The End of Cell Phones?

The past few years has seen VoIP usage increase exponentially with the main draw being cheaper call rates especially for international callers. VoIP users are now numbered in the millions; some predictions indicate that the US alone will have over 12 million VoIP users by 2009. The majority of these users are taking advantage of broadband to provide their VoIP service with either an ATA or VoIP phone. The key here is the broadband enabling technology - without broadband VoIP would not provide a viable alternative to the traditional telephone network. Eventually (although this is still several years away) VoIP will completely replaced the traditional PSTN.

Fairly recently, a new trend has appeared - publicly available WiFi. Many shops, cafés, airports and public buildings are providing WiFi networks for the convenience of their customers. This allows people with WiFi enabled laptops and PDA's to browse the web or email while they are having a coffee, or even compare shop prices with an on-line price (not sure this is so good for the shops!). In some cities the WiFi networks mesh together and provide internet connectivity over very large areas. This is not restricted to city centres either; there are plans for some rural communities without high speed internet access to be provided with WiFi as an alternative to installing a lot of expensive cabling!

So what does this mean? In the same way that broadband enables users to replace their traditional telephone service with a VoIP one, public WiFi could allow users to replace their cell phone with a VoIP enabled PDA. There are lots of WiFi enabled PDAs out there that can easily provide voice services at massively discounted rates when compared with the cell phone network. A call using a cell phone typically costs many times that of a comparable call from a land line, which again typically costs more than a VoIP call. As an extra bonus, users with a VoIP enabled PDA that use a VoIP service at home could use the same service for their VoIP enabled PDA and have the same incoming number for calls at home and while on the move. I doubt if this will happen overnight, but as WiFi coverage increases, expect to see mobile phone rates decrease!!