Home area
As home use , home zone or near zone are mobile services refer to operations where the mobile operator makes the call rates from the customer site dependent. In contrast to roaming , a different tariff applies in the home area in the same network. Cell phone providers usually use a home area to offer their customers cheaper tariffs in the vicinity of a certain address. The motivation for this is that the mobile phone is used more in such a case - and possibly even replaces the landline connection , which means that the mobile phone provider generates higher sales per customer despite lower tariffs.
Many newer cell phones indicate with a small icon - e.g. B. a house - on the display whether you are in the area. The network operators also play a tone signal (e.g. short ringing) for outgoing calls for devices without a display to indicate that they are in the home area. When leaving the home area, the call is continued at regular rates after a signal tone.
Unlimited calls from home to the German landline network and your own network are also offered by many providers at a flat rate .
Technical
On the basis of the underlying technology, other services are also possible: For example, a mobile communications provider can also offer the customer a landline number from his local area . The customer can thus be reached by others at the fixed network tariffs, which are generally cheaper. In the event that the called party is not in his home area, there are various solutions. Incoming calls are either forwarded to the mailbox or to the mobile phone, or the calls are rejected by an announcement.
Technically, the home area is implemented via a location-based service in the GSM or UMTS network. A peculiarity of the cellular network's honeycomb structure is used, in which radio cells overlap at their edges: the cell phone uses the one of several available transmitters that promises the best possible transmission at one location. As a result, each station only covers a specific area. The service is implemented by determining the sender IDs in the vicinity of the address. If the mobile terminal uses one of these transmitters later, it is located within the home area. For technical reasons, the radio cells of individual transmitters overlap, so the borders of the honeycombs are not precisely defined. In most cases, mobile phone providers therefore guarantee a certain minimum size of the home area.
Some users expand their home usage area by forcing the mobile device to log into a certain GSM transmitter ( cell lock , bts lock , bts field test ) using software intended for network diagnosis purposes (so-called network monitor ) or by placing a directional antenna on one Align a specific transmitter location. Mobile phone providers could respond to this by means of GSM location and evaluation of the “timing advance” parameter, which indicates the signal propagation time and thus the approximate distance between the mobile phone and the radio tower.
The expansion of the home area can also be increased by a clever choice of the usage address, for which specialized web offers are available.
Landline number via external service providers
A dedicated landline number via which the mobile phone can be reached is offered not only by the mobile network operators, but also by several other communication companies. The callback procedure is used here: the call is signaled to the mobile phone owner by a short ring. To take the call, he uses the callback function of his telephone; the radio connection is established in the opposite direction, and both participants are interconnected. This callback number is usually a geographic landline number.
When using a flat rate for connections from the mobile phone to the landline network, the landline number can be used for incoming calls with the telephone in the same area in which the flat rate for outgoing calls applies without additional costs being charged to the calling party or the person called be asked.
providers
O 2 home zone
In Germany, O 2 (then Viag Interkom ) has been offering such a service since 1999 - called "Homezone" there - initially under the product name Genion , and since 2010 as O 2 o . The customer receives both a landline number and a mobile phone number for a SIM card . If the user is in the area of his or her home zone, which can be freely selected in the O 2 network (e.g. at home, at work or at the university), its radius is contractually guaranteed to be at least 500 meters (but in practice usually larger, even up to 10 km), he calls at landline prices, and his mobile phone can also be reached by callers on a landline number, which is cost-saving for the caller. If the user leaves the "home zone", he can only be reached by callers on the mobile phone number, unless the contract customer has set up a chargeable call diversion for this case .
The O 2 home zone can be positioned anywhere, i.e. That is, it does not necessarily have to be at home, but can also be placed at work or in the city center, for example.
Whether you are in the home zone was signaled by a home zone indicator in the device display or optionally also acoustically during the dialing process. In June 2012, O2 announced that it would no longer show any indicators for new contracts. As of January 2014, the acoustic indicator for new contracts was discontinued.
O 2's special motivation for offering a home zone was to enable cheaper tariffs in its own network, which was initially only expanded in urban areas and which could be offered in a calculable manner despite partial national roaming with T-Mobile .
Vodafone at home
The provider Vodafone has had a similar service under the name “Vodafone at home” since 2005.
While a separate SIM card was required when “Vodafone at home” was introduced, a Vodafone mobile phone automatically recognizes the home area and, if the mobile phone supports this function, indicates this by means of text on the display . In addition, an acoustic signal can be heard before the start of the call, which also informs the caller of the call from the home area acoustically.
T-Mobile @ home
Since January 16, 2006, T-Mobile has also been offering a corresponding option under the name T-Mobile @ home. The product covers a zone of up to 2 km around a freely selectable location. What is new is that four of you can choose a joint “T-Mobile @ home Family & Friends” zone, within which all four have the same landline number and all telephones ring for incoming calls.
E-plus
So far, E-Plus is the only network operator in Germany to offer a separate home area with a landline number in addition to the mobile phone number; In mid-2009, however, the Federal Network Agency received an application from E-Plus in which separate IC charges for a Homezone-like product are to be approved. Until it is implemented, however, E-Plus customers are still dependent on external providers. With the other German network operators, however, there is a choice between the operator's home area offers and one of the external solutions. The former are easier to use because they do not have to be configured; external solutions usually have the advantage that they can be used nationwide without call forwarding fees (so-called nationwide home zone ) and are cheaper.
Web links
- Map for location determination and expansion optimization of an O2 home zone
- Article about the technical implementation of the home zone (c't 18/99, p. 174) ( Memento from March 6, 2001 in the Internet Archive )
Individual evidence
- ↑ Instructions for the mobile landline number ( Warning: Safe Browsing from Google reports when the link is called: Diagnostic page for talk2gether.org This website is currently classified as suspicious March 30, 2012). (No longer available online.) Talk2gether.org, archived from the original on February 3, 2010 ; Retrieved March 29, 2010 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Top search term: genion. (No longer available online.) O2, archived from the original on March 28, 2010 ; Retrieved March 29, 2010 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Welcome - o2 Community .
- ↑ Welcome - o2 Community . Archived from the original on February 2, 2014. Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved January 24, 2014.
