VoIP solutions could replace mobile voice

IP telephony solutions will replace traditional mobile phone voice plans when 4G wireless technologies are introduced, Yankee Group has said.

Mobile subscriptions based on voice minutes will be outmoded by VoIP solutions, because VoIP calls cannot be measured in time, according to the IT market research company.

Christopher Nicholl, a member of the Yankee Group Research Council, said: "For a growing segment of the population, voice usage is dropping dramatically, while data usage is skyrocketing."

Smartphone growth of 50 per cent over the next two years will drive the transition from voice to data-based services, will mobile operators already bundling data with smartphones as standard.

Minute-based voice plans will "become irrelevant" for smartphones as "a circuit that can be measured in time is no longer set up" with VoIP provider mobile applications, Mr Nicholl explained.

Tiered data plans may be introduced to measure the value of data, he added, but the issue of how users would estimate their data use has yet to be tackled.

"Voice still is, and will be, the killer app, all Twitter to the contrary aside," David Sims, contributing editor at communications and technology community TMCnet said recently.