Mobile VoIP to finally gain momentum

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Mobile VoIP is certainly the next frontier of the VoIP technology. Skype recognized that last year when they announced a plan to expand to mobile VoIP. The company that created the popular application has however struggled and it’s behind in the race for mobile VoIP.

Recently the co-founder and CEO of Skype announced delays in their run to mobile VoIP because of "technical obstacles". Other companies have been able to overcome those obstacles though. In particular two start-ups and a software company you may have heard of are making great strides in the mobile VoIP area.

The two start-ups are Jajah and Fring. The first one offers mobile VoIP services directly on their website. After entering the account details the customers are able to make cheap (or sometimes free) calls. The quality of the Jajah mobile VoIP offering even allowed the company to reach a collaboration deal with several big players in the European media market.

Unlike Jajah, Fring requires the customer to download a software to access their mobile VoIP network. Once the software is installed, the user can also use alternative VoIP services like Google Talk or Skype.

This week Microsoft will also enter the mobile VoIP arena. The company will release Windows Mobile 6, the new version of the operating system for smart phones. This new software will provide a framework to carriers so that they can start to offer mobile VoIP to their customers.

Lastly, as the adoption of mobile VoIP increases worldwide, we should see a push to improve the quality of the mobile VoIP calls.