{"id":2611,"date":"2012-12-17T09:35:08","date_gmt":"2012-12-17T14:35:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/?p=2611"},"modified":"2012-12-17T09:35:08","modified_gmt":"2012-12-17T14:35:08","slug":"bbm-now-does-voice-calls-will-people-care","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2012\/12\/17\/bbm-now-does-voice-calls-will-people-care","title":{"rendered":"BBM now does voice calls – will people care?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m the only one amongst my close friends & colleagues that still use a BlackBerry. I use it primarily for email. During its heyday, it was dead popular for BBM (BlackBerry Messenger), but group messaging apps<\/a> like Whatsapp came along to disrupt it.<\/p>\n

I see that BlackBerry is now finally offering<\/a> free calls over WiFi for BBM users. Its unlikely to work on my aging Bold 9700, but I’m holding out for a BB10 device.<\/p>\n

Is this a first? No, not really.<\/p>\n

In the USA, T-Mobile offered this feature since probably 2007 – see more about UMA<\/a> (Unlicensed Mobile Access). I used to be dead jealous of friends with these kinds of BlackBerries as they could be in Iceland and still call the USA for free over wifi basically.<\/p>\n

Now it comes to everyone on the BlackBerry.<\/p>\n

However, is this still important? We’ve had several generations of FaceTime that transmits both voice & video over WiFi. The latest iOS 6 even allows this to happen over the 3G\/LTE networks, so Apple has just said it is OK to make use of all that bandwidth even when you’re on a mobile connection.<\/p>\n

Is BlackBerry being disruptive with this feature? Far from it. I think many have ditched<\/a> the platform. I am willing to give BB10 a go, but I have no idea if I’ll stick with it for much longer.<\/p>\n

And the connection between FaceTime and BBM? Most BlackBerry users carry an iPhone. Don’t forget to read Mark Suster’s good post<\/a> on this.<\/p>\n

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