Mobile VoIP is a Problem

There are so many mobile voice apps I cannot even keep track. Some are convoluted. Some are callback services. Some are pure packet based VoIP that eat up data usage. Others actually use up minutes.

With all the hype about Skype on the iPhone, I have to wonder why you would need it. Most cellcos offer an unlimited plan. Are you making THAT many international calls on your cell phone? How many people could that possibly be?

Don’t people work in an office at all? Couldn’t or more correctly shouldn’t important phone calls be made at the office? Here are the benefits of calling from the office: the background noise is less, the sound of flushing toilets is minimal, and no one can overhear your conversation. Oh, yeah, HD calling! At the minimum, you have better call quality than a cell phone at the office.

I know that people travel more than I do – Rich certainly does – but how much international dialing are you doing? It would seem that any domestic calling can be done via your cell plan. Conference calls? How about Google Voice or other conference platform that dials out?

It just seems like there are so many mobile VoIP apps and not enough benefit to the caller. Also, as Gary Kim writes here, this will likely result in more expensive data plans. What Gary didn’t mention is that the cellular network is based on a finite bandwidth schema. Voice calls take up less than 10K. VoIP calls have to take up at least 35k, so every VoIP call is taking up about 4 voice calls. That’s a huge displacement. Add in backhaul costs that have now quadrupled and the cost structure (or more precisely the RBOC profit structure) just went out of whack.

At the end of the day, I don’t understand the mobile VoIP app.