The chances of me being genuinely amazed at something I see a Belgian tech company achieve are rather slim. But occasionally, it happens. Last week I went to local entrepreneur meetup BetaGroup and saw five startups pitch their stuff to the 200-person audience.
The last one to get its five minutes of fame was Cherry, a new mobile operator that promised to “revolutionize the telecom world”. Needless to say, I was as curious as I was skeptical.
Then the company’s CEO got up on stage, introduced himself, took out his Nokia smartphone, called some random guy in the audience and had him call him back on his phone afterwards. Projecting his mobile phone screen on a bigger screen for everyone to see, he demonstrated how he didn’t need to launch an application and just browsed his contact list to call the other person. Standard functionality, sure, but the cool part of it was the fact that the phone was lacking the presence of a SIM card, which is supposed to identify you as a subscriber of a telephony service.
I was intrigued. By now you’ll have guessed that the calling was done over Wi-Fi, which I suppose isn’t really unique even if it made me wonder how they did it without launching a third-party app like Skype. Looking to learn more, I went to their official coming-out event the evening after, when they presented the newly founded company to a host of local geeks in more detail, giving them the chance to beta-test the service for a couple of weeks to iron out bugs before launching publicly.
Here’s how it works: Cherry – which is essentially an MVNO – pre-installs software (so yes, in the demo there was actually an application running in the background) on smartphones which it will sell as a packaged product, starting with a Symbian version for Nokia E-Series phones and expanding to other platforms later. Once activated, Cherry lets you call your contacts either over Wi-Fi or the GSM network when you insert a SIM card. Take out the card, and you can only call over a wireless Internet connection.
The funky part? Cherry automatically switches you from one to the other. This process, called a handover, can seriously cut into your current calling and roaming costs when you’re a frequent traveler or on the road often, and it doesn’t even require you to change numbers. You could easily dial your office number from your home over Wi-Fi, leave the house and have the software automatically have Cherry switch you over to a carrier’s cellular network once you’re out of range. There’s no interruption of service during the handover, which means you won’t even notice – until you receive your bill, since it’s obviously cheaper to call over Wi-Fi than the GSM network. Please correct me if I’m wrong, but I think this automatic handover is a quite unique value proposition.
I did a short interview with Cherry CEO Bernard Noël De Burlin and Telco Service Manager aka mobile guru Davy Van De Moere after the event (apologies for the abrupt ending, my Flip’s batteries ran out of juice).
And just in case you don’t have a couple of minutes to watch the video, let me save you the trouble of asking: support for iPhone and Android are on the top of their list and a Windows Mobile-compatible version should be available soon.
(Full disclosure: the company gave me a Nokia E51 and free calling minutes so I could try out the service under normal circumstances on a daily basis. I need to return or pay for the phone end of August 2009.)
Quite impressive for a small start up company.
yeah. unlike fukoff marketing
Confusing story. Reads like a Verizon mobile data contract.
Two years ago, T-Mobile came out with “Hotspot @Home,” which also lets you initiate a call in a wi-fi zone and switch to cellular without incurring charges. See: http://www.nyti...ml?pagewanted=2
and http://theonlyp...oneyouneed.com/.
Wow … this is very cool. I can’t wait to try it!
Oh – and the little video at the top of the page is knock out – almost over-the-top – but worth a couple of views.
Yeah I think they went over the top intentionally. At least I hope for their sake
Solid video, but the typo that someone already mentioned + the use of stock sounds (tis from VideoCopilot’s Designer Sound FX) bring it down a little bit. That’s just me nitpicking though, as as a motion guy myself, everybody else’s stuff has to automatically suck. :p
How do you like the E51?
You should know that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo :-/
If it really is as simple as downloading an app I’ll be amazed. If it was that simple to interface IMS/SIP with e.g. the Symbian dialler we would have a disruptive telco ecosystem already. The idea is really not that new.
I thought Sagan said that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic?
