Comments on: Are Carriers Changing Their Tune on Mobile VoIP?

By: Robert

Robert — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 23:00:46 +0000

Exactly – the Verizon Wireless announcement states that they can make a phone call. It’s a milestone in delivering LTE, not a shift in strategies. LTE is All-IP – no circuit mode.

By: Maha

Maha — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 06:24:56 +0000

Skype, Truphone, Vopium or Nimbuzz are the best example of VoIP apps, these VoIP services has significantly reduce the international calling rates while in roaming.

By: powel

powel — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 21:38:06 +0000

om, need more tech in these tech-blogs.

By: powel

powel — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 21:19:56 +0000

verizon’s 4g like lte is end-to-end ip based, so their voip is for their own sake of maintaining conventional voice services. looks like u read that mistakenly as somehow for apps. 4g has no choice but to run voice calls over ip pkts. that doesn’t mean outside apps will be allowed to do that.

By: Om Malik

Om Malik — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 20:50:10 +0000

Of course, not one said that they tested Skype or Vonage :-)

And yes the biggest winner of VoIP so far are the cable companies.

By: Om Malik

Om Malik — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 20:47:34 +0000

Ben

It is a 1,000 foot view now. It used to be a 100,000 foot view about ten years ago. What I am saying here is pretty basic: yes it is hard to do, harder to scale etc etc and it makes ton of money, the fact of the matter is that as we start using phones for things other than making calls, the carriers are smarter to think of voice as “just another app.”

On the Voice-as-an-app: i think mobile voice, Skype, and Vonage type services, not to mentioned cheap long distance minutes have killed our expectations of voice. so from that perspective it is just another app. just doesn’t crash as often. (unless you are on AT&T’s mobile network.)

Jokes aside, I think you are making a good point.

By: Ben Ortega

Ben Ortega — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 20:22:40 +0000

“it’s finally time for carriers to embrace the fact that voice is just an app running on their IP networks.” I take issue with the way you phrase carrier voice as “just an app”.

If you’re looking at voice from 100K foot view, yes it looks like an app but when you refer to it as, “just an app”, you associate carrier (mobile/fixed) voice with apps like iFart, Shazam, or anything other .99 downloads. Show me another “app” that has to scale to millions/billions of MOUs/month or that costs subscribers $25-50/month from users across the globe.

Carrier (mobile/fixed) voice should not be so lightly assigned the “just an app” lable; it deserves more respect than that.

btw, I don’t disagree with your take on mobile VoIP. :)

By: TruLover

TruLover — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 19:55:01 +0000

That;s great news for all ((truphone)) users in Germany on O2. ((truphone)) is already a very compelling offering but running it over 3G will make the service a killer product. So far I had a great experience using it over WiFi or via the truphone anywhere GSM dial in Number in most countries around the world.

By: Janet

Janet — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 19:44:56 +0000

Nobody actually said that it’s the Vonage or Skype type of VoIP.

The biggest winner of VoIP so far — cable companies bundling VoIP telephone service.