the data-only phone...

This is something that will never happen (or so an article prompted by the soon-to-be disappearing Google Voice suggests), but I think I'd buy it if it did.

This would be a phone with no separate voice and sms packages. You'd pay for data connection and that'd be it. You'd do calls as VOIP and SMS as pretty much any other kind of messenger service, like Whatsapp, that uses a data connection rather than whatever SMS uses. You might even have just the one world-wide number and you could use it on whatever device presently took your fancy (and had the right apps).

It seems so obvious...

You can use an iPad/iPad Mini (and I'm sure other tablets, I just don't know them) like that now.

The article suggests, I believe, you can do it right now with any Android phone too. Sourcing a service is the issue. For some USAnians who choose Android, Google Voice + Cyanogenmod (for the built-in Voice+ app) has constituted that service. (Or will have done for as long as Google Voice stays open.) By "the data-only phone", it turns out I actually mean, what if the phone companies generally offered such a service.

In ze future, wireless data is going to be a hell of a lot faster and also more widespread. Consider the pCell for instance. Such technologies will open up a big black hole right underneath telco voice and sms services, but in the lead up, in the, say, twenty years it takes to make those things operational and widespread, the telcos will continue to gouge.

What I mean is, I'd actually pay for a reasonable data plan if there were such data-only services. I'd certainly use wifi while at home, and that'd net the telcos nothing, but I'd use their data-plans while out and about, just like I don't right now.


/blue sky

You can use an iPad/iPad Mini  like that now.

 

The emergence of data-only SIM cards: Are voice plans on the decline?

Prepaid data-only SIM cards offer global data connectivity at low prices, undercutting the traditional business model of big telecommunication companies. But consumers win, in the end.


And in China? 

In the outside world there are internet telephony service providers (that appear to this Internet surfer to be US or UK-centric) and there are messaging services that do telephony (Skype, Viber, Tango, Kakao Talk, others). What works? I don't know. Meanwhile...


THE FUTURE IS NOW, FIREWALL>

Why voice is the next big internet wave

Yes, once voice stops being a can into which you talk, and starts being another manageable, interpretable, storable media stream you interact with in complex and useful ways, then (a) privacy and ownership issues galore, but (b) a smartphone will be a smart phone.

Voice should be in the data stream.

my suggestion:
1. get any tablet with 3G
2. buy a sim card with data package only
3. install woxin(沃信）which uses VOIP and also gives you a real phone number on which other people can call you

my suggestion:
1. get any tablet with 3G
2. buy a sim card with data package only
3. install woxin(沃信）which uses VOIP and also gives you a real phone number on which other people can call you

Nice. Thanks for the info.

re: 沃信

This: www.wo-call.com ?

A China Unicom Skype competitor that costs money?

re: 沃信

This: www.wo-call.com ?

A China Unicom Skype competitor that costs money?

yes, it costs money as usual calls. The difference is you can take it anywhere in the world to call Chinese phone numbers with the same price.

and also wherever you are in the world, your Chinese mates can reach you by calling the number. You only need to have a WIFI or 3G connection.

And a flat fee of 10 yuan per month allows unmetered voice and text between users? Calling a mainland phone number will be 0.15 yuan/minute or 0.1 yuan/text. (And you pay your own normal data charges as well.)

Seems like a good deal for, say, a Chinese student going abroad for a few years.