That sounds very interesting. One question I have though is how the service works when on the road, now that many wi-fi networks are closed? Will it search for any open networks, and connect automatically? But would love to try it on my iPhone
Cheers, Marc
I’d have to double-check, but I don’t think it automatically detects and connects to open Wi-Fi networks. Once you configure one, though, it does switch automatically.
It can but we do not do this “by default” because first it uses the battery and then most of the people we tested were against it for security reasons. First 60% of the calls are normally made either home or in your office and for the rest we have already and are still negociating and implementing (coming soon …) various agreements with closed wifi networks either city ones or international ones to log in automatically. We are working hard to make it available on all wifi compatible handsets but Apple do not helps us
or ;-( ?
This would be seriously awesome in a city that had WiMax.
How does this diffrr from UMA on my T-Mobile BlackBerry? It sounds identical.
Big difference I can see is that with the service T-Mobile offers, if you start a call on a cell network and then get handed off to Wi-Fi, you still get charged minutes. You have to start on Wi-Fi to get the lower cost.
Largest difference is that we are not UMA, we are IMS / SIP therefore open to the world and evolution. Our big chance is that we are not network operator meaning that we do not care about which network we are working with, we are open to all. The existing operators just priviledges their own networks ! we try to really bring advantage to users with no (or at least less) legacy.
and also, in the opening paragraph it says the demo phone had *no sim card* when it called.
i guess thats the big difference, no carrier needed.
i, too, also thought it was similar to UMA but there are minute differences. too bad they charge for a wifi rate (e.g. not free).
No, you dont. When it switches to UMA, you’re on WiFi. No minutes are being used.
You already have this in the US with tmobile, possibly others. See UMA/GAN http://en.m.wik..._Access_Network
Once again, we are not a network operator (see comments above). I would love to share thoughts about this because this is really the heart of the model. We do not own the networks meaning that we are open to all of them transparently. We select the one that brings more advantages to the user and not the one that generates the more margins to operators. This is nearly a philosophy
See above comments. Would love to discuss it anyway. We are SIP/IMS and definitely not UMA. Independant from the networks. We priviledge usage compared to margins made on the network.
Hi,
there is not enough technical background on this news, so I might be wrong with what I’m about to say, but based on what is written, it seems a pretty standard IMS deployment.
The ability of switching a call from wifi to gsm is called VCC (Voice Call Continuity) and it’s supported by many IMS vendors (I work for one of them).
The one bit that sounded interesting to me, was the fact that they mentioned that they will have agreements with WiFi operators all over the world. I wonder from the technical side, how is that supported by the software? Does the software scan automatically the wifi network every x min? or do you manually start a search when you are in an unknown place (e.g. not home nor office)?
In essence, the questions I would ask Cherry is: what is your secret ingredient? Meaning: what is the software layer that you developed for Symbian capable of doing to differentiate your offer from the standard SIP support found in Symbian?
From end-user prospective, how is your solution different than using a standard GSM operator together with Truphone, Gizmo5, etc?
Also: which mobile phones are supported? Can smartphone owners subscribe without buying a new phone?
alfonso
Many things to say … Indeed the heart of the technology is IMS and open standards. It is the way we want it. We do not have the pretention to be the only one in the world using open standards but we brought a full solution onto the market. The whole solution means full integration with mobile and fixed networks, including all regulatory implications. We really control the call end to end including portability and multiple agreements with wifi networks allowing auto login on various networks. the whole solution is pretty unique and we would liek to deploy it step by step in various markets.
Regarding the handsets. We started on Nokia but we are working on many others. Just at this time the Nokia’s ones are just more open and stable. WM is of less quality and I-Phone and Blackberry are for the time being just not opened but we would celebrate more openess!
Regardless of how much I would love to see your disruptive tech succeed it’s not coincidence that it doesn’t exist yet.
