Last update - 00:00 24/01/2007
The era of free cell phone calls is just around the corner
By Eytan Avriel
MUNICH - One feeling familiar to anyone who owns a cellular telephone is the trepidation with which we open the monthly bill from our cellular provider. Our eyes quickly jump to the last line, which shows how much money we burned chatting on our cell phone. In Israel, the average amount is a few hundred shekels, but anyone who talks a lot or frequently travels abroad knows this figure can easily be in the thousands.
Internet entrepreneurs who attended the DLD (Digital, Life, Design) conference, which closed yesterday in Munich, brought good news with them. A host of new companies are planning to offer a range of technologies that will significantly reduce our cell phone bills, with some services even being free.
The companies' ideas vary, but all are based on the new cell phones' wireless Internet capabilities. A cell phone user will make calls via the Internet, rather than via the relay towers operated by cell phone companies. Some Internet phone service companies have devised business models based on advertising, such that calls will be free on the condition that the user agrees to receive a certain quantity of advertising.
It will only be a matter of time until it becomes clear whether these theoretical models will prove successful.