Dimension Data division Internet Solutions (IS) has fired a broadside at SA’s three mobile operators, promising cheaper mobile calls for business customers using Wi-Fi.

The converged service provider has launched a mobile voice-over-Internet Protocol (VoIP) solution called VoIS Mobile that it says will reduce the high mobile call costs incurred by companies. It’s even promising free on-campus and on-network calls — calls between VoIS Mobile customers.

“We want to disintermediate the mobile operators,” says IS GM of Wi-Fi and VoIS Mobile Justin Spratt. “That’s our raison d’être.”

Spratt says the mobile operators are “making too much money and we’d like to leave that money in the hands of productive people”.

He says IS is “going up against the dictators of the current landscape” with its new “fixed-to-mobile” convergence strategy. “This is a David and Goliath fight and it’s going to be a long fight and we’re starting that fight today.”

IS has partnered with cellular service provider Nashua Mobile, part of the JSE-listed Reunert group, to bring to the new product to market.

Spratt says IS has signed interconnection agreements with all the major operators. It’s offering off-net mobile calls at R1,40/minute and calls from PABXes to registered VoIS Mobile cellphones at 50c/minute. Metering is done per second from the first second and VoIP calls between registered cellphones are free.

IS, working with an Israeli company, has developed software that automatically routes calls on certain Wi-Fi-enabled Symbian and Android phones over the cheapest available network. So, when someone is in the office, their mobile calls will typically be routed over Wi-Fi and onto IS’s VoIP network.

Spratt says developing the handset software was “painful, treacherous and demoralising” because of the complexity and range of operating systems that have to be supported. Despite the challenges, support for iPhone, Windows Mobile and BlackBerry smartphones is in the works.

“About 70% of phone calls emanate from inside buildings — homes and offices — and these calls could easily be siphoned off the mobile network through Wi-Fi and broadband.”

Spratt says research shows that roughly 68% of mobile calls originate in an office or campus environment. “Even if we address only a portion of that, that’s big money.”

The system will also work in all of IS’s 750 wireless hotspots countrywide, located in places like airports and hotels. Spratt says IS is constantly expanding this network. — Duncan McLeod, TechCentral