It’s not like this hasn’t been thought about (what do you think the 1000s of guys writing the IMS standards were thinking?). It’s not like a few groups haven’t tried to do this exact same thing, right?
The dialler is the part of the OS on which billion dollar industries are built. For a lot of OSs you simply cannot interface with it – it’s locked down (yes, it sucks).
If you tell me that it is *actually* an OTA app and that it actually interfaces with the dialler on Symbian (and it’s not a flashed proprietary Symbian build?) then I’ll tell you that you may have got one heck of a product.
Regarding the handsets, we are working on all and all environment but really Nokia is the strongest and the most open and the one that manages the battery consumption the most efficiently ! Appel and Blackberry are not very open … for the time being.
This is awesome. Cherry, if you are listening, we would be more than honoured for any kind of chat, coffee or belgian beer somewhere in near future…
truly awesome
With great pleasure. Always glad to share thoughts / opportunities / potential users !
Haha, their video has a typo! 00:27, isn’t the word “around”?
Anyway, looks impressive; a few comments up you said that it doesn’t connect to any network, only configured? That’s a bit of a downer, I was under the impression from the videos and text that it would seek out any available wifi networks that it could connect to and use them. Ah well, still impressive.
Can do both but many users do not want is (see comments above).
We can act that way as well. But we do not “by default” because people are scared of connecting on each and every network and also it consumes battery. + see above comments as well.
Sounds intriguing, but that video is way over the top for ANY product.
A bold and welcomed video! Most product/company promo/positioning is pretty uninspiring. Congrats!
Maybe I misunderstand but doesn’t Nokia offer this since quite some time? http://tr.im/handover
Seems similar, but it requires a specific Nokia phone. Cherry is supposed to support a wide range of smartphones/platforms in the future.
OK. Then why do they start with Nokia, if Nokia already offers it? I’m just curious.
I asked the same question, they said Symbian was the most solid development environment to start with + Nokia is still pretty strong here in Europe.
Nokia provides UMA solutions, just for Mobile operators. We provide IMS/SIP solution opened to the workd and other networks and not only the one of the network who sells you the product ! But long discussion. The models are just completely diffirent. UMA just “encapsulates” info on the mobile network. We are natively SIP meaning openess to each and every network in the world. including while roaming.
so what if you call from a WIFI and move out of its range…will the call he handed over to GSM without interruption ? Cant really believe that works well…
Pretty cool thing though.
I will post video demonstrating it soon …
also, i bet it wont be availble through the app store in countries where the iphone is sold exclusivly.
working hard on iphone …
Not a totally new idea, but a bold and welcomed video! Most product/company promo/positioning is pretty uninspiring. Congrats!
Not a new idea but well the first implementation …
Not the first. German company Wifon presented the same Wifi-GSM-VCC yet 2 years ago, also on Nokia Eseries.
If I understand correct what Goog is doing in Google Voice they are aiming at a much broader niche than this one.
depends if you want another number or keep your existing mobile number and use it on all networks in the world …
Robin, did he say if they are hiring? Do they need any engineers? Because it seems quite an interesting project.
we do. Not immediately but things are going so quickly since the annoucement …
Truphone already does this and has been doing this for the last 2 years (http://www.truphone.com/) Truephone runs in the background, does automatic call handling and transfer.
No truphone is more a combination of SIP calls over IP (identical) but mainly call forwarding and call back when integration on mobile network. On top of that handover doesn’t work. But they are great at what they do and compliant with many handsets. The model is not the same. The integration on our side is so strong (including handover) that it is more difficult to ,provide it on all handsets.
Very interesting.. hope to try it too.
For all those who want to test it, do not hesitate to register on becherry.be !
I just registered. So, looking for the additional info. When do you plan to launch? As for partnerships with mobile and wifi operators, I can see how they will resist it first. But, I guess if you execute it right, they will not have a choice, but joining – similar to how the major online media like nytimes, guardian, etc. hated the fact search engines like google indexes their content, but they realized later on they could not afford to miss the incoming traffic from Google
Robin, I don’t whether it’s your age or whether you simply take advantage of the latitude given you by the blog format, where real journalism can be turned on and off like a switch, but your opening comment about Belgian tech companies is condescending and unworthy.
