BT anyphone

[David H]

A few years ago BT and O2 had an idea to use a cordless phone that was a home phone but once you were out of range became a mobile, sharing one number. Of course my question was how on earth would a caller know whether the person was in or out, as of course no one charges the same for outside access, but that was for them to explain and stand or fall as a result. Sadly they fell before standing, as it was abandoned. My (long awaited...) question is are there plans for any similar scheme, as technically it makes sense and would free up many numbers again and save giving people two, if they could work out a way to keep the cost of calling down.

[twiglet4frog]

I still believe that the idea is being developed by BT, The problem was that under law they are supposed to stipulate what the costs to u are should u call one of these phones before u actually call. With it converting from landline to mobile it was difficult to be able to follow through with this law, however one of the solutions being developed is to use a similar tarriff to mobile users abroad where they charge the owner of the phone for using it to send or receive calls abroad and not the person living in the uk who may not know your abroad on more expense call rates.

The idea would be that whoever rings your hybrid BT phone will only pay local landline rates as expected of ringing any other landline regardless of location but the person receiving the calls will pay any shortfall should they be using it as a mobile at that point as the owner knows if they are out of range (thus converting to mobile use) and has the option of going back to landline use. This means the more that the owner receives calls while in the mobile phone function the more it is going to add to their bill for the convenience of using this hybrid. The idea is still being developed as it still isnt finacially viable enough to have a hybrid phone compared to seperate landline and mobile with the free calls/txt/rental offers going about.

[kwikfit]

I believe BT are now working with Vodafone on this.

BT Mobile (i.e. not BT Cellnet) used to piggy back (like Virgin Mobile, Fresh and EasyMobile) on T-Mobile's network- however in the last year or so these customers have been migrated to "BT Mobile using Vodafone' s network" and as I understand it trials are going on with a DECT / GSM type phone arrangement.