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A slew of major carriers have entered the consumer retail VoIP arena this year, while challengers like Skype and Vonage continue to rack up numbers. VoIP is taking serious headlines and mindshare. And it's clearly a direct threat to incumbents.
"Almost every service provider I am speaking to is thinking about some sort of transformation," said David Caspari, vice-president of Cisco's Asia-Pacific service provider operations.
"If the incumbents don't develop a product--in this case, VoIP--to cannibalize their own base, then their rivals will come in and attack their base," said Darren Day, Asia-Pacific director of marketing for MCI.
"There's no doubt in the consumer market it's one of the most talked-about subjects," said senior Ovum analyst Mark Main. He estimates the number of worldwide consumer VoIP users represents a "very small penetration" of the total voice market--about 1% to 2%.
But development of consumer VoIP has been very market-specific, Main notes. VoIP has become a major service in Japan, which leads the world with more than 9 million customers, because of the high-cost of IDD calls. Both Yahoo! BB, and NTT Communications now each have more than 4 million VoIP customers, offering calls around the world for just a few cents a minute.
Free Telecom in France is bundling VoIP with multi-channel TV for 30 euros a month--a response to the poor level of choice in the TV market, says Main. By contrast, the UK has low IDD prices, a wide choice of TV channels and only 10,000 or so VoIP customers.
"There's not a lot of money to be made from any kind of telephone service these days," Main said. "It's not a huge money-spinner."
So we are still fairly early in the technology adoption cycle of VoIP, despite the great Leap of the past 12 months. But every carrier has marked the VoIP and NGN transformation onto its roadmap, says Caspari.
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