A Look At Voice over WiFi

This is the kind of story I like to see, not only because it has direct benefit to clients (Truphone and Boingo) but also because one of the company's whose advisory board I sit on Agito, is smack in the middle of this whole Voice over WiFi game.

Voice over WiFi works. And it works very well. Just last week I had a series of VoWiFi calls via my AT&T 3G connection using client Truphone on both a Nokia N95 and an Apple iPhone that was tethered to Joiku Spot on my Nokia E71 from the 30th floor of the Intercontinental San Francisco.

Joiku, which recently announced a deal with FON, takes an incoming 3G signal, then sends it out the WiFi side of the handset, much the same way an Apple Mac Book can do with an incoming broadband connection via the Ethernet port and out via WiFi. What makes Joiku so useful is that it can be used virtually anywhere there's a 3G connection, and thus eliminates the need for other data cards, or things like Cradlepoint.

Want proof that this voice over WiFi is happening? Look at all the companies creating new devices and services that do exactly that in one form or another. Comcast, Sprint, T-Mobile.

As someone who has used both Truphone and T-Mobile's Hotspot @ Home services, I can safely say, they both work as promised, with the edge to Truphone in quality and ability to get around hotel NAT/Firewall issues.