We just got done noting how the carrier SMS cash cow is slowing dying, with the decline impacting foreign earlier adoption countries first and then impacting America's giant carriers starting over the next few years. Another industry mainstay going the way of the dodo courtesy of wireless broadband and smartphones is the idea of the voice minute. While carriers have tried to stall the evolution of mobile VoIP by crippling handsets and imposing usage limits, new data from NPD In-Stat notes the mobile VoIP revolution is coming whether they like it or not. Mobile VoIP users are expected to triple this year:
Driven by increased smartphone penetration and a growing breadth of offerings, mobile VoIP usage is on the rise. As the addressable market increases with smartphone penetration a greater number of providers are introducing services, including a growing handful of mobile operators that are beginning to embrace, to some degree, mobile VoIP. New NPD In-Stat research reports that active mobile VoIP subscriber rates will triple in 2011, growing from 9 million in 2010 to 29 million.
While they publicly like to pretend otherwise, carriers like AT&T and Verizon know this (r)evolution is coming, which is why this year they quickly moved to eliminate unlimited data. Jacking up the price of mobile data and annoying new fees are expected to offset some of the revenue lost as SMS and voice minutes become relics of a bygone telecom era.read comment(s)