Skype-Verizon Wireless Deal Is No Game Changer

Given the names involved, many observers unsurprisingly expected whatever deal Skype and Verizon Wireless planned to announce at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona to produce a major breakthrough for mobile VoIP. But when the announcement came, it turned out to be less than overwhelming. It involved an application that will allow mobile users to make Skype calls over the Verizon Wireless network using smart phones. The deal does little to alter Verizon's traditional cellular model. It doesn't transport VoIP over the 3G data network, and it won't be a major money-saver for users. The main change it brings is making Skype somewhat more convenient and accessible for Verizon customers.

Will Skype Soon Be On Verizon Wireless?

Verizon Wireless was for a long time the most conservative U.S. carrier. It did everything it could to keep even mildly disruptive applications and services off of its network and handsets. In the last year, though, it has claimed to be changing, saying it planned to make its network as open as possible. In October it said it would introduce two handsets running the Google-developed Android operating system, and with Google Voice installed. It subsequently announced a deal with Google to jointly develop and sell products, including such Android-based devices. Now it appears set to announce a deal with Skype.

Why 3G VoIP Is No Big Deal – For Now

When fring and iCall announced recently that they were introducing iPhone 3G VoIP calling apps, it seemed a turning point for mobile VoIP. The apps, which recent changes in the Apple SDK made possible, made it clear that there's no turning back: VoIP over cellular data connections will soon become commonplace. What was less obvious was that, at this point, 3G VoIP won't have major impact, at least in the U.S. That's because under existing major mobile pricing plans, it won't produce significant savings for most users.

The Top 25 VoIP Advances of 2009

There were more advances than true innovations in the VoIP world in 2009. That's because some of the most important developments had more to do with commercial and political maneuvers than with technical creativity. Still, such maneuvers often helped spread the benefits of VoIP as much as did technical innovation. And collectively, the advances brought some already-evident trends into clearer focus. A key such trend is the increasing integration of voice with other applications and services. Another is the intensifying interest in HD voice. A third is the growing interconnection of VoIP services, in part in response to the possibilities that end-to-end HD voice offers. With such trends as background, here, in no particular order, are our top 25 VoIP advances of 2009.

Nimbuzz First Customer for GIPS Android HD Codec

The most widely recognized obstacle to mobile VoIP running over cellular data networks is carriers' opposition. Mobile operators don't want to allow services that compete with their lucrative voice minutes businesses to run over their networks, because it means all they'll get paid for is transporting the bits carrying the voice, a far less lucrative business. A less-known obstacle to the service is call quality concerns. Regular voice calls can sound bad enough, but delivering them over a data network not designed with real-time services like voice in mind. A Global IP Solutions (GIPS) answer to the latter problem is now available for Android users.

AT&T's, Verizon's Mobile VoIP Moves Reveal Political Concerns

The timing of the announcements by Verizon Wireless and AT&T was almost transparent. Both came just a couple of weeks after new FCC chairman Julius Genachowski's September 21 speech on network neutrality. In that speech, Genachowski stated, among other things, that neutrality rules should cover wireless communications. Even then, it was clear that mobile VoIP would be the most explosive issue in the network neutrality battle.

Vonage iPhone, BlackBerry Mobile VoIP Apps: Better Late Than Never?

More than eight years after signing up its first residential phone customer, Vonage is finally becoming a real VoIP company. Despite being the name most associated in the public mind with VoIP, Vonage actually has spent most of its time pretending to be a conventional phone company. It offered little that AT&T didn't, except a slightly lower price. Recently, however, it has belatedly begun adding other ways to use its service which take advantage of VoIP's unique capabilities. The latest additions are applications for iPhone and BlackBerry phones.

Mobile VoIP Will Be FCC Net Neutrality Flash Point

The most heated battles over FCC chairman Julius Genachowski's new network neutrality proposal will involve its impact on wireless providers. Network neutrality attempts to ensure that Internet providers treat all traffic equally. Traditional landline-based providers have done so from the start, and the chairman's proposal merely aims to make sure they continue to do so. But wireless Internet providers have done just the opposite from the start. Thus the proposal, if enacted, would force them to change their businesses completely. And the biggest reason they will oppose that change is mobile VoIP.

XConnect and GSMA Open Way to VoIP-Cellular Interconnection

VoIP and cellular services alike can do a lot of things that conventional landline services can't. For example, they can transmit both voice and various other kinds of data between phones or other end devices. That capability makes possible all kinds interesting combined services, often starting with or based on the ability to detect users' presence – that is, their availability to receive calls or respond to messages.

Once those services encounter the traditional phone network, or PSTN (public switched telephone network), though, they hit a roadblock. The PSTN can transmit only voice calls and limited kinds of call-related data. That means presence and other information, not to mention the various kinds of video or other data streams themselves, can't get through. A new deal between XConnect and the GSM Association, or GSMA, attempts to circumvent that roadblock.