Analyst: Mobile VoIP ripe for the picking

The mobile VoIP market is still wide open. Well, according to TheStreet.com's analysis it is. With most mobile phone owners still opting to pay for a voice plan in conjunction with their data plan, it would appear that the VoIP mobile market still hasn't quite caught on, but the opportunity is ripe.

TheStreet notes that only AT&T's data plan offering for the iPad and iPod Touch truly provides the possibility of a mobile-VoIP-only phone. With AT&T, a user can get a data-only plan for between $14.99 and $25 and install a VoIP app like Skype to make mobile data VoIP calls without the hindrance of a costly voice plan. At the moment there are few other offers out there that would allow a smart phone owner to purchase only data and go solely VoIP over mobile, but that's where the opportunity lies.

An interesting note is TheStreet's hopes for Clearwire. The data-only mobile broadband service is situated to take advantage of the mobile VoIP trend with its highspeed, low-latency, inexpensive service. Clearwire has its own troubles and even recently signalled it would be switching its network to LTE, but the data-only play does make it a natural fit for mobile VoIP if it could just market its service that way.

For more:
- read the analysis

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More VoIP coming to BlackBerry
Ten Mobile VoIP Apps for the iPhone