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Telecom & Wireless

What Does Allowing VoIP Cost AT&T (NYSE:T)

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Published
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There was a reason AT&T (NYSE:T) wanted to keep VoIP applications off of its 3G network, and that reason was almost certainly that the applications will cost the company money.

The big phone firm said Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) will be be allowed to  enable VoIP applications on the iPhone to run on AT&T’s wireless network. Previously, VoIP applications on iPhone were enabled for Wi-Fi connectivity.

The decision probably means that Vonage (NYSE:VG) and the Skype division of eBay (NASDAQ:EBAY) will also attempt to get approval for their VoIP applications.

VoIP products are often free, or cost the consumer very little. Vonage has service that costs  $29.95 for calling both inside and outside the US. That will likely cost AT&T a great deal of money for international calls made from iPhones. The question of whether not VoIP can cut into revenue that AT&T collects from 3G data transfer is open to question.

AT&T fought VoIP applications for a reason. Its wireless operations just got a little less profitable.

Douglas A. McIntyre

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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