MuniWireless

I am at Macworld this week in San Francisco checking out gadgets and applications. One of the most interesting announcements this week is Truphone’s iPhone and iPod Touch application which lets you make Skype calls and send instant messages to your Skype buddies. In addition, you can use Truphone to IM your buddies on MSN, AOL, Yahoo and Google. In this way, Truphone acts like a universal IM service. If you are using Wi-Fi, Truphone-to-Skype communications are free but if you don’t have access to Wi-Fi, you can sign up for a low-cost calls via Truphone Anywhere. The service will become available to all users on 12 January 2009.

Truphone CEO says iPhone users have become Wi-Fi hunters

I spoke to Geraldine Wilson, Truphone’s CEO, at Macworld about the disruptive effect that the iPhone has had on the user behavior. She says that people want to do on the iPhone, many of the things they already do on their laptop or desktop computers (e.g. talking on Skype, IMing, Google maps and Google search). However, because many users find the 3G network too slow, especially in densely populated cities like London, they’ve resorted to becoming Wi-Fi hunters, searching around for a location where there’s free Wi-Fi. On a Wi-Fi network, these applications run much faster.

Within a short period of time, a new iPhone owner will have plotted out his or her favorite Wi-Fi hotspots in a city. Geraldine pointed out that in London, Pret-a-Manger, a fast food chain, has just begun offering free Wi-Fi. Very soon, she predicts other fast food and coffee chains will have to offer free Wi-Fi to compete.

One does not need an iPhone for Truphone’s application

If you are in the US and don’t feel like signing up for  AT&T’s iPhone plan (unlike the French, Americans have no choice of operator and are locked to good old AT&T), you might want to get an iPod Touch instead. You can use the same applications from the iPhone app store. Because the 3G and 2G networks are so slow anyway, you’d want to be on Wi-Fi for the vast majority of the applications.

So why not have a cheap, prepaid card for your mobile phone calls and an iPod Touch (no long term contracts), which you can use for everything else?

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