Apple to buy iCall, worrying times for other providers?
Some interesting news floating around regarding Apple and its interest in purchasing iCall a USA VOIP provider.
iCall allows iPhone users when in a hotspot to divert calls off of the GSM network and onto the WiFi network. I have been testing it for a few week now and quality appears to be as good as cellular and at the prices being bandied about it seems like Apple are buying it for the domain as much as for the business.
Obviously Apple are in the next 12 month going to end exclusive carriers deals for the iphone and this may be a play for Apple to become your defacto carrier of choice when in a wifi zone.
Devicescape recently conducted a survey and found that 82% of those surveyed wanted their service provider to offer special 3G/Wi-Fi packages.
It looks like Apple could become that service provider and if you could pay for that airtime through your iTunes account even better in Apple’s view as it practically elimanate the fraud issue which plagues voip providers.
The real interesting part of the puzzle in the iCall offering is that it detects incoming calls and routes them to Voip if its available saving your minutes usage if you are in a country like the USA where you pay for inbound and outbound calls.
This is a worrying time for companies who have bet the house on being the wifi/voice provider on the iPhone/iPod Touch
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Very interesting development; but I’m afraid Apple will be likely to be a tad pricey on the WiFi carrier front and thus won’t represent VFM – also, if they play silly sods again by blocking other apps, the competition commission will likely bitchslap them, so I can’t see myself moving away from Skype on iPhone/Pod – nor anyone with sense.
Will appease the apple fanbois no end though.
“I’m afraid Apple will be likely to be a tad pricey on the WiFi carrier front and thus won’t represent VFM”
Way to go Ian. You make assumptions and then use those assumptions to slag off Apple. Why not wait and see how little value for money this actually represents and then slag it off?
Ummm, what if there isn’t a wifi network around? Wouldn’t you still need a carrier? I don’t see how this would affect the system that exists as far as paying for coverage goes. Apple would have to build a worldwide wifi network in order for you to drop carrier support.
I persoanlly think Truphone is better than both iCall and Skype – so thats my preferred option … perhaps apple should buy them.
@js
iphone is in wifi cover work/home 70% of the time
@timeseditor
truphone have raised more than the retail price of iCall so that one is out I think
Interestingly, iCall has no Mac OS X desktop App.
I currently use Skype on my Macbook and Touch, and love it.
The only way to compete for mobile carriers is to make inroads themselves into the VoIP business and offer it as a budget package. Ignoring the Elephant in the room is not going to eliminate it. Bringing VoIP into the mix in what Apple is doing is bringing VoIP into the mainstream. That is taking a big slice of the $692 billion mobile carrier market, soon rather than later.
If mobile carriers don’t do it they may end up like Blockbuster, big in their day but lost to the new markets of Netflix and Lovefilm.com and they losing control, especially they are not willing to participate. With 800+ mobile carriers there is nothing to stop Apple doing deals, or even taking over some of the mobile carriers to ensure continuation of service.
first, voip fails EPICALLY on the iPhone/itouch
no amount of bandwidth (10mbps) will allow upstream audio to be transported smoothly on the i* platforms (across a variety of different ISP’s).
… at least for the SIP-based clients: Fring (A TOTAL LOST CAUSE), truphone, etc.
So it is sad that the only voip that might work is a proprietary one like skype
second, most of the voip VAN’s for the i* do not have local access numbers (to/from pstn) for most parts of the world – so voip is, in effect useable, in only a dozen major cities (mostly USA, and maybe two or three in EU).
All round, one prays that apple does buy a voip platform & integrates it into the core i* package — just as one also hopes it buys a hotpsot platform (eg boingo) & integrates it into a revolutionary mesh internetwork (cisco & apple inter alia did make an announcement about a mesh-like grid recently – which would be a perfect wimax-enhanced companion to apple’s thin-server productline, atv, timecapsule, airport).
if Apple wants to retain its momentum as thecmarket leader, then it needs to EXPLODE the revenue models of the dinosaur carriers.
voip is a vital step in that direction.
(just as buying Twitter & facebook would consolidate its position in media).
the