John Linton
Not being a mobile telephone enthusiast I'm seldom aware of the 'latest' developments in mobile functionality (I've never used the camera function on my current phone and have never got around to even creating a phone number list). I use a mobile phone to make a few calls a month and occasionally receive one - I doubt that I've ever reached the minimum spend of $20.00 on my phone plan except when I'm away from Sydney.
I've been vaguely aware of the ability to make VoIP calls using wifi for a few months but have never taken much notice of it - I just assumed it was another "look what I can do on my brand new XXXX handset" which was just another way mobile handset makers convinced people with too much money to throw away their perfectly usable handsets to buy something with a feature they'd use once in a blue moon after they'd demonstrated it to all their friends.
So I was surprised when I looked at the actuality of using the latest mobile handsets to make calls using a VoIP service - my surprise was how easy it was to install the settings and then how easy it was to make a call that, if anything, was of a better quality than the normal standard for the mobile network. I can see that, given a few more weeks, months at the most, there will be a wide choice of handsets and simple to use 'application software' that will provide VoIP over wifi and therefore huge call cost reductions for people who are able to use this facility. I'm not sure what its going to do to the major mobile network owners revenues in the longer term and that might be a serious concern - depending on how it all turns out.
I had children in their early teens when Optus introduced the first of the 'free time' plans that allowed the user to have unlimited mobile calls at no charge from early evening for up to 12 hours - I don't remember the details. As I was paying for their mobile phone bills at the time I was amazed to see them make hour long/more than an hour long calls to their friends most days of the week and then multiple calls on weekends when the free time had extended periods. It wasn't unusual for one of them to sprawl in front of a TV program leaving their mobile on to one of their friends with an ear piece making or receiving the occasional comment while they watched the same show or movie.
I only reference this as I can see that now that 'free time' mobile plans are not as free or universally available as they once were VoIP over wifi mobile will quickly replace it. Whole not being 'free' a VoIP call using the common wifi networks in many homes these days will only cost 10 cents a call to anywhere in Australia and in any event that 10 cents will in most cases be paid by the parents. While I realise that teenagers aren't the only mobile demographic they are certainly a fairly major user and influence - just look at what drove/drives the usage and development of SMS around the world.
While it won't be of much interest to me personally, I can see that it will have immense appeal to the mobile phone users who are both cost conscious and heavy users - which is an increasing percentage of total mobile phone users. What will happen if every teenage mobile phone user in Australia became able to use this 'service'?
Apart from the loss of revenue to the mobile carriers what will happen to the 10 cents untimed national, or even local calls, that are part of almost every VoIP service in Australia? I don't know whether you subscribe to the theory that the cost of 10 cents for an untimed national call came about from an advertising mistake when Engin released their service - there was a typo in the advertising copy that changed $1.00 to $0.10 (while that may very well be apocryphal I first heard it a few days after Engin's first advertising hit the press and have heard it several times since from people with some likelihood of having access to the facts).
Irrespective of how the 10 cents per untimed national call came about it certainly is timed as far as the VoIP provider is concerned and it certainly isn't premised on a million teenagers around Australia making 2 - 3 hour calls for ten cents!
So, once again in the 'history' of technology we see a simple new way of using a few lines of software code to use hardware in ways that were never envisaged by the organisations who made mega investments in deploying that infrastructure.
Whether the 10 cent untimed national call also survives is a minor issue in comparison to how wifi VoIP calls may change current mobile network profitability - itself the 'shining jewel' in the current two major Australian carrier's profit contributors.