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Carriers will disable this as soon as it gets even remotely popular, because carriers don't understand what business they're really in. Carriers think they're

Carriers will disable this as soon as it gets even remotely popular, because carriers don't understand what business they're really in. Carriers think they're communications platforms that add value (Visual Voicemail only from AT&T!) and content channels (Exclusive Droid Bleeding Rocket Glass Metal Extreme Explosion DROIIIIDDD NASCAR app!). Savvy users understand that they're just wireless dumb pipes and know that cellular voice has been VoIP for many years now and also remember how long ago links between COs ran on fiber.

technomancy 15y ago
Of course carriers are going to hate this, and will disable it. The question is how. The easy way is to disable it in software, which means anyone running stock Android or Cyanogen and friends will be unaffected. Whether they go beyond this is another question. Are there enough users running software of their own choice to be worth the bother?
polshaw 15y ago
It's not that they 'don't understand' it is that they don't WANT to be (seen as) a dumb pipe. Funnily, they quite like charging ~10c for a text message that costs ~0.0001c in data, etc. Price only competition isn't attractive. It's about time we got a proper wireless ISP! ~* not accurate. and i know text message transfer works in a different way but it is not relevant.
jevinskie 15y ago
Cellular voice is only VoIP once it gets to the cell base. It is still CDMA/GSM over the air. The cellular companies have spent many hundreds of millions of dollars researching how to most efficiently compress voice into a narrow spectrum. I would think that VoIP OTA would be quite a bit less efficient.
olofsj 15y ago
Cellular voice isn't VoIP for CDMA, GSM or W-CDMA. Depending on the carrier it may be VoIP in the backbone part of the network, but the critical part over the air is circuit switched voice traffic. This changes with LTE, which is the first all IP wireless standard. So what do you get with cellular voice that you don't get with VoIP over cellular data? For one thing, when a voice call is set up it will get guaranteed resources with a delay guarantee, so your call will not be dropped so easily and the number of lost and late packages is minimized. Also, when doing handover to a new cell tower you'll be prioritized to minimize dropped calls. For LTE, the carriers will likely offer voice plans that have similar characteristics. So your VoIP traffic will be prioritized compared to normal data. If you run a normal VoIP client, you'll have the same prio as data traffic, which will give you more dropped calls, lower call quality due to dropped or late packets etc. That's how the carriers can compete. Is it worth to pay extra for? That depends. In some areas where the networks are congested, you may not get a call through on normal VoIP while it would work perfectly on the carriers voice plans.

technomancy 15y ago

Of course carriers are going to hate this, and will disable it. The question is how. The easy way is to disable it in software, which means anyone running stock Android or Cyanogen and friends will be unaffected. Whether they go beyond this is another question. Are there enough users running software of their own choice to be worth the bother?

polshaw 15y ago

It's not that they 'don't understand' it is that they don't WANT to be (seen as) a dumb pipe. Funnily, they quite like charging ~10c for a text message that costs ~0.0001c in data, etc. Price only competition isn't attractive. It's about time we got a proper wireless ISP! ~* not accurate. and i know text message transfer works in a different way but it is not relevant.

jevinskie 15y ago

Cellular voice is only VoIP once it gets to the cell base. It is still CDMA/GSM over the air. The cellular companies have spent many hundreds of millions of dollars researching how to most efficiently compress voice into a narrow spectrum. I would think that VoIP OTA would be quite a bit less efficient.

olofsj 15y ago

Cellular voice isn't VoIP for CDMA, GSM or W-CDMA. Depending on the carrier it may be VoIP in the backbone part of the network, but the critical part over the air is circuit switched voice traffic. This changes with LTE, which is the first all IP wireless standard. So what do you get with cellular voice that you don't get with VoIP over cellular data? For one thing, when a voice call is set up it will get guaranteed resources with a delay guarantee, so your call will not be dropped so easily and the number of lost and late packages is minimized. Also, when doing handover to a new cell tower you'll be prioritized to minimize dropped calls. For LTE, the carriers will likely offer voice plans that have similar characteristics. So your VoIP traffic will be prioritized compared to normal data. If you run a normal VoIP client, you'll have the same prio as data traffic, which will give you more dropped calls, lower call quality due to dropped or late packets etc. That's how the carriers can compete. Is it worth to pay extra for? That depends. In some areas where the networks are congested, you may not get a call through on normal VoIP while it would work perfectly on the carriers voice plans.