July 31st, 2007
Do VoIP savings lead users to increase spending on mobile services?
Rather buried in a Telecoms.com piece grokking some new research from U.K.-based firm Analysys comes what I call a “makes you go hmmm” nugget:
Paradoxically, VoIP seems to have little impact on the migration of voice traffic to mobile networks and in fact appears to release consumer cash for additional spending on mobile services.
Now that’s some food for thought. What the un-bylined writer seems to be saying is that when users switch from traditional phone services to VOIP- and realize they are saving money- they feel tempted to redeploy some of those savings for additional mobile phone features and gear.
Examples would be, purchases of mobile music, expanding calling plans for more minutes, more texting, more video emails, etc.
Following this scenario, freeing up of cash due to VoIP’s savings might mean more spending on mobile hardware. Maybe more memory, better earbuds, etc?
VoIP-using readers, have you channeled any of your VoIP “savings” into mobile phone features and gear?
Russell Shaw is an enterprise computing journalist, analyst and author based in Portland, Oregon. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
