Nokia and Mobile Home Services

You might remember one or the other of my posts in the past where I've been speculating about mobile home services being an interesting field for mobile network operators with both fixed and mobile access networks. They are in control over both types of access and in addition sell mobile devices as well. In other words, they are in a perfect place to offer services that work both at home and on the mobile device while being away. Not many other players in the industry can do the same in this space. Now, Nokia wants to become active in this domain as well and has started development on what they call "Smart Home Solutions".

Basically the smart home solution is a home gateway with a Wi-Fi access point, built in storage and software to access home network sensors to for example control the room temperature, security systems, low-energy walls, programmable thermostats, self-adjusting curtains, configurable set-top boxes, self-operating yard lights, etc. From the outside, the gateway is accessed via a mobile devices' built in web browser. The ideas have been floating around for quite some time now and I agree with Nokia that all pieces have now pretty much fallen into place to make it finally work.

Nokia knows they can't do it on their own so they position it as an open solution and are looking for partners. According to their website they have their first partner for the project with RWE, one of the big German power companies that are also active in the Internet business. Let's see if they will also find an interested mobile operator over time to kickstart this project. I'll keep watching. More technical details on their web site.