11 January 2013 ~ 1 Comment

Impossible Telecom turns out to be impossible after all

impossible telecomSerial entrepreneur Dan Lane has sadly announced that his project Impossible Telecom has effectively been put been on indefinite hold. There’s been a bit of a hiatus in updates leading many to assume that he’d run into some stumbling blocks and unfortunately that seems to be the case. He has announced that he’s no longer working full time on the company.

Dan just blogged earlier this week explaining that he has been working hard on the start-up over the last year putting his telecoms expertise to use. However, although the network was due to launch about six months ago, the reason it was never able to get off the ground is because the parents networks that would be providing the infrastructure and selling on their airtime and network capabilities didn’t want to play ball.

Dan Lane doesn’t go into great detail but the implication is that either his idea for Impossible Telecom was too novel or that the existing networks deemed it too great a threat. We think it’s a real shame. Some of the ideas that were going to form the backbone of Impossible Telecom were really exciting and came from proper blue skies thinking.

We first took a detailed look at Impossible Telecom back in April 2012. One of the exciting ideas put forward was the ability to have two accounts or phone numbers on one SIM card. So that you don’t need to carry around multiple devices to have a separate number for work and for personal use. Even better, Impossible Telecom was going to let you use your same mobile number on different phones and in different places. And to let you share your call, text and data bundles across all your devices.

We need people like Dan Lane to push forward the evolution of technologies that so often stay stagnant. Can we really trust by-the-book companies like Vodafone and O2 to invest in real innovation? When the UK’s networks drag their feet on basic stuff like the introduction of 4G, progressive and affordable data plans or even simple apps like real-time itemised billing how can we expect them to produce mobile services for the future. Things fit for the 21st century? There’s far too much corporate close-mindedness, playing catch-up and chasing after profits.

Sadly, it’s looking like Impossible Telecom won’t be happening any time soon but the good news is that we might see some of the technology that went into it appearing as standalone products in the coming years.

What do you think? Are you surprised that Impossible Telecom didn’t work in the end? What was your most anticipated feature? If you were designing a mobile network, what innovations would you introduce? And do you agree with our analysis of the existing mainstream networks?

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11 April 2012 ~ 3 Comments

Impossible Telecom: a first look

It was almost a couple of months ago that serial entrepreneur Dan Lane nonchalantly announced that he’s starting his own mobile network. Dan Lane is no stranger whatsoever to tech start-ups having founded Howler Technologies and The Really Mobile Project. After finishing working at Bababoo he now decided that it would be a good idea to start his own virtual network. Amusingly called Impossible Telecom, it won’t be a true mobile network but rather will run on infrastructure masts and signal of one of the main networks in the country.

When he first announced Impossible Telecom, he expressed disdain at the race to the bottom exhibited by the other virtual mobile networks. No one is offering true innovation, just ever lower prices. And the markets pretty saturated already. Impossible Telecom aims to carve a niche for itself by offering something completely different.

Things have been kept pretty secret so far, but were finally started again idea of what exactly Impossible Telecom will be about. Dan recently gave a talk in which he expanded upon the very unique selling points his new mobile network will have. One of the premium features that is completely unavailable elsewhere is the ability to have multiple phone numbers on one SIM card. Those of us who have to juggle multiple phones for work and is for personal use know what a pain that is. You might even have tried one of those gadgets promises to be able to hold two SIM cards in one phone but without much joy. This promises to be a solution.

Not only that, but is also promising the inverse. That is, to have the same phone number on multiple phones or devices. This is a Google Voice-like feature that hasn’t reached the UK yet. And it’s fantastic for people who have different handsets for different situations or want to be contactable for example on their tablets. None of the main UK mobile networks have even tried to offer features like this before.

And it doesn’t stop there. Another great feature that is planning to offer with the ability to buy text call and data bundles. “What?” I hear you ask – “don’t all the mobile networks already offer that?” Yes but the Impossible Telecom version is going to have a slight twist. The bundles will apply across all your devices on Impossible Telecom. This means you don’t have to have separate bundles for each different device. If you buy 5GB of data you can split up however you wish between your phone, your tablet, even your wifi dongle or MiFi. How good an idea is that?

So what you think about Impossible Telecom? Are the other mobile networks falling behind with their lack of innovation? Would you use these new unique features and which one is your favourite? Please let us know in the comments below:

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