Adds Windows Mobile to client list
Mobile VoIP company fring (yes, lower case, and another name that ends –ing) has added Windows 5.0 and 6.0 devices to its list of compatible handsets. fring users (or “fringsters” as fring liks to call them) can now set up VoIP communications between fring, Skype, Google Talk, MSN Messenger, “hundreds” of SIP providers and twitter on around 300 Windows Mobile phones and pocket PCs in addition to 20+ Nokia (Symbian8 and 9) devices over any 3G, GPRS or Wi-Fi Internet connection.
Companies such as fring are hoping that the growth of mobile VoIP applications, along with flat rate data bundles and 3G networks, will make cellular VoIP a huge growth application in
Roy Timor-Rousso, VP of Product Marketing, said that fring is a resolutely consumer application, that is not telco grade. But he said that with a decent data plan, users could indeed use the application to set up VoIP calls over a cellular network as well as over WLAN.
“Users would consume about 8-10Mb per hour of talk time, and around 10kb per hour in idle mode, through the presence notification,” he said. “We always tell our users to make sure they have a good data plan, and if they are roaming to make sure they have a good data roaming plan.”
Timor-Rousso said that although operators as yet have mostly not embraced cellular VoIP at the end user side, he would “work with any operator that respects our requirements of not limiting users.”
Vodafone's recent hiding of the SIP stack on the Nokia N95 recently was regarded as an operator trying to limit users' ability to make VoIP calls. But other operators such as 3 with its X-Series and E-Plus have opened themselves up to Skype clients on the handsets. 3 has said that it is not concerned where its income come from. If users prefer to make Skype calls rather than per-minute calls over its circuit switched network, then it is clearly picking up extra on its data plan. But for more established players with the majority of income coming form circuit switched calls, the model is less proven.
“I believe that in an era when you are offering a 400 minute bundle, suddenly mobile VoIP on the handset is not such a threat to that income,” Timor-Rousso.
“Operators are also interested in churn reduction, and something like fring with its social networking aspect not only keeps a user on a network but could bring members of that users' friends and family with them,” he added.