The VOIP Provider Guide

We all know that the future of phone service is most likely in VOIP. It’s cheaper, more viable, and eventually going to offer much higher quality as the technology evolves. For now though, the industry is in something of a transition and the questions still remain; what does the immediate future hold for VOIP service and what does it need to truly take over?

Already, businesses are making the massive jump and dumping their traditional phone service in favor of VOIP. With unlimited bandwidth options and much lower premiums on service, broadband is a much better means to make calls for corporate locations than traditional circuit-based phone access, which is incredibly expensive.

So, as is often the case, the first real jump in technology takes place in the workplace. To see where VOIP will really be in five years, it’s only necessary to look at where it is right now with businesses. Even now, the total revenue between 2002 and 2007 for VOIP companies has grown from $13 billion to $200 billion.

VoIP Gateways
VoIP Gateways will continue to improve as the years pass. It’s been a while since they were simple PC-based platforms. They are now becoming fully embedded systems running on dedicated servers and able to handle much more traffic in small spaces.

This also makes it possible to run everything through IP without worrying about the infrastructure a company has installed. So, with companies able to run everything in their building through a single IP setup, the gateways are going to become more stable and high capacity, which will eventually spill over to the consumer market.

Other Areas of IP based Transfers; Fax and Video Conferencing
VoIP is not the only growth area that companies are looking in for. Because of the desire of companies to move almost every aspect of their business to IP based applications, the infrastructure for those activities will continue to grow. Fax protocols are already making the move and Video Conferencing is soon to follow, something that is already supported by most PC based VOIP applications. Not only will video conferencing become more popular though, it will likely become a standard application as the technology grows to support high quality, real-time video over IP in conjunction with VoIP.

Expanding Services & Lower Cost
It’s already starting to happen, but soon enough, high quality VoIP phones will be available for much cheaper with many more features. It’s not long before multiple colors and touch screen displays (already present in the iPhone and Nokia’s newest E-Series phone) are standard features.

Not only will equipment get cheaper, so too will the service. As it is now, competition already has the cost of VoIP service plunging to new lows, much lower than standard phone service. However, with that much competition, the future also holds a lot of companies collapsing and consolidating. Looking at the state of the phone companies today, it’s realistic that no more than a half dozen or so companies will survive the current generation’s explosion of options. What that means is, if you stick with a lower quality service now, they might now be around for very much longer.

The Immediate Future
So, with growth ranging from 15% to 45% a year right now, it’s going to be less than a decade before VoIP becomes the preeminent means of communication in the country and that means that the technology will start leapfrogging to keep up. Businesses will begin to make the mass-exodus soon to VoIP service, something they’ve started but haven’t been able to complete due to a lack of infrastructure.

And at any time, it’s possible that the traditional phone companies will realize what’s happening and jump into the fray as well. There are a dozen major companies out there and only two or three are even starting to offer VoIP options in any way and some companies like AT&T are going out of their way to block it on their mobile services. So, in the coming years look for any of the major telecom giants to jump into the fray and break apart the current structure.

With dozens of companies releasing dozens of new software modules seemingly every week, it’s always nice to hear when one of the truly decent programs gets a full upgrade. This last week, Truphone released Truphone 3.0 and with it, their first full support of mobile VoIP Software. This new version comes chock full of new features including free mobile calls between all Truphone users and fairly inexpensive calls to everyone else.

It’s also possible now to use SMS over IP, something that furthers the viability of Mobile VoIP in comparison to cell phones. The service itself works right now only with Nokia’s N80 and N95 as well as their E-Series phones, though you can probably expect expanded support in the months to come.

The service is still considered to be in Beta, but with the expansion and inclusion of so many new features, it’s a viable option for anyone with one of Nokia’s new smart phones. The calling feature is fairly inexpensive for those with a means of connecting to data networks and the SMS option is free between other Truphone users and about .15 cents per message to anyone else.

Probably the best feature though is the ability to know when you’re paying for a call and when it’s free, something most companies would cringe at. It will go a long way in keeping phone bills to a minimum and not discovering much too late that that late night call to your girlfriend was actually a billed call. The service also offers a kind of “smart log on” which will automatically seek out and connect to local Wi-Fi access points. When those access points are not available, it’s still possible to access the service over 3G, though the appropriate fees that your cellular service charges will still apply.

What does all of this fancy new software mean for everyone else though? It’s a good picture into the future as to what Mobile VoIP service can and will offer in the coming months. Everyone has been asking what kind of features and quality of service we can expect from Mobile VoIP in the future and the newest version of Truphone is starting to show us exactly what that will be.

Basically, the main problem still remaining is the access points and the cost of Data use over 3G. With newer services constantly offering better features, soon smart phones with the right software will likely be offering better service and call quality over VoIP than what Cell service offers.

