Mobile VoIP is in for a rollercoaster ride. If you have been looking to try mobile VoIP but the cost of handset is an issue, you may not need to wait much longer. Infineon has introduced a VoIP-enabled WiFi chip for low cost phones which essentially expands and multiplies the reach of mobile VoIP 20 times over. Right now, only high cost smartphones are VoIP capable. In fact only about 75 million mobile phones can do VoIP. Infineon chip will expand that capability to, potentially, over a billion handsets.
So what sort of impact should we expect from the wonder chip? I would expect the following:
• Single mode consumer Voice-over-WiFi offers will blossom. Folks like Truphone will certainly be happy.
• FMC clients involving handover are rather complicated to operate which demand friendly user interface. Most low cost handsets do not have a great GUI and jazzed up OS although Infineon claims to offer an attractive GUI for these platforms. For now, I think this chip may not be such a great thing for FMC. If the WiFi/GSM handover is however pre-integrated at the chip level, this would help become FMC mainstream. I guess cell operators will not be so happy about that though. They might also not be happy about the fact that Infineon intends to integrate the chip inside WiFi routers.
• Cell operators are pushing femtocell option for a while. This chip could make the cell operators think twice before launching their femtocell based offerings. This chip makes WiFi even more ubiquitous and hence a headache for femtocell guys who are essentially competing against WiFi.
• Having WiFi in low cost handsets will drive wireless broadband. But it would be interesting to see what kind of browser capabilities are developed for such phones in order to support Internet access through them. Rather than browsing, these devices will mostly use WiFi for email and IM kind of apps.
• Push-to-Talk app is another area that could get a boost.
• We will see some sort of extension layers being developed on top of these chips that help bring a bigger pool of mobile VoIP developers working with high level APIs
• Perhaps the biggest gainers will be people like MSN and Google Talk whose IM clients can leverage a bigger user base.
Comments (1)
Of course one of the significant advantages of VoIP is HD Voice, i.e. the wideband audio that gives PC-to-PC Skype connections that sense of being in the same room.
That's completely missed by the cellular guys, operators and chip vendors.
So this is just an arbitrage opportunity (use VoIP to save some money). OK, but not remarkable.
Posted by Brough Turner | March 18, 2008 3:49 PM
Posted on March 18, 2008 15:49