26 January 2006
SINCE the liberalisation almost a year ago of voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP) technology in SA, it accounts for only 0.1 % of total fixed-line voice revenues.This is according to Brian Nielson, director of BMI-TechKnowledge, who says the company's mid-year research indicated SA would reach about R30 million in VOIP revenues by the beginning of 2006."Initial adoption has been subdued -VOIP still provides no truly serious alternative to the public switched telephone network as an all-round voice service for all calling modes and routes," Nielson says. He believes that since Telkom rebalanced its tariffs, the biggest cost component for most small and medium enterprises is local calls, an area where VOIP does not offer any price advantages.Industry players have a different view. "Most of our customers expressed a lot of interest in VOIP technology, especially the customers that had outsourced their networks to us - we were pleasantly surprised at the speed of the take-up," says Ermano Quartero, director of Internet Solutions.
Andy Brauer, CTO of Business Connexion, remains optimistic about VOIP as it enters its second year, saying an increasingly competitive local telecoms service provider market should drive dowh the costs of adoption. INielson argues that for VOIP adoption to grow significantly, greater competition in the area of long distance data networks is required, or alternatively we must see "a rigidly implemented wholesale regime designed to favour competitive service providers operating on top of Telkom's physical infrastructure".
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