The “dual mode” consumer phone is here.  T-Mobile just introduced a new program that may offer just what you need to cancel your home voice line and have one phone that serves as both a phone in the home and a mobile phone on the go.  With HotSpot @Home, your broadband connection becomes “your personal cell tower” that won’t chew away at your minutes.  It also leverages virtually any open hotspot around the world to do the same thing.

Most people I know who use a cellphone for business shy away from using a cellphone in the home or office because they either have a poor cell signal there or they have another phone available.  In the home, T-Mobile takes that constraint away by providing the consumer with a turnkey home wireless solution that provides dual mode WiFi and cellular calling.  Bottom line: This sets up a a “perfect storm” for the telco and broadband industries to navigate through.  Read more here.

The connected world landscape changed significantly yesterday when the FCC agreed to the largest U.S. telco merger ever, uniting AT&T and BellSouth and thereby bringing Cingular under one roof.  The new AT&T provides Internet and phone service across large areas of the midwest, southwest and southeast, and is the largest cellular carrier in the U.S.  The merger complements the industry crossovers trend identified in Connected World and is similarly driven by the promise of Internet-based services.  The new AT&T is expected to provide a wider array of services, including video services that compete with cable TV, as well as unbundled DSL (an eleventh-hour concession along with net neutrality; see yesterday’s post below).  See article.

AT&T made numerous concessions yesterday regarding net neutrality and other consumer-friendly matters in an effort to gain approval by the Federal Communications Commission before the end of the year for AT&T’s merger with BellSouth.  The proposed merger has been in review since its announcement in March; consumer groups and Internet companies have been pressing for the concessions as a condition of the merger, which would be the largest U.S. telecommunications merger in history.  Net neutrality is an important concession, with AT&T agreeing to treat all Internet content equally rather than charging premium fees for delivering certain forms of content, such as video, with preferential or “fast lane” treatment.  Correspondingly, other content, such as VoIP packets, cannot be slowed or blocked.  See the Connected World‘s discussion of net neutrality on pp. 20-21.  The net-neutrality condition put forth by AT&T expires in two years.  For more on the AT&T concessions, see article (subscription required). 

Google is talking with Orange (mobile phone operator owned by France Telecom) to create a branded phone that can search the Web from “wherever.” Guesstimates for this unit’s availability: 2008. 

Benefits include new levels of convenience from location-based searches, and new revenue sources from ads and extended airtime.  Making it easy to find the right restaurant or entertainment venue from wherever you are looks like a strong draw.  Having the Internet in your pocket could finally become commonplace—Nokia and Motorola are already working on it, and the Google-Orange venture could drive it home.  See article.

Skype’s founders are pursuing a worldwide broadband television capability, code named “The Venice Project.” It is said to provide “near high-definition” quality and will be supported by advertising.  Using peer-to-peer technology, the project aims to serve “tens of millions of users” while addressing content owners’ security concerns.  It is slated to kick off in 2007.

Different from YouTube and video-on-demand services, this effort will offer conventional channels. YouTube and similar video sharing Web sites “are not TV,” according to Skype founder Janus Friis.  (See YouTube blog post 12/18/06 indicating conventional TV companies are getting into the Internet act.) Hoping to reach a global audience, the envisioned content will initially cover drama, documentaries and—of course—music videos.

See Financial Times article.