Internet telephony hasn t put phone companies out of business the way it was supposed to. But there s now evidence that Web calling is making it hard for at least international phone companies to continue doing business as usual. A TeleGeography Research survey has found that, for the first time in several decades, the growth rate for total international voice minutes is falling. Volume growth is a crucial factor in international carriers survival strategies.
And TeleGeography analyst Stephan Beckert says the lower rate has a lot to do with Skype Ltd. RELATED ARTICLES: The Skype-Based Call Center: Applications and ExamplesSecurity in Voice Over IP NetworksHacking Skype: 25 Tips to Improve Your Skype ExperienceHosted PBX Checklist TeleGeography knows such things because its surveys differentiate between Skype and VoIP as a whole . The Washington D.C. firm has been measuring cross-border voice traffic since the late 1980s.
Most of the time that has meant simply adding up the number of calls traveling over traditional TDM (time division multiplexed) circuits owned by international carriers. Around the year 2000, though, a new category of calls entered the mix. International VoIP minutes involve phone calls that cross borders over VoIP connections but connect to regular phones at one or both ends of the call.
According to Beckert, lots of carriers send traffic between countries over the Internet without mentioning it to their customers. TeleGeography also counts Skype and Vonage Holdings Corp. calls to or from regular PSTN (public switched telephone network) phone lines as international voice minutes. It excludes, however, Internet-only calls such as those between two Skype users.