Mobile broadband boosts VoIP solutions

Take up of mobileIP telephony solutions could take off in 2010 as subscriptions to mobile broadband surpasses 271 million by the end of 2009.

Subscriptions to 3G and 3.5G are "ramping up" as mobile users are increasingly demanding the speed they can offer, ABI Research has said.

The higher data rates offered by 3G and 3.5G could encourage adoption of mobile VoIP solutions, which use the mobile internet to make and receive voice calls.

Mobile broadband subscriptions in 2009 were up 43 per cent on the previous year, while subscriptions to GSM, the most popular standard for mobile telephony systems in the world, began to grind to a halt.

Mobile subscription numbers surpassed 4.35 billion by the end of last year. While they noticeably slowed in the first half of the year due to the recession, they recovered in the second half, with worldwide penetration reaching 66 per cent.

There will be more smartphones in the US markets than feature phones by 2011, according to a survey by Nielsen.

Increased adoption of smartphones would widen potential access to mobile VoIP solutions as they are able to use third-party software, such as VoIP provider apps, unlike feature phones.