A US survey of early adopters by In-Stat suggests that almost half of its respondents plan to replace their cell phones with dual-mode WiFi/ cellular phones. In-Stat thinks such devices will face increasing competition from other technologies like femtocells, “but widespread WiFi deployment and the variety of WiFi/cellular handsets offers WiFi/cellular based systems a significant head-start in the market”.
The analysts also reckon there will be over 100 dual-mode handsets by year end; early issues like limited battery life will be solved this year; and VoIP-enabled phones incorporating some form of SIP voice support will exceed the 50m mark by 2011.