The Ultimate Guide To Mobile VoIP

Mobile phones aren’t renowned for low price calls, far from it. If you’ve ever got the bill for receiving a few calls while out of the country, you’ll know exactly what we mean. Although international roaming charges are starting to come down from their lofty highs, especially in Europe, it’s still very expensive to call home or receive calls when away on a trip.

If you don’t have a call plan with inclusive international calls, then mobile VoIP is ideal for you. Even if you make frequent calls only to domestic mobiles and landlines, mobile VoIP can save you a bunch of cash.

What Is Mobile VoIP?

The Wikipedia defines mobile VoIP as follows:

VoIP Mobile or ‘Mobile Voice over Internet Protocol’ is the application of Voice over IP technology to mobile handsets.

In layman’s terms, mobile VoIP is a way for you to place calls from your mobile phone that connect with the recipient via the internet. The main benefit of mobile VoIP is the combination of flexibility and cost savings on domestic, and especially, international calls.

Are There Requirements For Mobile VoIP?

Yes, mobile VoIP does have some basic requirements. Obviously you’ll need a mobile phone, but it will also need to be a dual-mode phone with WiFi connectivity, 3G, HSDPA or EVDO. You’ll also need a data plan that will allow your mobile VoIP provider to connect to the internet and place the call.

Different mobile VoIP providers require different capabilities. For instance, a mobile VoIP service that uses WiFi will require you to be on a WiFi network in order to make a call. Other services will roam in the background for the best connection whether that be via WiFi or 3G and let you make a call.

Recommended Mobile VoIP Providers

• EQO
  There has been quite a bit of buzz around EQO, and for good reason. Setting up EQO is a breeze, download it to your phone and sign in. Once you have logged in you’ll see all the contacts you have stored in your account, text messages and IM networks. Calls to domestic and international landlines and mobiles are cheap, as are text messages. You can IM for free with contacts on AIM, Yahoo!, MSN, Google Talk, Jabber and ICQ. If you can get your friends and family setup with EQO then you can call them free because calls to any other EQO user regardless of location are free. This is right up there with the best in mobile VoIP and comes highly recommended.
• Gizmo
  Already a popular desktop softphone, you can run the SIP-compatible Gizmo on over 200 mobile phones from Nokia, Blackberry, Samsung and others. It’s a fairly simple software install on your mobile, which when setup allows you to IM contacts on Gizmo, Google Talk, Jabber, MSN, AIM and Jabber as well as send files to other Gizmo users. Calls to international numbers are cheap, SMS and MMS is also significantly cheaper. Calls work just like Jajah, the central server calls you and the recipient, which means both calls are incoming; hence the savings. The great thing about Gizmo is that you can have access to all your contacts whether you are at your computer or off globetrotting with your mobile!
• fring
  While we’re not great fans of companies who are allergic to capital letters, we’ll forgive fring. So how does it work? It’s fairly simple really; download the fring application, install it on your mobile, setup your account and start calling people with VoIP over 3G, EDGE and WiFi networks. There is a degree of flexibility with fring that we love because you can IM or call contacts on Skype, Google Talk, MSN, Twitter, ICQ and it also works with SIP services like Gizmo. Furthermore, fring will roam seamlessly between available 3G, EDGE and WiFi networks so you get optimal performance. Calls to your contacts, landlines and mobiles are extremely cheap with fring. You can use fring on mobiles running Symbian and Windows Mobile.
• Jajah
  This is a fully web-based mobile VoIP solution that has caught the attention of many users. To use Jajah Mobile simply fire up your mobile browser, visit their site, login and you’ll have access to all the numbers stored in your Jajah address book; it’s then just a matter of click to call. Once you select who you wish to call, your phone will ring, the recipient’s phone starts to ring, you both pick up and start talking. Calls to landlines and mobiles are indeed cheap, but the clincher is that calls to other Jajah contacts are completely free no matter where they are. Jajah is an elegant solution to mobile VoIP, we highly recommend it.
• Mobiboo
  Developed in the UK, Mobiboo runs on your mobile and affords you cheap calls to international landlines and cheap domestic calls to landlines and mobiles. Admittedly Mobiboo does not have the feature set of some of the others, but it is worth a look at if you have got a dual-mode phone capable of connecting to WiFi networks. If you live or work in an area with good WiFi coverage, then it is worth having a look to save some cash on your calls.
• Nimbuzz
  Founded in the Neherlands and having received major funding, Nimbuzz is an application that is downloaded and installed on your mobile phone. You can then IM and call contacts on MSN, Google Talk and Skype thanks to their technology. Although IM is free, calls are not. However, international calls are cheap because Nimbuzz will call their local switch, which routes the call over the internet to the recipient.
• Rebtel
  Similar in terms of functionality to Jajah, Rebtel lets you make cheap domestic and international calls to landlines and mobiles by assigning landline numbers to contacts. When you set up a contact you give Rebtel their phone number, Rebtel then gives you a local landline number for them to store on your phone. Rebtel don’t serve every country in the world, but it does cover most of Europe and North America. If you put the time in to get it all setup, Rebtel will save you money. It doesn’t have all the bells and whistles of some other mobile VoIP providers, but what it does, it does well.
• Skype Mobile
  Skype was arguably the application that kicked the whole VoIP revolution off, in the mainstream anyway. So for a long time we’ve been using Skype on our computers, now you can use it on your mobile and get all the benefits. You can download and install Skype Mobile on Windows Mobile and Pocket PC. There are also many WiFi phones available that work with Skype, so if you live and / or work in an area covered with WiFi this is a very good option. However, you will forsake the flexibility offered by some of the competing mobile VoIP services in that you won’t be able to chat or call contacts from other Google Talk, MSN etc.
• Truphone
  Out of all the mobile VoIP services out there, Truphone is perhaps the most well known. Based in the UK, Truphone is an application that you download and install on your phone. This application works a bit of magic to route calls from your mobile across the internet where WiFi is available. You’ll need a dual-mode phone that can connect to WiFi hotspots for this to work. The upshot? With Truphone mobile VoIP you get free calls to mobiles in the USA, Canada, China, Hong Kong and Singapore, cheap calls to mobiles in the EU and, off course, free calls to other Truphone users. There is also no setup cost; just download, find a wireless network and start making calls.
• Woize
  While not as fully featured as some of the other mobile VoIP providers listed here, Woize is a good solution for a light user just wanting to save money. As with many of the others, Woize is a software application that is installed on your Windows Mobile or Pocket PC phone. Woize will route calls over the internet once connected to a WiFi network. Calls to landlines and mobiles are cheap, calls to other Woize contacts are free.

Drawbacks

Mobile VoIP is awesome, but it does have negatives. First of all, some of the most popular mobile VoIP providers require a WiFi internet connection, which isn’t so handy when you are out of town. As well as this, WiFi networks can be patchy, although their signals can be improved. Furthermore, calls may be cheap or even free, but mobile VoIP does require a data plan.

Pseudo-mobile VoIP

If you do not have a mobile phone capable of running a mobile VoIP application or you don’t have WiFi or mobile broadband, then there is another option: the humble laptop and softphone combination. It also doesn’t matter what OS you are running either; there are softphones for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.

Why You Should Care

While VoIP has yet to catch on with the masses at work or in the home, statistics suggest that mobile VoIP is set to grow massively in popularity. Mobile carriers offer various tariffs with a set number of free minutes per month, but excess calls are very expensive. Mobile VoIP will change all that with huge savings on calls to landlines and mobiles, both domestic and international.

Just like the free computer to computer calls we’ve all become so familiar with, mobile VoIP promises free mobile calls to contacts using the same mobile VoIP provider.