If you’re reading this, you know the name Skype, and likely use its services. The VoIP provider serves tens of millions of Internet users worldwide, providing them with free voice chatting service and cheap phone calls. They caused a bit of a hoopla recently when they started migrating to the mobile platform, using 3G data connections. This clearly doesn’t sit well with mobile operators, who still make plenty of money off traditional voice services. This poses problems for carriers, though they might correct themselves in time.
The big factor here is the rolling out of 4G LTE and WiMax networks. Once those are fully implemented, all voice might be carried over a data connection.
“Mass-scale adoption of end-to-end mobile VoIP calling will not happen until fourth-generation (4G) networks are fully implemented in 2017,” said Tole Hart, research director at Gartner. “Once the basic market conditions are in place, transition to mobile portal VoIP should be fairly rapid because of the inherent convenience and end-user cost savings. In 10 years time we expect that 30 percent of mobile voice traffic will be carried out through third-party mobile portals, such as Google, Facebook, MySpace and Yahoo, which will adopt wireless VoIP service as a voice option to their current communications hub.”
Why third parties, though? Won’t carriers be able to offer their own voice services over 4G networks? Of course they will. As Gartner’s Akshay Sharma says “Carriers will adopt voice services because of the increased capacity and reduced cost of delivering voice over 4G networks.” With reduced costs, carriers can wean themselves off voice revenues and live off data revenues. With consumers paying one price (or perhaps on a tiered level, depending on how much actual data the consumer plans on using), there will be no need for third party VoIP. Even if there were, it wouldn’t cut into carrier revenue since carriers would only be charging one rate, anyway.
Getting all services onto one platform makes everything easier. Once carriers roll out 4G networks and begin migrating voice and messaging to the data section, competing infrastructure-less services just won’t match up. Again, even if they do it won’t be a big deal. The carriers wouldn’t be losing any revenue in that case.
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