Once again, there are way too many services out there offering VoIP plans and too many options to sift through when making your decision. So, let’s take a look at one of those services that we’ve been hearing a bit about of late, Lingo VoIP. Lingo has been around for a little while now, about three years or so, and in that time they’ve done a decent job of upgrading their service every now and then and offering the kinds of features that bring in new users. But, are they more worthy than any of the other three-hundred VoIP services on the market? Let’s take a look.

First the Good Stuff
Like almost every other major service out there right now, Lingo offers everything you could want in a telephone service. It’s no longer surprising or customer winning to offer call forwarding, call waiting, or voice mail with VoIP service. It’s expected. For those companies out there that don’t offer such features, you had better catch up quickly or you won’t be around for long.

However, something that Lingo does offer above and beyond some other services is easy use of these features as well as a few other features that many companies have trouble implementing properly. Universal Phone Numbers are always a fun option that allows you to take your phone number and Lingo service anywhere in the world and keep all of your calls local to the area in which you live. Lingo offers the service and it’s actually pretty easy to use. Not only can you move your Lingo number to any country in the world, you can port your existing land line number to Lingo as well. It takes about two weeks, but it’s a great option to have.

The real draw of Lingo is the inclusion of numerous plans for different users. Depending on what you need, Lingo tends to have a pricing plan to match. Their lowest end plan is $7.99 which allows you to call anyone who uses Lingo service and use all of their standard features. For full phone service, the next plan up is the $14.99/month plan, offering 500 minutes for use anywhere in the US and Canada.

The real deal though, is the $21.95 unlimited talk plan that Lingo offers. This plan allows you to call anyone in 21 countries, most of them in Western Europe, for free. It’s a great option for anyone who likes their features.

And the Bad
On paper, Lingo is a great service with lots of different options, but in actual application, it doesn’t quite live up to its promise. Compared to many of the other services out there, including Vonage and Allo, Lingo is fairly slow in connecting calls and the call quality is often suspect. This isn’t as much of a problem for other Lingo users as those connections tend to be incredibly high quality and quick, but calling a normal land line with Lingo’s service often results in diminishing returns.

The Bottom Line
Lingo is a great service in essence, but doesn’t quite live up to its own promises. With a large company backing the service though and the promise of such incredible pricing, Lingo could easily become one of the big players in the market. Unfortunately as the field starts to thin out, those services offering the lower quality calls and poor connection times are likely to fall off the map first. Lingo is in the latter category and only time will tell if they survive it. For those people who want a good, economy option, Lingo is the way to go. For those more concerned with high quality, go with a different, better supported service.

The future of Mobile VoIP is largely reliant on the phone companies rather than the technology. No one is of the opinion that the technology will not be there. Already this year we’re seeing the widespread deployment of the CDMA EVDO technology that makes it so much easier for business VoIP solutions to work out. Similarly, in the coming years, multiple other new technologies such as WiMAX should arrive and simplify it even further.

All of these additions make WiFi access much faster, improving overall performance and speeding up the rate of transfers throughout the networks that are quickly spreading across major cities. Faster internet speeds are great and everyone is excited by universal broadband, but another nice side effect is the increased performance and viability of Mobile VoIP, something businesses are salivating over.

Here’s the major problem though. Most phones still need some sort of unlimited data plan to utilize internet access and thus VoIP. Such a plan is often upwards of $80/month or so, which most people would consider decent business. However, it’s not when you consider the top end of current cell service is almost $200/month. Such a drop is not good for phone companies.
Fortunately, the companies cannot raise data plan rates without angering the masses and so many people have a data plan it would cause significant problems. This means that many phone companies will go out of their way to make it harder for VoIP viability.

Which, of course means that better phones, more impressive technology, and eventually better service will follow. It’s just a question of how much time will pass before it all shows up. It’s probable that many companies will attempt to block VoIP in the coming years, but with companies like T-Mobile and Sprint actively jumping onto the bandwagon of VoIP with Clearwire and WiMAX services, the probable result is that the others will have to fall in suit. In the end, companies like Verizon and AT&T are stuck between the options with little room on either side to move.

The other major problem for phone companies is that their service has always been slightly inferior to landline service. After years of slightly distorted service, claiming to have higher quality than VoIP carriers is probably not going to fly either. The only option they have then is to vastly improve their network, an investment that just isn’t worth it with VoIP so quickly driving down costs.So, the only real answer to the problem is to join the competition and start offering service via packet based, digital service. The phone companies have been using circuit-switches for decades but it might be time to finally make the switch to digital, something nearly every other service has slowly been doing in recent years.

If you follow all of the logic down the line then, you’re left with a single, simple solution; things are going to be very good for Mobile VoIP in the coming years. The technology is quickly growing to support universal WiFi in all major cities and towns and soon the technology will be there to offer affordable, high quality mobile phones with WiFi access (as seen in the iPhone and Nokia’s E Series).

Mobile companies will soon jump on board because they will have no choice if they don’t want to lose all of their market share, and as soon as a major company or two jumps on board (as was seen with VoIP for landlines), the service will have the kind of universal support and attention needed to start taking off. In the very near future, Mobile VoIP will be a much more common household phrase.