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Future of VoIP Is All VidCon |
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Written by Adam Gosling
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Thursday, 22 February 2007 |
Telecommunications researcher Paul Budde has outlined an interesting perspective on the future of VoIP communications and its all about seeing not speaking.
Budde points out that when you look at Voice over IP form a purely cost
perspective, the technology doesn't really have much going for it. BAs
Budde rightly says, "If they wished to, telcos could reduce their telephone
costs today to below the cost of commercial VoIP services."
"That it will
happen eventually is inevitable, but, since telcos are not rushing to
do so, the VoIP operators have a window of opportunity," says the comms specialist.
But
its video conferencing, and the failure of VoIP service providers and
traditional voice telcos to address the potential of face to face
communications that sets Skype and its peer to peer buddies such as MSN
and perhaps MySpace that will really dictate where we head to next in
the comms business, argues Budde.
It s the adoption of video service that will really sort the wheat from
the chaff in future communicaitons service provider models, argue
Budde. While there have been arguments about who's the
cheapest provider, or whether Skype is competitive with them isn't
really as important according to Budde.
"On a
commercial level the charges from the various VoIP providers look very
much the same, similar to the ‘competition' that is taking place in the
fixed voice and mobile voice markets," writes Budde.
"The
real difference with Skype is that it is by far the largest free VoIP
provider on the Internet and this has made it a global brand. With the
security that this provides it can position itself as the unique
facilitator of web-based videoconferencing," he suggests.
Skype
has a unique advantage because the telcos are being so slow to explore
the potential of video conferencing. The likes of Skype and MSN could
grab a big share of the market before the telcos wake up to what they
are missing.
"Web-based
videoconferencing is presently one of the largest growth markets,"
writes Budde. "Pent-up demand has been building for decades. Services
have been launched in the past, but both the technology and the
economics failed to deliver a compelling product for users. True, the
current Skype videoconferencing service is far from perfect, but it
will do for the time being, and it can only improve over time."
This
is where Budde thinks the real action is, not around lowering fixed or
mobile calling costs, but in building and facilitating the complex and
massive videoconferencing networks that are being built on the
Internet.Imagine the subscription services and the advertising that you
can build around these videoconferencing engines, he asks.
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