ITEXPO East: Enterprises Expected to Cotton to Mobile VoIP in 2011

By Paula Bernier, Executive Editor, IP Communications Magazines

“Taking VoIP Mobile” was the most popular session on the Mobile Workforce track this morning at ITEXPO East in Miami. The session was moderated by TMC’s (News - Alert) own Tom Keating. Panelists included Erik Lagerway, vice president and general manager of commercial communications for Ziplocal; Trent Johnsen, CEO and founder of hookflash; and Scott Wooster, enterprise marketing manager with Dialogic (News - Alert), Inc.

The first order of business for the panel was to define mobile VoIP and the benefits it can deliver. Wooster said that mobile VoIP uses SIP to deliver the rich and robust feature set people are used to with VoIP right to the mobile handset.

Lagerway agreed, but he added that a lot of folks get confused about the difference between fixed/mobile convergence and mobile VoIP. The latter, he said, is when any portable device has VoIP capabilities.

Johnsen said that mobile VoIP is in a transitional stage as we rise above the wireline infrastructure and TDM to use VoIP across mobile broadband.

To date, the panelists agreed, mobile VoIP has been more widely adopted by the consumer set.

In fact, Ziplocal just launched a public beta version of Zipring to consumers in North America. Zipring is billed as a simple, inexpensive VoIP service that works with any phone, mobile or Internet device; requires no contract; and is free to try.

“Zipring works with any phone on the planet,” said Lagerway in a Jan. 18 press release announcing the beta launch. “While we offer a free iPhone app, the beauty of Zipring is that users are not tied to it. They can integrate Zipring directly with any VoIP app or device available to them, unlike Google (News - Alert) Voice or Skype, and enjoy zero roaming charges and inexpensive calling without a contract.”

The panelists agreed that more business users are expected to embrace mobile VoIP in the short term.

Wooster during the panel commented that with companies like Polycom (News - Alert) partnering with Microsoft to get their products into Microsoft offerings, an expansion of mobile VoIP to the business environment should happen in the next 12 months.

Lagerway added that 2011 will be the year we’ll see real movement in the enterprise toward mobile VoIP.

(source: http://hosted-voip.tmcnet.com/topics/mobility/articles/140870-itexpo-east-enterprises-expected-cotton-mobile-voip-2011.htm)