By: Matthew Hick
VoIP, known as Voice Over Internet Protocol, has created quite a buzz. It has helped to reduce phone costs and given people opportunities to save on phone bills each month. VoIP is now being used with cell phones as well. Long distance calls, when dialed on a cell phone, can cost a very great deal of money. If you use your cell phone to dial long distance quite often, VoIP may be the technology for you.
VoIP technology combined with cell phones is for the person who is constantly on the go, and can’t be tied to a computer all day to conduct his or her business. Although there do exist wireless IP phones, you can’t roam everywhere with them. You may be the type of person who needs to do multiple tasks at once. If the cell phone is a mainstay in your life, then mobile VoIP will be just what you need to make life easier.
On a cell phone you pay a flat monthly fee for a certain number of minutes. If you find you often exceed these minutes due to the number of long distance calls you make, VoIP can help you out. Currently, Mino Wireless USA is claiming to be the first provider of mobile VoIP in the USA. They charge 2.2 cents per minute, in addition to a flat monthly fee, for calls to forty different countries. They do require that the user subscribe to Cingular, Nextel or T-Mobile services for Internet data. In addition, the phone must be able to handle JAVA.
Various mobile carriers are definitely interested in providing VoIP with their cellular technology. In fact, many carriers currently use VoIP for their own operations for cost saving purposes. They want their users to be able to take advantage of this also. They can implement this service themselves, but they are concerned with voice quality issues. If companies like Mino really take off, then chances are mobile carriers will block this service to their phones and offer VoIP themselves.
Wi-Fi is another driving force behind VoIP with cell phones. Wi-Fi utilizes free airwaves over their short-range wireless broadband network. Wireless Wi-Fi handsets allow users to make free calls over their Wi-Fi networks. By making VoIP calls over Wi-Fi networks, the number of calls over cellular networks will decrease. As you can imagine, mobile carriers are not in any hurry to lose this business.
VoIP currently has an annual increase in subscribers. VoIP cellular phones will bring to mobile technology the benefits these subscribers now experience. Cost savings is the best known of these benefits. Before jumping to this service, the user must determine what, if any, their savings will be, and businesses or businessmen will be the ones who will benefit the most from this. Although cell phone companies are not quickly launching this, the increase each year of VoIP subscribers will be a force they will not be able to counter. It seems only natural to combine high-speed mobile technology with the Internet. VoIP cell phones will offer freedom of movement and lower prices. Now we can take advantage of cutting our cell phone costs also.