They may or may not have a Silicon Valley, but you imply that they have no capacity to produce amazing things, as though they are a nation of idiots. This is too dismissive.
lol, so you’re implying I called myself an idiot (since I’m Belgian and all that)?
Don’t be silly, Robin. I didn’t know you were Belgian and I’m not sure that affects my point. Whether you dismiss as an insider or an outsider Belgium’s potential to innovate, you were overly dismissive nonetheless.
Belgium will thank you for your future objectivity. For the record, I am not Belgian and I’m not sure that matters either.
It’s just an opening line to grab reader attention, do you really think he means that all belgian companies suck? Of course now.
So he can write what he doesn’t mean? Says a lot about the quality if the article and those, like you, who defend it.
I agree with your comment and I’m Belgian. The condescending tone grabbed my attention, but I don’t like what it implies.
T-Mobile does this with their “Hotspot Calling” service UMA. http://www.t-mo...dHotSpotCalling
It’s $10 a month. I had the service until a few days ago. It works really well.
Nice!
Here is the problem, the MVNO model. These guys are going to need serious capital, and patient investors. I was part of a start-up in Australia, 20M people, 22M mobile subscribers. It cost the investors about AUD 6 billion to build a 3G network and gain 2M subscribers… take out out the 1.5 billion for the network, and you have Cherries problem, capital.
Cool idea, probably a tech company at best. They will go the way of Blyk in less than 2 years! I know, harsh, but fair
I like this kind of discussion. We are not only a tech company and we have started from a MVNO model as well. Keep in mind that we do not own any network which make us less capital intensive. There are enough networks everywhere. We just route the calls on all these networks wifi, gsm, 3g, … We really think this is a great opportunity for us to make the fact that we do not own any network a strenght.
I hear you, but that’s been the same argument for Amp’d, Helio, and Blyk (I can go on) they all have used technology, content, or a business model (or all) as their differentiation but the fact remains; to acquire customers from established integrated Telco’s is costly, your probably talking between 300 and 500 Euro’s a customer (then you have to keep them). So yes you do not have a network to maintain, but you have acquire customers to make money, and then killer is pricing, and remember your margins are slimmer. Customers will not flock to your service because it switches between WIFI and GSM, as the incumbents will just go “that’s cool, but hey stay with us and we will give you free WIFI, or hey come to us and we will will give you a free phone and free WIFI.” So the fact remains, you going to need serious capital, and patient investors…
Ya know, I’ve often thought about this for my iPhone and AT&T. My AT&T service really sucks in parts of my residence (imagine that), and I’ve wondered about the possibility of an automatic switch to a VOIP service through my Wifi. Not that I want to help AT&T do the job that they should be doing, but if Wifi would be able to improve the voice service on my iPhone like it does the data, I would be all for it.
We are not yet present in the US
But in Belgium as well, people suffer from bad coverage home and this is a real network extension using the same number, your single mobile one.
google “at&t femtocell”
I got hand it those Belgians, I’m thoroughly impressed. Fruli beer now Cherry for my BlackBerry.
ooh what a pitty…
I really love the idea.
But have some concerns…
Consider this–>
Sky Dayton (past):
- Chairman of Boingo (one of the worlds largest WiFi networks)
- Board/Director of Earthlink (at the time making a major push in Muni WiFi)
- CEO fo Helio (roughly 500M in capital and access to a billion dollars of R&D from SK Telecom)
It would have been simple for Helio to launch a seamless VOICE & DATA WiFi handover solution… Roam via Sprint and WiFi via Bingo/Earthlink.
Assuming I had some insider knowledge — the obstacle was battery life. Working with one of the largest handset manufacturers, tests showed batteries could handle seamless VOICE handover for only 30min before dying.
