IP mobile phone service coming next year

There has been dead silence on the mobile-over-wireless-LAN component of Mitsubishi's IPTalk VoIP service for almost exactly a year (I mentioned it briefly in a post in October 2002), but it looks to be very much alive. The company has fully redesigned its handset (pictures at K-Tai Watch), and will be accepting applications for the service beginning in November this year, with the launch aimed for March 2004. Infrastructure will apparently be Fusion Communications' VoIP network, with a 3-minute call costing Y8 to a land line, Y59 to a cellphone, and Y24 to the USA. Calls to other subscribers are free.

The plan is in due course to allow roaming via public hotspots (JR train stations are installing these all over the place, for example), and to allow users to replace the phone's wireless LAN card with a PHS card to give a bit more scope for using it like a "real" cellular. These will not be available at the service startup, however.

Fingers crossed that the roaming will extend to hotspots overseas, though I wonder if the fact that numbers are currently assigned to IP phones by national governments would get in the way. Wouldn't it be great to have a universal, country-independent numbering system?