Is WiFi really set to be the cellular-killer, as it’s touted to be? After all, VoIP is clear, secure, and feature-laden. And WiFi is cheap and is most likely to be soon ubiquitous, with plans for municipal- and city-wide WiFi networks. However, the existing cellular providers might still have the last laugh.

Take for instance UMA—Unlicensed Mobile Access—which is being pushed by some North American cellular providers. UMA is essentially VoWiFi, but with the added “roaming” interoperability with the existing cellular networks, and this is sure to be a good come-on for subscribers, especially since they won’t have to change telephone numbers when moving into or out of coverage of a WiFi connection.

And then there’s also the issue with the business model. VoWiFi is certainly cool, but given the usually “free” nature of the Internet, VoWiFi proponents may not get much financial benefit from their activities, as compared to traditional cellular providers, who were usually already big telecoms players before even venturing into cellular.

As such, VoWiFi might initially start out to be community-oriented services, running on free public access hotspots and over open-standard VoIP systems or free services like Skype and FWD. However, a community-driven approach might not be as sustainable and scalable as an enterprise solution is. And this is where the big telecom players have a lead.

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