How To Make VoWiFi Totally Useless

from the how-many-layers-can-you-add... dept

There's been so much talk about VoWiFi lately, but very few people seem to stop and think about what situations it actually makes sense in. For the time being, about the only situations where it really makes sense is as a way to remove the need for a separate telephone adapter device by moving it directly into the phone. This makes it easier to use the phone wherever you are without having to plug in very much. However, as a general offering, the real demand is probably not that high. In the US especially, most people probably have mobile phones with buckets upon buckets of minutes. So, what's the benefit to doing VoIP at a hotspot? They're no longer able to be really mobile (have to stay at the hotspot), and they have to figure out a way to connect to the WiFi hotspot. The latest move in this space is for hotspot aggregator Boingo to team up with two other companies to make one of the least compelling offerings seen in a while. First of all, you have to pay for Boingo, which is quite expensive, when free WiFi is showing up everywhere. On top of that, you get a softphone, which is no big deal, and you have to buy service which seems more expensive than most other VoIP providers out there. So, you have an expensive, complicated solution that can probably be done by yourself for less money without being limited only to Boingo related hotspots. Who would sign up for this particular offering other than a Boingo executive?