BT Fusion was a telecommunications product available from

BT Group BT Group plc ( trading as BT and formerly British Telecom) is a British multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered in London, England. It has operations in around 180 countries and is the largest provider of fixed-line, bro ...

in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

"BT 'BluePhone' Fusion is better than Skype because...?"
The Register, 15 June 2005 until 1 April 2009 when it was withdrawn. It "fused" together mobile telephony and, from the user's point of view, conventional

landline A landline (land line, land-line, main line, home phone, fixed-line, and wireline) is a telephone connection that uses metal wires or optical fiber telephone line for transmission, as distinguished from a mobile cellular network, which uses ...

telephony Telephony ( ) is the field of technology involving the development, application, and deployment of telecommunication services for the purpose of electronic transmission of voice, fax, or data, between distant parties. The history of telephony is i ...

. In fact, the fixed portion of the link was provided by a

Voice over IP Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), also called IP telephony, is a method and group of technologies for the delivery of voice communications and multimedia sessions over Internet Protocol (IP) networks, such as the Internet. The terms Internet t ...

implementation using the domestic

ADSL Asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL) is a type of digital subscriber line (DSL) technology, a data communications technology that enables faster data transmission over copper telephone lines than a conventional voiceband modem can provide. ...

service. The BT Fusion service was compatible with the BT Smart Hub. The premise of the service was that it could reduce mobile phone costs by not using the mobile network when the user is at home. The same phone was used (a modified version of the

Motorola RAZR The Motorola Razr (styled RAZR, pronounced like "razor"; codenamed Siliqua) is a series of mobile phones by Motorola, part of the 4LTR line. The V3 was the first phone shown in the series and was introduced in December 2003 and released in th ...

or Motorola V560), but if the phone was within range of a special base station installed in the user's home or office 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 was carried over

Bluetooth Bluetooth is a short-range wireless technology standard that is used for exchanging data between fixed and mobile devices over short distances and building personal area networks (PANs). In the most widely used mode, transmission power is limi ...

(BT Fusion was latterly available using Wifi technology, thus allowing discounts not only at home but over BT Openzone WiFi hotspots). BT Fusion was an example of one type of telecommunication convergence. From the base station, at-home calls were connected to the phone network using an

broadband In telecommunications, broadband is wide bandwidth data transmission which transports multiple signals at a wide range of frequencies and Internet traffic types, that enables messages to be sent simultaneously, used in fast internet connections. ...

connection; only those with BT Broadband connections were eligible for the service. Voice over IP protocols were used to transmit the call, but this was 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 were essentially the same as landline call charges. Some commentators criticised the service as expensive and a "solution in search of a problem". In particular, they pointed to free or cheaper-than-landline IP phone systems like

Skype Skype () is a proprietary telecommunications application operated by Skype Technologies, a division of Microsoft, best known for VoIP-based videotelephony, videoconferencing and voice calls. It also has instant messaging, file transfer, deb ...

References

External links

BT site
*
"BT 'BluePhone' Fusion is better than Skype because...?"
', The Register, 15 June 2005 {{BT Group BT Group VoIP services VoIP hardware Fixed mobile convergence