14 DAY TRIAL // Earlier this week, Android users in India started to see a new feature available in their Facebook Messenger application, in the form of a “Free Call” option, allowing them to make free voice calls to other people who have the Facebook or Facebook Messenger app installed.
What this means is that they can stay in touch with their friends and family without using minutes from their monthly plan. Of course, they still need an Internet connection for the app to work, but it should translate into savings for many, on the long run.
The option has landed in India just now, but it is not new. In fact, it has been available for iOS users in Canada since early 2013, and arrived on Android in the first quarter of the last year as well, though limited only to Canada and the United States.
Launched mainly to allow users to enjoy instant messaging with their Facebook buddies without having to launch the official app for the social network, Facebook Messenger has become more than that with VoIP voice calling inside, turning into a rival for many services out there.
This includes not only other VoIP services, such as Skype, Nimbuzz, and LINE, to name only a few, but also the voice chatting functionality that mobile phone carriers around the world offer. However, Facebook Messenger is only one app/service out there to find itself in this situation.
Others have also launched or announced plans to release such options to their users, including BlackBerry with its BBM and WhatsApp. WeChat also has it, though it works a little differently, as only one person can speak at a time.
There’s plenty of room for VoIP calling services Nonetheless, the best part of the deal when it comes to such services is the fact that they provide users with the possibility to enjoy voice chatting for free, regardless of where they are.
Since these services require access to the Internet to work, however, users will still need to pay for a data plan with their wireless carriers. Yet, when talking to someone on the other side of the world, it might prove much cheaper than making a regular voice call.
Furthermore, these applications work just fine over Wi-Fi connections, which means that voice conversations can actually be free, even if the person at the other end of the line is in another country, on another continent.
When traveling abroad, they can prove even better if you want to stay in touch with people at home without paying any roaming charges. I did so myself several times, and I must say that I had a great feeling seeing that my phone bill didn’t jump through roof.
With sales of smartphones growing faster than ever now, it’s clear that VoIP services have a lot of room to thrive, especially when advertising free voice chats with anyone around the world. Assuming, of course, that only those who own a smartphone are interested in such functionality.
Over a billion people own a smartphone today, but more of them will switch to such a device moving forth, thus offering VoIP services providers a larger audience to target with their products.
Even if people at each end of the line will need the same app installed on their handsets, making such a call would easily prove much more cost-effective when compared to what operators charge for the (same) service.
Cheap calls to mobiles and landlines to challenge carriers even more
But there’s more to it. Many of these services also allow users to make cheap calls to mobiles and landlines, thus making their features lists even more appealing than before.
LINE made such a move several days ago, when it announced that Android users in eight markets out there can take advantage of LINE Call, a new functionality that enables people to engage in voice conversations with mobile and landline users at cheap rates.
Skype already had such an option in place, allowing users to call from within the application at rates as low as 2 cents per minute, in addition to being able to enjoy free Skype-to-Skype voice chatting with anyone, anywhere in the world.
At such rates, VoIP services challenge wireless carriers even more, although many of them allow users to make mobile-to-mobile calls at costs that are almost as low as those offered by Skype or LINE now.
WhatsApp, which announced plans to launch voice chatting later this year, did not provide specific info on what it would offer to its customers as part of it, though the company did say that it had struck a deal with German carrier E-Plus, which will be detailed at a later date.
Should the option to call mobiles and landlines be included in WhatsApp’s offering, it would mean even more pressure on operators, which might be forced to rethink their strategies to ensure that their services will continue to attract as many users as before.
Of course, there are many situations when launching a VoIP voice conversation just won’t cut it, but using a carrier’s voice service (mobile or landline) will do the job just fine.
Although Skype, LINE, and others appear as a threat to operators’ voice services, they are certainly not an immediate one. I believe that they will manage to co-exist for a long period of time ahead, and that the main issue is which of them will attract more people to its side.
SMS and MMS are slowly becoming obsolete
However, while voice services offered by wireless carriers might not be in such a big trouble, SMS (text messages) and MMS (multimedia messages) do appear to be on their way out.
The number of messages sent using IM apps such as those mentioned above has long surpassed the number of texts, and it should increase even more moving forth.
SMS and MMS are still present in the offerings of most carriers out there, though fewer users will rely on them for this type of communication, and more of them will switch to mobile messaging services such as BBM, WhatsApp, Nimbuzz, WeChat, Skype, and the like.
One of the best features that these apps offer is the fact that conversations can be accessed from a multitude of devices and that they are kept intact even when switching to a new device or carrier, which creates a great advantage for them over regular SMS services available through operators.
I’m no expert, but it appears to me that what happened to mobile IM compared to SMS was a trend that could be repeating with VoIP and voice calling offered by carriers.
The fact is that the very services that are killing SMS (billions of texts are still sent each year, so it will still take a while before they are actually dead) are moving into the voice chatting field as well, and they might actually gain great traction here too.
Mobile IM and VoIP will help carriers sell more data
There’s one side of the story that is certainly beneficial for wireless services providers: these IM apps, regardless of whether they offer voice calling or simple messaging capabilities, require Internet access to work.
This means that users will have to sign up for data plans with their carriers in order to be able to take advantage of these applications and services at all times.
Even if they might lose some ground when it comes to the number of voice calls made and texts sent over their networks, carriers will see a surge in data usage, which will certainly come as some sort of compensation.
Moreover, many of the IM services mentioned above also provide users with the possibility to send photos, videos, and other file types to their conversational partner, which means more data being used when in a chat room.
And with group conversations also a feature of many of these apps, carriers have another reason to be happy when more users are signing up for an IM service from their smartphones.
Operators should improve their offerings
In the end, the availability of more VoIP options on mobile devices could prove both good and bad for carriers, given that an increase in data usage might not be all that they want (more users on their voice services is another goal for them).
To maintain their user base they can, however, do much more than that. Lowering costs for calls made to mobiles on other networks and to landlines will certainly interest users. Adding cheaper international rates to the offering and reducing roaming costs will appeal to them even more, that’s for sure.
In the end, mobile messaging services that also offer voice calling features should increase competitiveness in the area, which will result in more appealing offerings for users, the same as it happened with SMS.
When I first signed up with a carrier about 15 years ago, I had no text included in my plan, and I had to pay for each of them. Today, I have around 2,000 texts each month, and I’m rarely sending more than 10 of them.
Soon, similar offerings could be there for minutes as well, should things evolve in this direction (and I mean minutes to other networks, landlines, and to international numbers, regardless of whether mobile or not).