Voip And Business

Many of us are already using internet telephony - also sometimes known as VoIP - at home or in offices, over always-on broadband connections. So, asks Truphone's Gavin Miller, when you're out and about using wi-fi at, say, a public hotspot or airport lounge why not use it to save money that would otherwise go on mobile calls, often at expensive international roaming rates?

There are two types of business travellers: those who open their own mobile phone bills and suffer heart palpitations and those for whom the finance department opens the bill and has the palpitations for them.

The reason: international mobile roaming charges. Yes, it's true that during 2006 roaming charges fell - but only by 18 per cent and not quickly enough for EU Information Society Commissioner Viviane Reding, who is still pressing for regulation despite mobile operator opposition.

In all likelihood any regulation to drive down call charges - and even the need for it - will be overtaken to some extent by the spread of Voice over IP (VoIP) telephony onto mobile devices. By routing voice calls as data network traffic mobile VoIP services harness the distance-independent, inherently low cost of the internet. And that means savings for customers.

And business travellers are in a better position than many to benefit from the new generation of mobile VoIP services: mobile VoIP uses wi-fi internet connectivity, to which business travellers have more frequent access than most in the form of airport lounges and hotels, in addition to offices and homes. Based on current accepted usage norms, the potential saving most frequently cited by companies innovating in the mobile VoIP space is 30 per cent - which, even for an infrequent traveller enduring a single bill of £1,000, will happily meet the cost of a new, SIM-free, wi-fi-enabled, VoIP-ready handset from the likes of Nokia.

In fact, regular business travellers tend to exceed normal usage patterns considerably and so are likely to benefit hugely. Even far lighter users benefit. It's worth noting that some 8 per cent of UK mobile users pay more than £120 per month and for this significant minority the payback period for a wi-fi-enabled handset is far less than 12 months and less than half the two-year lifespan of the average mobile handset.

How does it work? A true mobile VoIP service enables calls to be made between mobile devices entirely free of charge: calls are carried over the internet and, at each end, via a private or public wi-fi network, to/from a wi-fi enabled device. The call never enters a regular phone network, fixed or mobile, so there are no operator charges payable either to make or receive such a call.

Of course, it's not necessary for both parties to be in wi-fi range to make a call and to benefit. A caller making a call from a wi-fi hotspot abroad effectively cuts out the wallet-damaging international roaming charge by turning his/her call into a local landline/mobile call in the country of destination. And it will never cost someone calling a mobile VoIP user more than it would have cost to call their GSM number. But, if the receiver is on-net - especially abroad - then he/she will not incur the roaming charge associated with receiving calls abroad. If the receiver is not on-net, then a mobile VoIP service should automatically forward any inbound calls to the normal GSM number. It is a win-win-win situation.

There are many variations on mobile VoIP. This includes callback-style services, in which the bulk of a call is carried over the internet with the 'last mile' at either end connected via local calls paid for by the caller - a valid approach when not in wi-fi range. And mobile operator 3 recently announced its X-Series data tariff, which overlays a standard monthly package and allows VoIP calls to be made over 3's 3G network.

The pace of mobile VoIP development and the spread of wi-fi suggests that Vodafone chief executive Arun Sarin's recent prediction that 'mobile bills will be based on a flat-rate monthly fee within a matter of years' will be inaccurate only insofar as it will happen sooner than he expects, and not necessarily because of the actions of the traditional mobile operators.

While wi-fi on mobile handsets isn't standard quite yet, it seems like only yesterday that neither were cameras - and we all know what's happened since. And business travellers, already switched on to the benefits of wi-fi for laptops, will have been in the vanguard of the change.