Mitel does hybrid mobile phone

Mitel Networks is developing a voice over IP (VoIP) phone console that works with mobile phones, another sign of how these two communications devices are beginning to merge into one.

While inside a building, the phones use an office's VoIP network. Once outside, though, they switch over to a mobile phone network, Mitel COO Paul Butcher said last week.

A US carrier is interested in the device when it's ready for mass consumption, Butcher said. He added that the new phones will work first with an upgrade of Mitel's 5230 IP Appliance. The company wouldn't give an estimate of when the device will be ready.

Mitel's effort is an example of the convergence of mobiles and VoIP, a cheaper form of telephone calling that normally the internet. Most mobile phone handset makers plan to make similar hybrid phones but Mitel is among the first strictly IP phone makers to commit to such a device.

Butcher said there's a demand for these hybrid phones because a common customer for both are businesspeople, who have already made the cell phone a staple and are predicted to take to VoIP with equal enthusiasm. "It's a natural fit," Butcher said.

But Mitel is going about it the wrong way and at the wrong time, said Saied Seghatoleslami, Avaya VP, a Mitel rival. He said customers want phones that are good at basic tasks, not loaded with extra features that often are so filled with bugs they can turn people off to VoIP dialling entirely.

"It's an interesting concept but the stuff that people really want is basic things, like a high-quality speakerphone," Seghatoleslami said.