Last week, I wrote about the importance of VoWiFi as an extension to the VoLTE strategy.  When you look at the chart in this blog from the February 2016 Cisco VNI, and you see the explosion of VoWiFi, it may be tempting to say “wow, who needs VoLTE?” But remember that many of those VoWifi minutes will be generated  because it will be a part of the whole service provider VoLTE strategy, utilizing the phone number to take the call, and minimizing the minutes.

But VoWiFi is not simply an expansion of VoLTE.  While some of those minutes in the chart above will be coming from VoLTE, some will be coming from another phone number source: “roaming.”  Land line service providers or MVNOs can expand their footprint to allow roaming wherever there is a WiFi hotspot.

This enables greater and very interesting competition coming up.  VoWiFi is in a position to play a large role in the future of the service provider.