Top Stories of 2009: Mobile VoIP gets real

There are two different and sometimes warring sides to the Mobile VoIP world. There are the application and software developers who have created mobile VoIP apps that use carrier data networks and circumvent carrier voice plans, and then there are the carriers who sometimes wish to block such applications while also making plans to launch their own VoIP systems.

Since mobile VoIP arose as an option, there has been both debate about its plausibility and sheer inertia of its inevitable progress. In May, Pete Wylie wrote an Editor's Corner highlighting and questioning whether pure-play mobile VoIP could succeed. [1] Then, in August, Unstrung released a report predicting [2] that in 10 years mobile VoIP will be as common as circuit-switched mobile calls are today. A month later, InStat predicted mobile VoIP applications would generate annual revenues of $32.2 billion by 2013 [3]! In addition, Gartner claimed more than 50 percent of mobile voice traffic will be VoIP by 2019. [4]

So what happened this year that is going to launch us into this bright mobile VoIP future? Skype in a way, led the pack.

Skype started off the year in January with big news: launching its software on Apple computers. My how time flies--fast forward to November and they've got their app on the iPhone. In our article "TV, cell phones, business = Ubiquitous Skype" [5] we discussed all of Skypes big plans. Skype first embeded on Nokia and Sony-Ericsson phones [6], and followed that up with Skype for Apple iPhone [7] in April. Skype for iPhone saw two million downloads [8] in its first week but only worked over WiFi. This wild success however saw apps from other VoIP providers follow suit including Nimbuzz [9], JAJAH [10], and Vonage [11]. When Vonage submitted its iPhone App its stock was sent soaring [12]. As interest grew, tutorials came out on jailbreaking iPhones to run Skype over AT&T 3G [13]. The EU even began to grumble about forcing VoIP on cellphones [14]. Eventually, after sparring with Google and Skype over mobile net-neutrality, AT&T claimed it would allow VoIP over 3G to iPhone users [15]. To this date, the service is still not enabled.

On the carrier side, things have taken a slower more experimental pace with the focus on integrating VoIP into the main voice offering of their services. In August, FierceTelecom's Sean Buckley wrote an editor's corner for FierceVoIP about how some carriers were beginning to take the premise of mobile VoIP seriously. In "Mobile VoIP can you hear me now? [16]" Sean noted that Verizon and Telefonica O2 were experimenting with the technology. Verizon tested VoIP services on its LTE network in Boston with Alcatel-Lucent. The companies successfully made data calls using VoIP to enable voice transmissions over the LTE 4G network. At the same time Telefonica O2's German division announced that VoIP applications could now be carried on its 3G wireless network. Other carriers were also getting in on the action: Clearwire tested WiMAX mobile VoIP phones in March, [17] and in April AT&T said it liked VoIP on LTE because its 3G network was already to congested to support it [18].

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