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Why Mobile VoIP is a Global Hot Commodity

TMCnews Featured Article


January 06, 2015

Why Mobile VoIP is a Global Hot Commodity

By Susan J. Campbell, TMCnet Contributing Editor


The use of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) for both businesses and consumers has brought significant benefits across the global marketplace. Users can significantly reduce the cost of making long distance calls, while also streamlining communication efforts across the board. In the mobile space, however, the adoption hasn’t been quite as easy. In fact, mobile VoIP was an elusive capability when Skype (News - Alert) first entered the market.


The concept of merging VoIP and mobile capabilities made perfect sense from its initiation. Employees in the field were already experiencing the added flexibility mobile provided them. If they could use VoIP with their mobile device, the cost of staying connected was significantly reduced. That promised benefit is exactly why wireless carriers blocked the use of Skype initially, as it represented a threat to their main source of revenue.

At that time, however, only a handful of mobile users also had data plans on their monthly bills. If access to the Internet was available, it was generally through hotspots offered in coffee shops or other public locations. Demand wasn’t strong enough among the subscriber base to change what they were doing and data wasn’t a powerful enough portion of the revenue stream to be a key driver in decision making.

As data increasingly became part of the must-have service set in the typical subscriber plan, however, the environment changed. Providers recognized the need to embrace app development and mobile VoIP took its place in the market at large. Today, few mobile users are without access to a mobile VoIP app of some sort and a growing number of companies are leveraging partnerships with wholesale VoIP providers to brand the service as an extension of their offerings.

Still, old habits sometimes die hard. According to the Financial Express, India’s Airtel (News - Alert) was originally going to charge extra for subscribers who placed VoIP calls on their network using services like Skype, Viber or others. The company quickly retreated on this decision, which is not only good for subscribers, but also for net neutrality. If this concept is to hold up, network operators cannot discriminate between different types of traffic across the Internet.

This decision and quick change of course point to some of the problems occurring in telecom licensing provisions. The biggest problem is that service providers in this region pay significantly different fees to provide very similar services. Such a challenge can overwhelm the provider seeking to make an easy impact in the market at large.

While India may still have some work to do when it comes to mobile VoIP, it’s clear that the demand is growing throughout the global marketplace. Professionals and consumers alike want access to apps, information and entertainment at a low cost. Why shouldn’t they expect communications to come at a similar price?




Edited by Stefania Viscusi







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