS response to a login request via the Axim’s browser. Once logged in the billing was building at 15 cents/ per minute. (Is there something wrong with this picture of a packet-based service being billed by the minute?) Went to the Skype for Windows Mobile client and connected with Phil Wolff who picked up the phone and we had a short, reasonable quality conversation under conditions of some ambient noise (outside a coffee shop and an adjacent ice cream parlor on a 35C/95F degree plus evening) and a Dell Axim speaker that did not have a large volume range. Workable for the patient geek user but a proper headset for the Axim’s non-standard speaker/mic plug would have helped. (Had I made the call via my Rogers GSM service, the billing would also have netted out at 15 cents a minute, so no financial advantage here.)
• Went to my Volvo dealer the following morning for a service visit; they have “Guest” WiFi available and desks for their customers to use the WiFi while waiting. Once I had assisted the dealer personnel get their WiFi operational again after the impact of power blackout during the previous night’s thunderstorm, I was able to call up an acquaintance in Victoria using the Skype Mobile on the Axim. Being in a quiet room, we were able to hold a very normal phone conversation for 11 minutes. No login, no noticeable lag and Ralph was able to bring me up to date on his business activity.. This call was the closest to a normal wireless call in terms of both the connection and the actual conversation experience.

Yesterday Bill reported on the success an Australian acquaintance was having with the first available WiFi Phone for Skype: “the current software is fantastic, extremely easy to use, contacts, forward settings, etc., all downloaded to the phone, no need entering all your contacts again” However, one caveat: “This is good if you’re logging onto a network which you have the security details however for hotspots, etc., requiring web based authentication, this phone isn’t going to work.”

When I make a phone call, I want to go into a directory, select the callee, click on an icon and have the call commence — similar to how I make calls on my recent Nokia 6310i and N70 phone sets. And not have the delays and hassles associated with logging in to get authentication. There has to be a more user friendly way to use WiFi phones at Hotspots.

GSM/GPRS has its SIM chip; the 3G UMTS protocol is coming out on both Cingular and Rogers with a U-SIM chip supposedly later this fall. Both of these not only store information but also provide an authorization and authentication capability. Seems to be it would be reasonable to suggest that WiFi-enabled phone vendors, working with the WiFi hotspot carriers, be asked to come out with some form of WiFi-SIM chip to overcome this authorization-authentication hassle. (Someone is already using the most obvious term, W-SIM) Of course there is always the question of whether such a proposal would be in the carriers’ business interest but good marketing, including pricing, programs can overcome that.

In the interim the WiFi hotspot carriers can facilitate the login process. Simply. make unique mobile device (WAP ore whatever) login screens that are easy to access and to enter login information within the confines of a mobile display instead of trying to gloss over with a PC screen’s SVGA resolution pages for this purpose and hoping the device can manipulate ribbon bars. This ability alone would probably put a significant increase into the revenue potential for HotSpot carriers. Check out http://mobile.google.com or http://wap.mlb.com to experience the simplicity I am talking about.