Dual-Mode Phone Wanted

instat.jpgMarket research In-Stat has found that nearly half of the respondents in a recent survey of U.S. early adopters planning to replace their cell phones want to see Wi-Fi functionality with their handsets reports MobileTechNews. To meet this demand the Wi-Fi Alliance hopes to have more than 100 different models of Wi-Fi/cellular phones in the marketplace by the end of the year. The In-Stat forecast suggests that 50 million Wi-Fi/cellular phones, which incorporate some form of SIP voice service, will ship by 2011.

Allen Nogee, In-Stat Principal Analyst, believes that Wi-Fi/Cellular based systems offer a significant head-start in the market, and that “Other technologies, such as WiMAX and Ultra Wideband, are also poised to enter the handset market, but Wi-Fi fills a unique niche that WiMAX and UWB cannot match.”

Early adopters want dual-mode phone capability [MobileTechNews]