VoIP on WiFi and WiMax devices can’t get here fast enough
I was in Canada over the holidays and hoped to keep my Curve off the entire trip so I wouldn’t be charged the infamous AT&T International roaming fees.
I happened to need to turn on my Curve twice on one day to look some old email and negotiate a meeting place over several voice calls. The bill for this extravagance was over $30 + “regulatory” fees. Voice was $0.79/minute and god knows what they were charging per byte for data.
I dream of the day when handheld wireless IP devices will enable an international traveller to send and receive voice calls and send and receive data without the telcos smiling at you while they explain how they absolutely must charge you $0.79 a minute to transport less than 4 kb/s around the neighborhood or they’d go out of business.
A new network protocol for authenticating/authorizing wireless IP roaming devices is likely needed before cell phones can be replaced. Requiring a person to actively submit credentials every time their VoIP device passes between wifi networks will drive even the most technical savvy device owner over the edge so the protocol would have to be passive and seamless. This protocol needs to be aware at both the network layer (Registry based DHCP on steroids?) and at the application layer (SIP? H.323? Something new?) and tied to distributed subscription access-aggregation service.
With such a solution in place, taking into account administration expenses and roaming deal overheads, a VoIP-aware international IP hotspot aggregator could be profitable while making it worthwhile for hotspot owners to participate in such a service.