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| Recent months have seen general awareness of VoIP increase across all customer segments and VoIP services have penetrated further into the market, driven both by established telecoms service providers substituting existing revenue streams, telecoms challengers looking to drive new revenue streams and software developers looking to establish themselves as VoIP application market leaders. Forecasts from a range of authorities are for rapid adoption of VoIP services, driven by the increasing penetration and speeds of broadband services, however in the main VoIP is still regarded as emergent technology being used largely by early adopters. In the coming year we are likely to see important developments both in the form of emerging regulation and in possible early consolidation amongst niche players. As seems always to be the way with telecoms, the primary driver of customer adoption is potential cost savings, even though other value-added functionality is also attractive. VoIP and broadband are driving the market towards a new model where revenues will be generated by a combination of rental for a 'fat pipe' and charges for applications that run over it - although in time the market might even evolve to that of the IT sector - with broadband rented on a monthly basis and applications paid for as a software licence, even voice. The implications in the coming five or so years for the telecoms industry are fundamental, both for fixed operators and potentially also for mobile players. Success is likely to be predicated on adopting a business model that focuses on one part of the value chain - that could be by exploiting economies of scale by becoming a leading wholesale player, or by focusing on owning the customer relationship across the piece for a specific target customer segment. Not only are there implications for service provider strategies in market terms, there are also implications for their financial strategies - having already seen revenues from fixed line services substituted by mobile operators, a new wave of erosion is likely as VoIP proliferates - rolling out broadband and controlling as much market share as possible will be key to traditional players' prosperity and even if they are successful in achieving this they are likely to see revenues continue to drop from their fixed domestic business as a whole. Finally, there are, as ever with immature markets, a range of potential events that could impact the market ‘from left of field.' These could include the entrance of new players, such as Microsoft or Google, or major security concerns, either through new viruses or at the level of governmental and regulatory interventions. Whatever happens, VoIP is set to change the landscape of the telecoms market around the world. |
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