Even if you don’t use it, you have to admit that WhatsApp managed to take full advantage of all the benefits provided by the advent of exchanging data through our phones. In fatc, WhatsApp is now the first messaging system, having replaced the use of SMS after over a decade of unchallenged rule. Being able to send images, photos, videos, almost for free against, marked the turning point in the way of communication between people.
It seems that now we are even forgetting Skype. Together with WhatsApp a lot of other apps have seen the light, but none (until now) with the same success. Even Google, with Hangout, wasn’t able to depose WhatsApp from the top. Facebook, on the other hand, was far-sighted, and decided to buy it.
Now, as you probably know, all Android users can make their phone calls via WhatsApp. So not just chats, but real phone calls. The App, to enable this feature, should do the upgrade automatically, if not, you can always manually request the upgrade to version 2.12.19, which will also enable calls. This feature will soon be a reality also on iOS. But how much does it cost?
Now, we usually say that millions of people will be able to make their calls “for free“. To chat with WhatsApp you don’t have to pay as you had to to send SMS or MMS. You pay only for the internet traffic. And for your calls it will be the same thing, because they are Voip calls. In fact, calling via WhatsApp, you will not consume minutes of telephone traffic but only your Internet traffic. There may be problems if you don’t have a good connection, in fact in that case the quality of your calls could be poor.
But how much of your internet traffic is consumed using WhatsApp for a call? If you use a WiFi, you will not consume a penny of the internet traffic linked to the smartphone. But, instead, let’s see how much traffic we use to make our calls if we are connected to the mobile cellular network. For every minute of conversation, WhatsApp uses about 540KB. So, for a phone call of 10 minutes about 5.4MB and for a call of an hour about 32MB. So it is not that expensive.
Other apps already offered Voip phone calls, but given the success of WhatsApp we are sure that now phone calls via the internet will become a habit.