just FYI, got this on CNN.com
Report: Phone calls via the Net increase
November 8, 2001 Posted: 8:25 a.m. EST (1325 GMT)
By George A. Chidi Jr.
(IDG) -- About 6 percent of international voice call volume travels over
the Internet instead of traditional telephone networks, sidestepping
some of the more expensive aspects of cross-border telecommunication,
according to a report from TeleGeography.
Two things drive the use of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP): the cost to
carriers for sending a call across a border, and the cost to consumers for long
distance cal ls, said Jason Kowal, president of TeleGeography.
In areas of the world with high settlement rates -- charges one carrier passes to
another for accepting a transnational phone call -- carriers themselves can use
the Internet to lower the cost, he said.
"The biggest route (for VoIP) is U.S. to
Mexico," Kowal said, citing the lack of
meaningful competition between Telefonos
de Mexico SA de CV (Telmex) and other
Mexican telecom operators to drive
settlement costs down. International carriers
with a domestic monopoly may see VoIP as
a threat to their revenue streams, by
whittling away at their settlement payments
or long-distance revenue.
Some VoIP wholesalers can take advantage
of the price difference in charges for IP
traffic and voice traffic in a system of
arbitrage -- by selling voice traffic
conversion services to the big U.S carriers,
and then buying IP access at the lower price
charged for IP traffic by the terminating
carrier.
The United States to Mexico route carried
about 12 percent of transnational VoIP
traffic charted by the Washington,
D.C.-based research group. United States to
China accounted for 6.6 percent, with
Russia, Brazil, Poland, and Israel in the top
group of VoIP destinations. Most VoIP calls
are originating in the United States, Kowal
said, but its use is increasing in Britain and
China, he said.
Call quality remains an issue with VoIP use,
Kowal said, but less so in countries with
poor phone quality to start. The difference in
voice quality between a VoIP call to China
and a regular publicly switched telephone
network phone call is less important than
lowering the price of the call, he said.
TeleGeography's study largely tracked business calls, leaving out PC-to-PC
Internet phone calls at the retail level. The addition of SIP (Session Initiation
Protocol) to Microsoft's Windows XP operating system (see "Windows XP
inside & out," link below) may become the basis for a broad expansion of retail
VoIP calls.
SIP permits real-time communication like instant messaging,
videoconferencing, voice calls or application sharing over an Internet Protocol
network. SIP works with any IP-capable device, including newer mobile
phones and personal digital assistants as well as PCs.
SIP may make it more convenient to make long distance calls routinely from a
PC, but broad adoption of the technology at the consumer level will depend on
improvements to call quality and network infrastructure, he said. |
