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March 25, 2005

New Samsung Wi-Fi Phone to Hit Korea

By Nancy Gohring

Samsung said it will introduce a Wi-Fi-enabled cell phone later this month in Korea: The phone will run Microsoft’s Pocket PC software. While this article discusses voice over Wi-Fi, it’s not clear that the phone will have any special support for voice over IP.

This article notes that if voice over Wi-Fi does become more widespread, the lower cost to end users may put additional pressure on the cellular operators to decrease their prices for voice services. That’s true but voice over Wi-Fi will have to become very widely used in the home and offices and potentially elsewhere before Wi-Fi will steal significant minutes from the cellular networks. If Wi-Fi networks do end up putting pressure on the cellular operators, it won’t come at a good time. Since the introduction of 3G services, operators, especially in Europe, are already really feeling price pressure on voice services, which continue to yield the vast majority of revenues. Operators that have to compete against Hutchison, which bought a number of 3G licenses throughout Europe, are particularly feeling the pain. Hutchison has come into many markets, especially the UK, with really low voice tariffs as a way to try to win new customers.

Posted by nancyg at March 25, 2005 9:46 AM

Categories: Devices

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