A friend put me on to the Viber App a few weeks ago while I was overseas. It lets your phone call another phone with the Viber app, using a wireless network, at no cost. This means that I could call the office, friends and others with a Viber app on their phone and avoid having to call through a hotel or my regular mobile service. The savings were extraordinary. Viber is, in my view, easier and better than Skype. Ideal for business travellers. It’s also easy for businesses to call businesses.
No, this is not an ad.
My point, I guess, is that who’d be a telco right now? Seriously. They are migrating from making money from phone calls to making money from the overarching network. Hence the importance of the NBN play. It’s a major structural shift for the telcos. Not unlike the structural shift we are seeing in print and experiencing in newsagencies.
All around our businesses, and inside our businesses, change is the order of the day. Telcos are walking toward and even through change. We need to do the same.
My daughter is overseas & we use viber. The sound quality is great. Unfortunately you need an iPhone or an Android phone to use it.
A lot of smart phones now come with similar apps preloaded (Skype).
The Telco business is evolving rapidly. A lot of young people (my two children included) don’t even have landlines.
I’ve had a play with both Viber & Skype.
Honestly I can’t see a reason for using either off a mobile for national calls. Especially given Viber only works off iPhone/Android – and for iPhones at least you would have to be on a reasonable plan to get one anyway (or you can afford to pay for your calls). For international calls it’s a different story.
Even using it internationally – unless you are using it off free wifi (or you purchase a prepaid sim where you travel to) you wouldn’t use it. Data roaming is horribly expensive.
Skype is much better as a general product as you can use it off a pc/laptop. And you don’t have to rely on skype as you can use the in/out paid services to let people off skype contact you, or you can contact them on a pstn/mobile number.
Eventually Viber will catch up with those features, but until it does it’s got limited use.