Gartner: More than 50% of mobile voice traffic will be VoIP by 2019

In a prediction destined to cause heartburn at mobile carriers around the globe, Gartner says that more than 50 percent of mobile voice traffic will be end-to-end VoIP by 2019. Third-party app-based providers pose a "huge and direct" challenge to the $692.6 billion global voice market.

Gartner predicts that network-based mobile carriers face the "real prospect" of losing a major slice of voice traffic and revenue to new non-infrastructure players that use VoIP. 

However, Gartner also says that conditions for the rapid expansion of mobile VoIP aren't yet right, and it may take anywhere between five to eight years for conditions to become right. (No, it doesn't have to do with Microsoft banning VoIP apps [1] from its mobile store).  

The long pole for mass adoption of mobile VoIP is 4G, says Gartner, and the firm doesn't see that fully happening until 2017. Once that happens, moving to mobile VoIP portals should be fairly rapid because of convenience and cost savings. Gartner thinks 30 percent of mobile voice traffic will be done through third-part mobile portals such as Google, Facebook, MySpace and Yahoo, which will leverage VoIP through WiFi.

Ironically, the biggest competitor to mobile VoIP may be text messaging and email, as people choose to use those mediums to communicate because they are non-intrusive, less emotional and less time-consuming.

For more:
- Read the Gartner summary. Release [2]

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