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IDC Australia Sizes Residential VoIP |
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Written by Adam Gosling
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Tuesday, 28 June 2005 |
IDC sizes the Australian residential VoIP services market at the end of 2004 at a mere 8000 subscribers, however, the industry researcher predicts this could rise to almost half a million by the end of 2009.
In the firm’s latest study, "Australian Residential VoIP Services: Calling for More Bandwidth" the analysts put the blame on the currently low level of residential VoIP take-up squarely on the shoulders of Australia’s low broadband penetration rates.
Going even further, IDC predicts that the popularity of entry-level 256Kbps subscriptions will undermine the usage of residential VoIP.
IDC points out that most residential VoIP providers recommend 512Kbps as the minimum bandwidth for satisfactory VoIP service usage, but that by December 2004, 70 per cent of broadband subscribers in Australia had only 256Kbps speeds.
This situation plays into the hands of broadband providers who do not rely on Telstra’s wholesale access as the former are able to provide sufficient bandwidth to maintain high voice quality.
Susana Vidal, IDC Senior Telecommunications Analyst recommends VoIP service providers should increase the level of stickiness in their offerings by including features such as voicemail delivery to email, time-of-the-day call forwarding and work from home one-touch button.
They should also take advantage of traditional voice offerings, counsels Vidal. Pointing to Telecom Italia as an example, Vidal says offering multiple phone numbers per household, could help decelerate the decline in voice minutes revenue and hold the customer captive.
For those organisations not yet offering VoIP, Vidal says, don’t wait too long to launch. If a telecom provider delays its residential VoIP offering, other players will enjoy the first-to-market advantage, cautions Vidal. Although traditional voice players have the majority of residential voice users, consumers are becoming smarter every time and their loyalties to one provider will decrease, as has happened in the broadband world.
"IDC expects that residential VoIP will not have a major impact on local voice revenues, but it will have an impact on international and national revenue. This is because most residential VoIP users will use VoIP as a secondary phone line, and not as a fixed-line replacement," she said.
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