Users flay charge for Voice over IP services

Chennai: For many years now, it has become a monthly ritual of sorts for 25-year-old Arun Chandrasekhar to purchase a data pack for his smart phone. By his own account, Arun is not able to stop himself from accessing Whatsapp and Skype on his mobile every few minutes.

“Like it or not, these applications bring people closer to their friends and families. Messenger services are quite useful and will be tough to do away with,” he says. He is among countless others in the country using their mobile phones to access the Internet.

A recent study by GlobalWebIndex (GWI) revealed that in the third quarter of 2014, 83 per cent of Indians were mobile Internet users. It also found that Whatsapp was the most popular messaging service with 52 per cent market share, followed by Facebook messenger (42 per cent) and Skype (37 per cent).  

With the numbers only poised to grow further, the latest move by Airtel, India’s largest mobile operator in terms of subscribers, to charge users for using voice over IP services like Skype and Viber has, understandably, not gone down well with most.

VoIP allows individuals to make long-distance, international calls for no additional fees as it uses an available data connection. Presently, popular calling apps such as Skype, Viber and Line are available as free downloads and users only need an active Internet connection and a device to use them.

Many are of the opinion that this latest step is unwarranted and will greatly affect their daily quota of conversations with loved ones, especially those based abroad.

Pretish Jebakumar, whose elder brother lives in the United States, uses Skype for over 20 hours a week.

“I converse with him and his family on a daily basis. Since, normal international call charges are exorbitant, I find it extremely convenient to use Skype or Viber. If it is going to cost extra, I think the very reason why these apps are popular will become obsolete,” he said.

 He further raised a point about operators adhering to the principle of Net neutrality, which warrants equal treatment of data usage by them and not discriminating against certain content usage or application. “We are paying for the internet, so why is the additional cost imposed upon us?” he asked.