VoIP Over Wi-Fi future

VoIP Over Wi-Fi future

The market is hardly taking off and the technology is not yet mature. Many analysts, however, think that the VoWiFi market future should be travellers abroad. The basic idea is to bypass the high mobile roaming fees while abroad, specially in Europe. A study of visiongrain found that a typical voice call whilst roaming over Wi-Fi costs $0.02 per minute, compared with a typical cost of $1.25 per minute through mobile. Undoubtedly, the increase in the number of Wi-Fi hotspots will create more opportunity for travellers to utilise VoIP services. Two factors have, however, to be taken into account to appreciate the future: EU regulations will continue to drive roaming prices down in the EU and the reaction of mobile operators squeezed from roaming lucrative revenues. Roaming revenues are a significant proportion of operator revenues, between 10% and 20%. So, visiongrain warn mobile operators to react and use VoIP as an opportunity to increase roaming revenues. Today, 95% of subscribers currently do not use roaming services whilst abroad because of high fees. With tapping in this huge tank and reducing roaming tariffs, mobile operators are well positioned to increase roaming revenues, transforming a threat into an opportunity. Already some handsets are available, i.e. Nokia 6136.