ACMA's VoIP report: unanswered questions

Stuart Corner
Friday, 21 December 2007 03:52

Opinion and Analysis

Despite customer numbers quoted by Australia's leading specialist retail VoIP providers like Engin and MyNetFone, it could be that, overall their services are not significant. Just a couple of weeks ago iTWire reported the findings of an analysis of Internet traffic   by German Internet traffic management systems provider ipoque which found that Skype accounted for 95 percent of all VoIP traffic in a large part of the World. Ipoque analysed data representing over one million users in Australia, Eastern Europe, Germany, the Middle East and Southern Europe during August and September 2007.

The ACMA notes that VoIP is cheaper than traditional calls and in particular that "Gotalk has recently introduced a monthly VoIP plan [for $14.95] that includes unlimited calls to local, national and mobile phones. As VoIP calls to mobile phones are generally charged at around $0.20 per minute, this plan represents a significant reduction in VoIP pricing."

Too right it does. Which makes the predictions included from Ovum for VoIP and traditional telephony revenues seem a bit nonsensical. Ovum has VoIP accounting for around 20 percent of consumer and SME fixed voice revenues by 2011, but total revenues (circuit switched and VoIP) declining only marginally (about two percent). Yet the ACMA says "VoIP pricing will decline as a result of competition and increased VoIP penetration." To only explanation then must be that we are all going to make many more fixed line calls. Yet the trend is the other way - towards more calls from mobiles.

Talking of mobiles, that is one aspect of VoIP the report does not address: The increase in the number of VoIP calls made from mobiles either via WiFi hotspots of via HSDPA with devices like 3's new Skypephone.

In the UK Freshtel has introduced a VoIP-from-cellphone-via-WiFi service that very usefully displays the caller's cellular number to the called party. Freshtel would like to offer this in Australia. The challenge is regulatory not technical and if the ACMA is going to consider this it might be useful to get some idea of how many people can or are likely to be able to use it.

There are many regulatory issues around VoIP for the ACMA to address in 2008. It's hard to see how this report helps the ACMA in its decision-makin. All it tells us is that VoIP is growing and getting cheaper, and we knew that already.