My understanding was Apple had the same problem with the iPhone which is why the opted to offer seamless cellular/WiFi handover for DATA only.
Final wrinkle… keep in mind that whenever anything goes over WiFi, the cellular partner in the MVNO doesnt make any money…So they are disincentivized from cooperating.
I’m curious (Robin) if you have encountered battery life issues?
Screenshot of iPod Touch upgrading to iPhone 3 software on Sunday, July 5 11am. http://www.mace...one-3-software/
Doesn’t France had that for a while with unik from Orange?
http://www.oran...resentation.php
Nope, it was UMA technology, not IMS/SIP.
I like the disclosure at the end…don’t want the wrath of Arrington upon you, eh?
This is not new. I have new. I have a 4G BlackBerry 8900. How? I have T-Mobile with the wifi access package. This means I can make calls over wifi and my BlackBerry can also do hand offs automatically without interrupting the call. I live in Portland and just got Clear Wimax along with the Clearspot portable wifi. So whenever I have this pocket sized device with me I have 6 Mbps download time and wifi calls. Coverage is good but not perfect but Wimax is awesome. There are also cheap or free VOIP packages for phones using wifi. I guess the revolution here is hoping these technologies are still news to consumers naive enough to pay full price for every call.
As was pointed out in other comments, look for providers and phones with UMA (Unlicensed Mobile Access) and you have free wifi calls saving both consumers and carriers money.
What’s different between this and Unik on Orange, and SFR happy zone – both available for years in France?
Great to see open network solutions be attempted. The current U.S. Providers (and likely in other countries) are fleecing end-users through complicated and costly voice-data offerings. At present, the literally have a license to steal, and their objective is to enact even greater control.
The use of white space technologies like WiFi are a method to begin to cut the airless cord to these ogolopolistic provider cartels. Good work, and hope to see more of this type innovation from others!
should be ‘they’
should be ‘oligopolistic’
Am I the only one who thought Robin was a girl this whole time? I stand corrected.
Why would any network operator want to partner with them ? this will certainly reduce their revenues….
As for partnerships with mobile and wifi operators, I can see how they will resist it first. But, I guess if you execute it right, they will not have a choice, but joining – similar to how the major online media like nytimes, guardian, etc. hated the fact search engines like google indexes their content, but they realized later on they could not afford to miss the incoming traffic from Google
I think a local telecomm in Cincinnati, Cincinnati Bell, already does this. We have it on UC’s campus, for instance. On campus, phone uses wi-fi, or at any business/home that uses Cinti Bell’s high-speed service. Works on a Blackberry, and you don’t switch apps. Just works. I think they call it “Fusion.”
Hey nice, ever see the Rabbit system with roaming on hotspots, bit old school.
MVNO sounds like a worry, what’s the minimum sign up rate they are demanding at the moment? That could dent momentum
http://en.wikip...rg/wiki/Rabbit_(telecommunications) for the rabbit
I hope TC would start covering WiMax more intensively , as this is the ONLY solution to revolustionize our life (and reduce the cost of communication)- Mobile, Broadband, TV, everything (Including making the Cherry service a true killer one)
Wow, now THAT sounds like my kind of plan! I like it!
Jeff
http://www.anonymize.tk
sounds like something that could be the killer app DeviceScape.com need to make their auto-WiFi connection software really useful.
hope it comes to WinMo soon as I’d love to try it
“The chances of me being genuinely amazed at something I see a Belgian tech company achieve are rather slim.”
I can’t decide which is worse. Your snarky attitude or the geocentric bigotry. Either way, you need to get out of the Valley more. Innovation does happen beyond the borders of Palo Alto, Santa Clara, and Mountain View.
You should have done your research more before you wrote this article.
Wifi GSM Handover is a 2007-2008 stuff. Why is it mention here as if it is groundbreaking in TC?
