Today it’s not a problem to reach any person in any part of the world – free of charge.
The abundance of all sorts of mobile devices allows you to contact anyone in the world, using free calling and messaging apps. Apps like Viber, Skype and many others. And why not use them? If you have an active Internet connection, you don’t need to pay anything at all to make a call. Actually, there are so many people already using them, it often seems like voice carriers are in danger of becoming history very soon.
So is that true or not?
As was mentioned above, apps like Skype require an active Internet connection to actually use their functionality. It means that you have to use your phone’s data connection or Wi-Fi. Let’s look more closely into that matter. While making calls or sending messages via Skype or similar apps is free in itself, you still have to pay for your Internet connection. If you take a look at average costs of data realization, you will be able to see that in general, a call from Skype or Viber will be something like 65% of the usual voice call’s cost. This leads to a conclusion that Skype or Viber calls aren’t totally free.
Skype vs. telephony
While it certainly may look so, Skype (or any other similar app) is quite far from replacing voice telephony. There are several reasons for that. First of all, there are some regulations which will never allow apps like Skype to completely take over and replace telephony. Free calling apps won’t get rid of those limitations any time soon. Second, there are quite a few of serious telecom companies, who devoted their lives to creating and maintaining their businesses and put a lot of money in them. It is pretty much impossible to imagine they would one day just give up and go. And the third reason is Internet is still quite new to this world and it is not widely available in all parts of the globe. With all that said, it is very unlikely that voice telephony will disappear in the near future.
Other Problems
One of the main issues with free calling apps which come to mind is the quality of calls. While it is very good if you have a stable and fast connection, there are still too many places on Earth where even 3G is not available, or it’s connectivity is not so great. You will have a hard time trying to speak with someone over Skype in places like that. And don’t even try to use a free calling app on 2G. Not to mention that not everyone in the world has a smartphone or other mobile device. What all of this mean is free calling apps will never replace traditional telephony, while those issues are present.
Losing Money?
Right now, operators don’t need to worry about Skype taking away their businesses. There are still too many issues with using a free calling app which prevents them from totally replacing traditional voice telephony. The difference between data costs and voice calls charges is small enough for operators to not become threatened. However, connectivity of the world with the Internet improves every day. Even now there are millions of people who prefer to make a free call using a free calling app, than to make a regular call if they need to reach someone in other countries. In the future, this will definitely lead to operators losing a lot of money and it remains to be seen how they will prepare for that.