For years mobile phone users have complained about lousy service, poor coverage and dropped calls. If those problems didn’t exist why would the mobile operators make such claims in the television ads the way they do here in the USA (Cingular, Verizon).
This item from GeekZone in New Zealand pretty much sums up why mobile phone users need to have access to a WiFi network and the ability to make VoIP calls. With broadband access more widely available, this means areas with poor cellular coverage can be made whole via WiFi powered VoIP. That’s the model Earthlink is trying for, though current muni-WiFI deployments only tend to cover two stories of buildings.
Ironically, if the mobile operators put a VoIP bundle together, with a quality of service guarantee I don’t think a lot of users would look much farther than there mobile operator, much in the same way that the cable operators have pretty much sewn up VoIP as part of a triple play offering.
This means companies like client Truphone and GizmoProject which have already figured out how to make VoIP work on mobile handsets are really well positioned to either work with the mobile operators as VOIP partners or be acquired by them. Since they are SIP based, which makes them IMS compatible, they are in a far better place than Skype which still lacks any SIP interoperability.