Read more. It helps.
This software seems amazing. I would love to have this on my iPhone. I think it’ll save me a lot of money when I go abroad. Even at home, with my family plan we go over minutes sometimes, this would help prevent that.
http://ziggytek.com/
Now the most important questions is, will you return the phone or pay for it.
Sounds cool; I can’t wait to try it
A month ago Cellcom, the largest Mobile carrier in Israel, has launched a service for roaming users that uses a Mobile SIP Client.
The user sends an SMS and gets as a response a link to a SIP Mobile SoftPhone that installs automatically and works on the background. No configuration is needed on the user side.
All user configuration, server configuration, updates, upgrades, call features, etc is managed by a Client Management Server Software.
While roaming the user can use the Nokia native interface ( Address Book, Call logs ) to call over WiFi. The incredible thing is that SMS works too !!!. You can start sending an SMS using the Native interface and the SMS will go over IP.
The enabler company is also an Israeli company: MailVision Ltd. with more than a decade on the SIP buisness. MailVision provides the Client software and the Client Management Software.
MailVision has Mobile SIP Client for all the mobile platforms (Nokia Symbian, Windows Mobile, iPhone / iPod Touch ) and also for PC / Mac OS X and WEB Dialers. Android and Blackberry on testing.
For More information please visit: http://mailvision.com
Inca,
Another recent example of VoIP provider that is providing calls over Wi-Fi from the mobile is Vyke.
In June they released their Vyke-Mobile solution, it has great rate and good quality.
https://www.vyk...om/Mobile-VoIP/
The SIP client of the application comes from a UK company, Pragmaticomm Limited. http://www.prag....com/mvoip.html
Benoit
Hi Benoit,
this is nice. They are a Mobile operator or and ITSP ?
Cellcom has more than 3 million subscribers and I thing is one of the first to take this approach as a mobile carrier.
The subscriber uses its own mobile number to make and receive calls over WiFi, don’t need to change provider / telephone number while roaming.
That is a huge advantage !!!!
@robin
Hey Robin, this is brilliant. Yes as usual someone else has done this and that’s why the marketing flash stuff is important to differentiate.
How do we get a hold of these guys?
Sounds exactly like what Orange (run by France Telecom) has been offering for a couple of years now. I work for an telecommunications consultancy and I just happen to be coming off a research topic on just this subject and I’ll be frank, guys, this is nothing new. The tech has been around for years and carriers like AT&T and Verizon are just finishing up revamping their infrastructure for it. Seamless handoff between VoIP and cellular calls is driven by a technology called IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem) that the carrier must first implement, which is why Cherry is an MVNO. Whatever carrier it’s renting network time from will have the exact same capability. If i were an investor, I would definitely be looking somewhere else.
This is pretty cool, but T-Mobile has been doing this in the states for a while now. I had that on an older Nokia flip phone 2 years ago.
I loved it, especially since I get terrible cell-signal in my apt., but have my own WiFi network in my living room. I just wish that my iPhone did that, or if they would just package the handoff software and sell it as a software product, I’d buy that in a second.
“The chances of me being genuinely amazed at something I see a Belgian tech company achieve are rather slim.”
This is one of the most stupid comment I have ever read.
Now would be a good time to mention that DiVitas Networks has an “ahead of its time” mobile unified communications system that is shipping and has been installed at sites in North America and Europe/UK.
I have seen it do seamless call hand-offs between GSM and WiFi automagicly both in a hosted and enterprise server-based configuration. Check them out, too.
The stage demo is not impressive at all, and only shows the writer hasn’t a clue about, let alone tried out the behaviour of a Nokia smartphone without a SIM card.
Anyone at all can achieve this underwhelming feat.
In so-called Offline mode, my Nokia E51can still make SIP calls using wi-fi.
The whole of the demo as described can be achieved by using a VoIP provider which allows setting of outgoing caller ID.
Can TechCrunch please employ less naive writers?