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With the prospect of being pushed into third place in the UK by the proposed T-Mobile/Orange merger, Vodafone has been showing new aggression in its home market. Following expanded retail channel deals, a string of high profile co-developed handsets, and the world's first commercial W-CDMA femtocell, the cellco this week added a fixed/mobile convergence service for smaller businesses, and the MiFi personal hotspot to its UK offerings.

OneNet, the carrier's converged offering, has already been launched in Italy and the Czech Republic and now comes to the UK, via Vodafone's partnership with wireline incumbent BT. Just as Vodafone provides BT with cellular connections for its MVNO and fixed/mobile services (including the failed Fusion and the more popular SME deals), now BT will allow the cellco to provide fixed line communications under a managed services agreement.

Under the five-year deal, BT Wholesale will provide IP-enabled voice and broadband as a dedicated hosted service to Vodafone UK. OneNet customers, which will be small and medium enterprises, will receive a national broadband service at the highest speeds available in their area, with the ability to upgrade to faster speeds as they become available.

Vodafone says an SME will typically save up to 20% on separate services, as well as gaining the advantages of a single phone number and voicemail, and a single contract/bill. Three months, ago it announced Vodafone One, which promises similar benefits for large corporates.

For home and small business clients, Vodafone is announcing the 'Mobile Broadband Hotspot', a portable Wi-Fi router based on Novatel's popular MiFi device (which is also offered by 3 UK). Actually, Voda's German, Romanian and Spanish customers will get this first, but it will reach the UK before year end.

The credit card-sized device offers Wi-Fi connectivity for up to five gadgets within a 10-meter radius, linked to the internet using 7.2Mbps HSPA device. It runs for four hours of active use before recharging and has one-touch power-on and automatic detection of hotspots. "The Vodafone Mobile Broadband Hotspot offers mobile professionals, students and families a one-touch connectivity solution that turns Wi-Fi enabled devices such as MP3 players and laptops into connected mobile internet devices," said Huw Medcraft, mobile broadband director at Vodafone.

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