The metamorphosis of wireless voice

How will new delivery models affect your monthly bill?

Industry analysis by expert Joanie Wexler, plus links to the day's wireless news headlines

Change is afoot in the way voice calls are delivered over mobile WANs. What's not quite clear yet is how your monthly cellular bill will be affected -- and in which direction.

The main reason for the uncertainty is that phone charges of the future will reflect carriers' pricing models for their forthcoming IP-based, open-access networks, and those models haven't been decided yet.

The mobile phone evolution

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Change is afoot in the way voice calls are delivered over mobile WANs. What's not quite clear yet is how your monthly cellular bill will be affected -- and in which direction.

The main reason for the uncertainty is that phone charges of the future will reflect carriers' pricing models for their forthcoming IP-based, open-access networks, and those models haven't been decided yet.

The mobile phone evolution

To recap a few recent milestones:

* AT&T has removed its one-time ban on VoIP over its cellular data network, most recently freeing the Apple iPhone to make 3G VoIP calls. The VoIP restriction had long been in effect primarily to protect the mobile operator's GSM (circuit-switched) voice revenues.

* A browser-based version of Google Voice became available for iPhones, circumventing Apple's blocking the capability in a native application form at its App Store. Google Voice isn't a VoIP app, though. In its mobile form, it runs over a traditional circuit-switched cellular network to reach the Internet. Available for free to U.S. users under Google's advertising-subsidy model, Google Voice is mostly focused on delivering unified communications, single-number reach across multiple phones and saving users some money on international mobile calls.

* Skype Mobile for Verizon Wireless users is poised for availability this month. It's aimed to help users save primarily on international calls: international Skype-to-Skype calls are free, while U.S. Skype to international non-Skype destinations are billed at Skype Out charges. These run about 2 cents a minute rather than $1.00-plus per minute for traditional services, according to a Skype spokesman.

The Skype application will be available for several BlackBerry and Android mobile phone models. But it isn't wireless VoIP, either. The service runs over Verizon's circuit-switched network and then becomes an Internet call once its reaches Skype's infrastructure -- yet a Verizon Skype Mobile user still must have both a mobile voice and data plan from the carrier.

The Skype calls don't count against your cellular minutes allowance, perhaps building in a cushion against hefty overage charges. But otherwise, what's in it for users?

Perhaps AT&T and Verizon are simply setting the wheels in motion to get mobile users hooked on data applications and the requisite data network subscriptions that go with them. They're willing to take a bit of a hit now on circuit-switched voice services to ensure that on the day those voice networks finally disappear, customers will already be data-addicted and generating revenue on the newer networks.

Indeed, it would seem that the operators have much to fear from the likes of Google, which represents a whole new potential online model for telephony delivery in the future.

In a report announced Thursday, market research firm In-Stat estimated that the number of worldwide mobile VoIP users would hit 288 million by the end of 2013.

Of these, well over half will be associated with online mobile VoIP providers (such as Google) -- services for which users do not directly pay the operator for voice service, says Frank Dickson, In-Stat vice president of research, mobile Internet.

Joanie Wexler is an independent networking technology writer/editor in Silicon Valley.