BT Fusion is a telecommunications product available from BT in the United Kingdom. It "fuses" together mobile telephony and, from the user's point of view, conventional landline telephony. In fact, the fixed portion of the link is provided by a Voice over IP implementation using the domestic ADSL service. The BT Fusion service is compatible with the BT Home Hub. The premise of the service is that it can reduce mobile phone costs by not using the mobile network when the user is at home. The same phone is used (currently a modified version of the Motorola RAZR V3 is offered), but if the phone is within range of a special base station installed in the user's home then incoming and outgoing calls will be routed through that base station instead of the mobile network. This link between the phone and base station is carried over Bluetooth. (BT Fusion is now available using Wifi technology, thus allowing discounts not only at home but over BT Openzone Wifi hotspots) From the base station, at-home calls are connected to the phone network using an ADSL broadband connection; only those with BT Broadband connections are eligible for the service. Voice over IP protocols are used to transmit the call, but this is intended to remain largely unnoticed from the user's point of view. In particular, the charges for calls made over the "home" part of a BT Fusion system are essentially the same as landline call charges. Some commentators have criticised the service as expensive and a "solution in search of a problem". In particular, they have pointed to free or cheaper-than-landline IP phone systems like Skype. The appeal of BT Fusion, however, is likely to be in its simplicity of operation, something often overlooked by technically-minded reviewers.
External links
- BT site
- "BT 'BluePhone' Fusion is better than Skype because...?", The Register, 15th June 2005
