It's only a matter of time before VoIP becomes wireless and mobile. Here's what's available now.
Today, traditional telephone companies are scrambling to recover from the staggering loss of subscribers over the past five years, who have migrated to exclusively mobile and VoIP lifestyles. Tomorrow, the cell phone industry will be facing the same challenges: How can a giant corporation expect to make money on calling plans if its customers could just use SkypeOut for two cents a minute to anywhere in the world?
Luckily for Sprint-Nextel and AT&T-Cingular, the market penetration of the technology necessary to support a robust Wifi VoIP marketplace just isn’t quite there – yet.
The Hardware
The first offering from this emerging market is a cell-phone-style phone powered by VoIP over Wifi. These phones give users the freedom of cordless landline phones in their homes and offices, plus the ability to use them on-the-go from any Wifi hotspot. Prices range from Netgear’s $333 phone to devices like ahem, Vonage’s UStar F1000 ($89.99 after rebate). But good luck getting the cheap one since a federal judge has ordered Vonage to stop signing up new customers if it’s going to use the technology that a jury found Vonage had stolen from Verizon.(See “Is Vonage Toast?”)
For phone users who want to harness Wifi VoIP with their primary phone, the only option is the Wifi-cell hybrid, like Nokia’s N80i. A cell-top computer that allows web browsing via its Wifi connection, the N80i is easily set up to make VoIP calls using services like Truphone, Gizmo Project, or SkypeOut.
But VoIP users, attracted to the low calling rates of Internet-based phone calls, won’t like the price tags associated with these new Wifi-cell hybrids. Nokia’s N80i has a retail price that starting at $433.99. The N80i, however, is no longer the only phone that will do the trick. Gizmo Project now works on Nokia’s internet tablets, like the N800 and 770 models, and Truphone works with the new Nokia E-series. But, of course, none of these phones are cheap either.
Wifi VoIP, while easy to use with the right hardware, is still a long way from saving consumers any money. The only subset of the market poised to take advantage of VoIP via Wifi without buying a new expensive phone is PSP users. Owners of the Play Station Portable can use their handheld game system’s Wifi capabilities to access Jajah and make outgoing calls.
So, when can the market expect Wifi VoIP’s eventual domination of the mobile telephone industry? The clock is ticking, and the beginning of Wifi VoIP ubiquity will be a reality in America by April 2008. By this date, Sprint will roll out WiMAX access in 19 American markets at a cost of over $3 billion. Phone users in these cities will no longer need the expensive hybrid phones to make their calls. A $90 Vonage-style phone could become their primary communications tool – a price sure to drop as the customer base increases.
WiMAX, or Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access – essentially a Wifi hotspot with a range of several miles – will easily encompass an entire city. Three partners have shared Sprint’s WiMAX mission – each partner taking a piece of the map to provide service to different regions. Motorola will work in the Midwest, bringing WiMAX to Chicago, Detroit, Grand Rapids, Indianapolis, Kansas City and Minneapolis. Samsung will work on the East Coast, developing Baltimore, Boston, Philadelphia, Providence and Washington, D.C. while Nokia will cover the South and West: Austin, Dallas, Denver, Fort Worth, Portland, Salt Lake City, San Antonio and Seattle.
Notable absences on this list of first-round WiMAX cities: New York City, Atlanta, Los Angeles and San Francisco. How can Texas have four WiMAX cities and California have zero? Once these 19 markets experience citywide Wifi, the technology is bound to spread rapidly – increasing the potential subscriber base and lowering the cost of Internet and VoIP access across the country.
While the market waits for the coming of WiMAX, there are other pockets of the country where a simple Wifi phone could save hundreds of dollars in phone costs per year – Wifi-enabled college campuses . In 2005, Intel listed the nation’s top 50 “Most Unwired Campuses.” The number one position went to Ball State in Muncie, Indiana, with 350 wireless access points and a data transmission stream of 54 megabits per second.
As campus Wifi continues to spread to colleges and universities across the country, millions of young consumers with long-distance telephone needs will be able to access VoIP via Wifi for a fraction of the cost of mobile carriers’ national calling plans.
Wifi VoIP – the short answer: not yet, but soon.
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