BT today launched its new Wi-Fi-based fixed mobile convergence (FMC) solution, designed to reduce communications bills in small to medium enterprises (SMEs) by routing calls over broadband connections via private company wireless LANs (WLANs) and an estimated 2,000 BT Openzone public access hotspots.

BT Fusion Wi-Fi for business aims to provide cheap rate fixed line calls for as little as 5p for a 60 minutesl, but only for customers that sign up to the BT Business One Plan triple play package. This costs £15 per user including the cost of the handset, with mobile calls to BT mobiles charged at 15p per minute, rising to 25p for calls to mobile phones on other operators' networks.

The two dual-mode GSM/Wi-Fi mobile phones that BT will initially ship as part of the service are the Nokia 6136 and Motorola A910, with Samsung's P200 available from January. Rival Orange launched its Unique phone FMC service to UK consumers last month, using the same three dual-mode handsets.

Each Fusion handset will be pre-configured with the software needed for unlicensed mobile access (UMA), which encapsulates GSM calls before tunnelling them over broadband IP networks via Wi-Fi networks.

Steve Andrews, managing director of BT mobility and convergence, acknowledged that there are still performance issues with handing a voice call from one Wi-Fi access point (AP) to another, but stressed that the SME version of Fusion Wi-Fi is aimed at smaller businesses where a single AP is generally deployed.

"There are issues with quality and consistency that need to be checked out before we can expand roaming [hotspot] partnerships, but we fully expect that to happen," he said.

If there is a gap in coverage, Andrews added, the call will default back to GSM before hooking up to the next Wi-Fi AP. This means that the call will not be dropped, and will continue to be charged according to whether it originated at the Wi-Fi or GSM network.

A high-end corporate version of the Fusion Wi-Fi service that utilises a specially configured mesh wireless network and integrates with IP private branch exchanges is set to start trials in January.

"Pricing will be very different for the corporate solution but we will offer access to the message bank from fixed and mobile for free; nobody else is offering that," said Andrews.