Unified Communications Featured Article

Mobile VoIP, that being an extension of mobility to a Voice over IP network, may be in its infancy with consumer adoption, but software providers such as Skype (News - Alert), Google Voice, Vonage, and others – along with handset manufacturers such as Apple, Google, and Nokia – aim to ramp up the technology in the coming 18 to 24 months.

 

According to industry analyst firm Yankee Group, “flat-rate data pricing has made mobile VoIP applications inevitable, and over time, all U.S. carriers will end up allowing them.”

 

That process is underway. AT&T (News - Alert) and Verizon Wireless already have acquiesced on their net-neutrality stance and now permit mobile VoIP applications. Skype’s VoIP application runs on AT&T’s 3G network. On Verizon’s network, Google’s Android phones have VoIP applications, such as iSkoot, Truphone (News - Alert) and Vopium. In fact, Google owns the second most popular consumer VoIP service with Google Talk at 13-percent market share, only behind Skype’s 50 percent. Vonage supports mobile VoIP calling.

 

The list goes on…

 

According to Washington-based Osterman Research, Inc., the proportion of VoIP users will continue to grow, from 28 percent of users in 2008 to more than 50 percent in 2010. As more mobile service providers enable mobile VoIP on their networks, ease of use will emerge as a central issue in the consumer adoption of the technology. Because of the cost of international calling, mobile VoIP becomes a virtual “no brainer” in terms of use.

 

However, because domestic voice calls should remain close in pricing to mobile VoIP, and the quality of service of those voice calls may be higher in the near term, consumers will have high expectations with regard to mobile VoIP. If the process for initiating a mobile VoIP call is not “normal” (that is, such as making a domestic voice call), consumer adoption may lag and – in fact – the process may become a barrier to domestic VoIP use.

 

Ease of use can be directly linked to the accessibility and interoperability of a phone’s address book, where contact information for a person’s family, friends, and business associates is stored. Smartphone users already must cope with a numerous address books from various applications, such as personal e-mail, social media sites (for example, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and MySpace), business e-mail, a business phone, corporate network address book, and more. Regardless of which application one uses, mobile VoIP introduces another address book to this mix.

 

Since industry research indicates that 85 percent of mobile phone users rely on their phone’s address book to initiate a call, it is imperative that mobile VoIP software providers offer an address book feature that fully integrates with or is compatible with a smartphone’s onboard address book. Having a silo application that users must access to make a mobile VoIP call threatens ease of use and customer satisfaction levels.

 

The issue becomes more complicated when mobile VoIP calls must connect via a landline or mobile phone. For example, when performing a “Skype-to-Skype” call, it occurs over the Internet without the use of a phone network. In this case, there is no charge for the call. However, if a destination phone is a landline or mobile that is not Skype-enabled, then the call must leave the Internet and go through a traditional voice network, thereby incurring a charge.

 

From an address book perspective, users will want to know and capture which of their contacts share the same mobile VoIP application and which do not; which contacts will generate voice charges when calling them; which contacts can be reached via IM to “schedule” Skype-to-Skype calls; and so on.

 

This level of address book data capture is sophisticated and requires cross-platform capability to synchronize contact information across the following (in alphabetical order): Android from Google, bada from Samsung Electronics, iPhone OS from Apple, Linux, Palm webOS, RIM Blackberry OS, Symbian OS, and Windows Mobile from Microsoft (News - Alert).

 

Mobile service providers that are considering developing their own mobile VoIP solution must consider this address book compatibility issue, too, especially when launching fixed mobile broadband services in the home. For example, in the UK, British Telecom offers a Vodafone handset capable of making calls through an ADSL line via a local WiFi (News - Alert) connection.

 

In a home-based mobile VoIP service, the home landline or WiFi phone may have an empty address book that needs to be populated from other sources. A mobile service provider that develops its own mobile VoIP app will want to ensure that the home phone’s address book integrates with other address books, some of which may be cross-platform.

 

As the market evolves toward 4G technology, especially “voice over LTE” initiatives such as VoLGA (Voice over LTE via Generic Access) and One Voice (a global collaboration between AT&T Inc., Verizon, and several other international telecom companies), the need for integrated address books will become even greater as mobile operators move to provide robust voice and SMS services on their IMS networks.The likely result of voice over LTE will be the eradication of regular voice calls, whereby all calls will be IP based. LTE would be sufficiently ubiquitous that it would replace home internet and phone service, and forever blur the line between mobile and home voice calls.

 

With the evolution of mobile VoIP, the pacing issue will be centralizing people’s contacts across multiple address books, including the mobile VoIP app itself, and multiple platforms. Mobile VoIP software providers and mobile service providers must find a solution that can consolidate address books from every possible source, including social media sites, and create a “network address book” that can be backed up to a cloud-based storage facility for safekeeping. By elevating the user experience in this manner, consumer adoption of mobile VoIP will grow, including domestic VoIP calls.