BSNL's Voice over Wi-Fi services to challenge WhatsApp

In India, not many apps have been effective in challenging WhatsApp. JioChat, Hike, Viber, WeChat and even Facebook Messenger already exist, and now BSNL has started testing a new Voice over Wi-Fi (VoWiFi) to face the best OTT players in the Indian market.

WhatsApp is giving a tough time to Indian telcos. The messenger platform owned by Facebook has effectively replaced SMSes and even voice calls to a large amount.

Voice over Wi-Fi helps users to make outgoing calls even when the cellular connectivity is bad. The VoWi-Fi feature allows you to connect to a public Wi-Fi hotspot or any Wi-Fi network and then make calls to mobile as well as landlines. Apps like WhatsApp and Telegram says that the difference between VoWi-Fi and the calling services is that VoWi-Fi doesn't need any third party app to be installed. Moreover, in WhatsApp, the recipient on the other side needs to be connected to Wi-Fi to receive the calls. Whereas VoWiFi lets you dial outgoing calls straight away from your phone's dialer app.

BSNL is planning to offer its VoWiFi services in Tier-II and Tier-III cities and other remote areas of the country where the network isn't very great. It plans to slowly move to other big centres later but as of now the target for BSNL is the areas that don't have adequate mobile connectivity.

In the meantime, BSNL will also get the first movers advantage similar to other players like Airtel and Reliance Jio have also started testing VoWi-Fi and could unveil the services soon. The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) had approved voice calls over a Wi-Fi network last year to improve connectivity, particularly in rural areas where the connectivity is poor.

As of now, making voice calls using WhatsApp is free and calls made using VoWi-Fi services also will not cost any extra charges. With VoWi-Fi, users for making phone calls need not be dependent completely on the telcos. Though, there is a slight catch. Users need to have a VoLTE and VoWiFi enabled smartphone to be benefitted of the technology.