A new study by the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) makes worrying reading for mobile and fixed line operators alike.
The research found that users of retail VoIP services had more than doubled in the last year, from 5 million to 11 million at the end of July. But this doesn’t include computer-based services, like Skype, which claims to have 51 million members worldwide.
And Google Talk, launched last week will inevitably boost the market further, even if pundits are disappointed with its features. However, if it works properly, it’s hard to argue that it’s not going to succeed, even if it never catches Skype.
If VoIP starts to tip, which seems pretty inevitable, as it’s hard to argue with "free" or savings of 80% for retail services, it’s going to inevitably impact on operator revenues. The OECD predicts that fixed line operators will fight back by offering more chargeable services, such as domestic and small business wi-fi networks putting more pressure on their mobile cousins.
When a business is faced with a fundamental change like this, it can do one of two things. Hope it’ll go away. Or offer their own version of the service to keep its customers, uncomfortable and suicidal though this may feel. But at least the latter course allows you to retain the customer albeit at lower margins than you enjoyed historically.
So far, most operators seem to be taking the denial route, or maybe they’re just waiting for the right time. I hope hope they don’t leave it too late.
A footnote in the OECD report also has bad news for TV companies. As more and more people start to view TV on the net, this will lead to a decline in audience and thus ad revenues.
"May you live in interesting times" as the Chinese curse allegedly says.
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