Mobile VoIP to usher in Telco 2.0 era

Mobile VoIP has become a credible threat to traditional voice revenues. Considering, that this is only a matter of time when Internet protocol (IP) becomes the principal transport for various access technologies, an ambitious group of mobile VoIP start-up companies are creating a paradigm shift in the way users communicate with each other, with voice services moving to a true Internet era of Telco 2.0.

New analysis from Frost & Sullivan, Impact of Mobile VoIP on Next Generation Cellular Networks, finds that that at the end of 2008, approximately $605.8 million of mobile VoIP revenues were generated in North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and Latin America. This is expected to grow to $29.57 billion by 2015. The technologies covered in this research service are HSPA, 3G LTE, GSM, IP multimedia subsystem (IMS), HSPA+, GPRS, VoIP and session initiation protocol (SIP).

"The emergence of flat rate mobile data pricing, positive growth of smart phone shipments, and high-speed mobile broadband availability has spurred the adoption rate of mobile VoIP," said Frost & Sullivan senior industry analyst Saverio Romeo. "Mobile operators realize they can no longer ignore the fact that mobile will be a key component of integrated IP-based communications and next-generation wireless technologies such as HSPA+ and LTE."

Significant traction in the application space, primarily driven by the success of the iPhone, has resulted in several smart phone vendors making provisions in their applications stores for users to download and use third-party VoIP clients over both Wi-Fi and cellular broadband networks.

However, many cellular operators have prohibited the use of mobile VoIP over their cellular networks, with some imposing a surcharge to avoid cannibalization of their circuit-switched voice revenue streams. Moreover, cellular operators face intense competition from the more popular Web-based VoIP alternatives that are permeating the mass market.

"Despite user demand for cost-effective services, some mobile operators will continue to discourage mobile subscribers from using VoIP over cellular networks and suggest that it will not provide the same quality, efficiency and reliability of services offered by the GSM network," explained Romeo. "Recent surveys indicate that nearly 60 to 70 percent of the major European mobile operators prohibit or restrict the usage of VoIP over their popular mobile broadband data plans."

Mobile operators should eventually do away with imposing bans or surcharges to their mobile broadband packages to support mobile VoIP, as the client devices supporting HSPA+ and LTE will be based on open platforms and support SIP for third-party applications.

"When the operators migrate to an all-IP IMS network, they should drive innovative services such as multimedia telephony, high definition voice, integrating voice with context-based information about the user, and the device from a converged presence-enabled address book," Romeo concluded. "This will enable them to differentiate their services from mobile VoIP start-ups."