FIXED line operators have to find more ways to cash in on their infrastructure as Skype and Google continue to eat into their revenues with "novel" forms of communication among online communities, according to a report.
According to the report by IT and media advisory firm Analysys, companies such as Skype and Google that provide non-traditional telephony services have the potential to strip away as much as $18.2 billion in revenue from traditional telecom operators.
This amount should be roughly equivalent to 5.4 percent of the global fixed telephony market by 2011. it said.
Skype and Google both offer free PC-to-PC calls, a service that bypasses the public switch telephone network and is now taking away local and international voice call minutes from fixed line operators.
With Skype's free PC-to-PC calling service, for example, a person in the Philippines can talk to a loved one abroad without having to pay overseas call charges.
A user only needs a good enough Internet connection, a headset and microphone, and the downloadable Skype program.
The webcam option allows people from both ends of the line to see each other while talking--something that fixed line telephony cannot offer.
"The usage associated with these services, while predominantly incremental at present, will increasingly substitute for traditional communications services," stated the Analysys report titled "Non-traditional Players in Communications Markets."
Report author Stephen Sale said online communities and portals presented new communication means, what with their being on a "middle ground" between one-to-one and one-to-many interactions.
"The success of many of these services calls into question established ideas of user behavior and suggests alternative means of addressing the communications market," he said.
http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/breakingnews/infotech/view_article.php?article_id=54149
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