• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, September 15, 2009

Market research firm In-Stat predicts mobile Voice-over-IP applications will generate annual revenues of $32.2 billion by 2013, driven by more than 278 million new users worldwide. Over the next five years mobile VoIP will gradually shift from its initial use as a cheap way to make international calls to a key feature of mobile apps and services.

In-Stat points out that VoIP is already integrated into mobile social networking apps, and is being used by "virtual" wireless operators as an inexpensive way to add voice to data offerings. A few carriers are also using one form of mobile VoIP, UMA, to provide better indoor coverage.

Applications such as Skype and Vonage have influenced users to think of voice as a data application," said Frank Dickson, an In-Stat analyst and author of the report. "The increasing penetration of WiFi in mobile devices was the beachhead that mobile VoIP applications needed."

What about the threat mobile VoIP poses to operators' voice revenue? In its recent response to a Federal Communications Commission inquiry about its blocking of a Google Voice app for the iPhone, Apple revealed that it had an agreement with carrier partner AT&T not to send voice calls over the Internet, bypassing its network, without AT&T's approval.

Due that restriction, Skype can only be used by iPhone owners over a WiFi connection, not on AT&T's network. (Google Voice is not a VoIP service.) In relation to the FCC inquiry, the carrier said it would reconsider this policy. In-Stat's Dickson believes AT&T and other operators resistance to VoIP will ultimately give way to the realities of the wireless marketplace.

"As user habits are being shaped by rich online communication experiences, mobile carriers control over devices and data applications is waning," he said. And if large carriers don't offer services otherwise widely available, they face a potential backlash from consumers and regulators.