Mobile VoIP | WhichVoIP

Mobile VoIP - The Future of Global Communications

The global communications industry witnessed a revolution with the emergence of the Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), or as the concept is commonly referred to, Internet Telephony. VoIP, which makes the Internet phone service possible, is essentially a technology that allows you to use your broadband Internet connection to make voice calls rather than using the regular phone lines. The advantage of using a single network to transmit both voice and data traffic has led to cost-savings both for the home consumer as well as for corporate customers. Just as the Internet phone service has become fairly common in most households with broadband Internet connections, business VoIP also has taken off. In fact, most businesses have already integrated VoIP into their networks or are planning to do so, hoping for long-term savings and an increase in their productivity.

Growth of Mobile VoIP

It was then only to be expected that this technology would be extended to mobile handsets. Mobile VoIP allows you to use your internet connection to make calls through your mobile phone rather than using traditional mobile operators. This kind of Internet phone service provides the user increased flexibility and more importantly, significant cost-savings on domestic and especially, international calls.

Businesses rely on mobile communications to stay in constant touch with workers who need to be traveling abroad and who have to be frequently contacted for the smooth running of operations, at times running up huge bills in the process. For long, there had been no alternative. Now, many mobile consumers are being offered flat-rate data plans to access the internet and Mobile VoIP technology has evolved sufficiently for the Internet phone services to tap the potential of mobiles for VoIP. This has positive fallouts for both home consumers as also for those using business VoIP.

Many mobile companies like Motorola and Nokia have started bringing VoIP enabled mobile handsets to the market. Some Internet phone services rely on Wi-Fi to provide connections - this means you will be able to place calls from all those places where there is Wi-Fi availability like your home, office or commercial places like airports, hotels, etc. This however, places restrictions on your movements and does not truly make you mobile. Dual-mode mobile handsets which offer both the cellular access and the VoIP access over WiFi are also gaining in popularity. These phones make calls over the internet while in the Wi-Fi area, switching over seamlessly to the cellular service once the Wi-Fi signals are too weak. However, many VoIP providers are also looking at offering Internet phone services through the 3G network and use the customers flat-rate data packages to offer VoIP. The 3G network covers a much larger area, thereby providing VoIP service over a much wider area and service through the data package results in big cost-savings for the customer. In fact, it is expected that by 2021, 3G VoIP will have more than 250 million users, while there will be less than 100 million using Wi-Fi.

Considering the possibilities of having uninterrupted call sessions without sacrificing mobility, extending business VoIP to mobiles is very attractive, though the quality of calls and security issues could be a concern. However, as technologies become more and more refined, business VoIP could turn out to be economically attractive.

While it may take some time for Mobile VoIP to become robust, scalable and efficient, it has shown enough potential to be truly declared, the future of global communications.