There has been a gradual decline in the amount of time that mobile owners are actually using their portable handsets to make traditional voice calls. A survey from network provider O2 found that this was only the fifth most popular use of what is ostensibly designed to be a phone.
Part of the reason for this is that the rise of smartphone technology has made a mobile far more functional and given users plenty of other ways to stay in touch. In the world of business, services such as instant messaging and e-mail have become staples of mobile communication, which could explain the lack of interest in voice calls.
However, there is another potential reason for the decline in calling, which is to do with the fact that traditional services are no longer the most cost-effective option.
The rise of VoIP applications such as Skype and Viber on mobile platforms has made it possible for users to get in touch via a data connection, bypassing typical network channels and effectively chatting for as long as they like without having to pay a penny when calling other VoIP users.
Network providers are still able to take a piece of the pie if VoIP callers are harnessing 3G connectivity to get in touch, which means they can charge for data usage. However, if a customer instead hooks up their smartphone to a Wi-Fi connection at home, in the office or when they are out and about, the provider is taken completely out of the loop and bills for calling will drop to zero.
This is a particularly appealing set of circumstances for business users, since making lots of voice calls is a necessity for those who are out in the field. While being away from your desk could leave you with large bills accrued from mobile calls, turning to mobile VoIP means that these can become a thing of the past, making internal and external communication more affordable.
The question of whether VoIP calling via mobile phones will replace traditional voice calls outright is of course a more complicated issue. There are myriad factors involved in making the choice to integrate VoIP as a standard means of getting in touch, favoured over other mobile services.
The affordability and convenience of mobile VoIP services are certainly favourable, as if you are calling over a Wi-Fi network and getting in contact with another VoIP customer, the process will be smooth and the cost will be almost non-existent.
On the other hand, traditional voice calls can still be easily made across a large proportion of the country, while finding an available Wi-Fi network or decent 3G coverage when you are out and about to call via VoIP may not always be the easiest task.
Calling via a Bluetooth headset while you are out in your car, for example, will be easier if you use standard networks rather than VoIP because coverage will be better and less bandwidth is required, thus reducing the risk of dropped calls.
In addition, it is argued that some network providers actively throttle the data speeds that are available to people making VoIP calls, either in order to reduce traffic or, as some suspect, to discourage people from making VoIP calls.
This means that, in the short term at least, mobile VoIP will be an option for businesses that is supplementary to traditional voice calls, rather than an outright replacement. This is likely to change in the future once uptake is more widespread and the pressure of mainstream usage means that providers are necessarily going to offer better support for VoIP.
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