After many years of mostly ignoring new voice-over-IP services and providers, and hoping they’d go away, major carriers have finally begun to embrace the possibilities of this paradigm-shifting technology. They’ve done so not only by introducing their own VoIP-capable bundles (such as U-Verse, from AT&T (T), and Verizon’s FiOS), but through acquisition – meaning we could see more innovative VoIP providers snapped up in the coming year.
 |
| Now where does this VoIP go? |
“There’s no question that in the long term we see VoIP capabilities being the main communications mode, including for mobile,” Joyce Kim, chief marketing officer at Global IP Solutions – which provides application-platform software to service providers and developers – told VON. “To date, carriers haven’t embraced VoIP capabilities, but that has to change. They can only bury their head in the sand for so long.”
AT&T last month said its U-verse Voice digital home phone service had reached the 1 million subscriber mark, two years after it was introduced. Indeed, the former Ma Bell is now so committed to IP-based services that it has petitioned the Federal Communications Commission to devise a plan to “sunset” the PSTN in an orderly fashion.
Beyond that, though, carriers have found success with an “if you can’t beat ‘em, buy ‘em” approach to adding VoIP services, which are often seen as cannibalizing existing revenues from their core businesses. BT Group (BT) two years ago acquired VoIP provider Ribbit, in one of the first major acquisitions of a VoIP startup by an established carrier. Last month Telefonica (TEF), a major Euro telco, finalized its purchase of U.S. VoIP startup Jajah.
Cable companies are also moving rapidly to build out their VoIP capabilities. Comcast Corp. (CMCSA) – already the leading provider of VoIP in the country, with 7.4 million subscribers – said last week it would acquire wholesale VoIP provider New Global Telecom Inc.
The new openness to IP-based services is one of the markers signaling a “second phase” of development and deployment of VoIP, according to Robert Poe, an analyst-at-large for research outfit Heavy Reading. In the first phase, “VoIP ... have largely emulated traditional phone service,” Poe wrote in a recent report, “Disruptive VoIP Services: What Carriers Need to Know.” “As a result, VoIP’s disruption of the traditional telecom services business has to date been far less dramatic than many expected.”
That is set to change. “The last few years have seen the development of new kinds of VoIP services with great potential to disrupt the telecom market,” Poe concluded. “In this phase, innovators are attempting more deliberately to undermine the technical and commercial models of traditional telephony.”