There are other apps like Viber, Skype, Line etc that offer similar functionality. But the calling feature in WhatsApp has potential to be a game-changer. It is also likely to bring down your phone bill significantly, whether telecom operators like it or not. But the question is, how cheap these WhatsApp calls are going to be? Of course, a lot will depend on the network you are using. For example a Wi-Fi that has unlimited internet bandwidth or for which you are not paying the calls are going to be virtually free. But if you are using cellular data connection, it is going to cost you some money, which again depends on the data charges that your operator is asking for.
But just to give you an idea of what is going to be the cost of WhatsApp calls, we used the feature with Airtel 3G in Delhi. Here is what we found.
We made three calls -- one ISD, one STD, and one local. Of course, with internet calls it doesn't matter where you are connecting to. All calls -- local, STD, ISD -- are same. We spoke for 15 minutes and for those 15 minutes the WhatsApp on our phone consumed around 12MB data.
This means:
-- If you are paying regular charges for data on a prepaid Airtel connection, 15 minutes of WhatsApp calls will cost you: Around Rs.50.
This is based on the standard data charges -- 4 paisa per 10KB -- from Airtel that are exorbitantly high. This means with these charges you pay over Rs.4 for 1MB and that translates to nearly Rs.50 for 12MB data.
However, these are the data charges that most people don't pay. Instead, they subscribe to a data plan.
-- So if you are using a data plan, to do a rough calculation we assume you are using Airtel's 1GB per month plan that costs Rs.250, for 15 minutes of WhatsApp calls you will pay: Less than Rs.3.
With the 1GB plan you are paying less than 25 paisa for 1MB of data that you consume. This means for 4MB you pay little less than Rs.1 and for 12MB, the cost is going to be less than Rs.3.
This means even for local calls, if you use WhatsApp calling feature it will save you money. As far as ISD and STD are concerned, well unless the calling feature is implemented by WhatsApp team really badly, there will not be any financial incentive for you to use the cellular service to calls
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