Archive for June, 2005
Interesting piece over a ZDNet by Russell Shaw on what the Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling today might mean for the VoIP industry:
Earlier today, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 to uphold Federal Communications Commission rules allowing cable operators to block rival Internet providers such as Earthlink from distributing their branded, high-speed Internet services over cable operators’ broadband networks.
If the practice had been allowed, and rivals were allowed access to these broadband networks, you would have seen more choices, and more price competition for Internet access.
Full Story
Research from Analysys predicts that by 2010, 60% of residential telephony spend will be on mobile and VoIP services, leaving 39% of the market to traditional, circuit-switched services.
Significantly, while Analysis researcher Katrina Bond predicts that 9.6% of voice minutes in 2010 will be made using VoIP services, it will only account for 3.6% of spending on voice communications, owing to the low price versus traditional phone services.
More from vnunet
VoIP is an acronym for Voice Over Internet Protocol (IP).
What does that mean? VoIP is a way of using your high speed Internet connection as a telephone. Rather than using the wires your telephone company has run into your house to make and receive phone calls, a VoIP service provider will provide you with equipment to make those phone calls - in the same way - over your Internet connection.
Why would someone want this? There are two primary benefits of VoIP service. First, it tends to be cheaper than traditional "landline" telephone service, for both domestic and international calling.
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Interesting comments from Om Malik over at his blog on Yahoo!’s plans after its acqusition of Dialpad:
Yahoo, like other IM providers might have been late to the VoIP party, but the company is quickly making up for lost time. Barely a month after launching its own VoIP enabled IM beta product, the company snapped up DialPad, a VoIP company that sells PC2PC and PC2Phone services to consumers. “What we saw in DialPad was quick way to add PC2Phone and inbound calls,” says Joanna Stevens, Yahoo’s VP of Corporate Communications. Yahoo will integrate Dialpad’s services with its new IM product.
Andy Abramson picks up:
Dialpad provides Yahoo immediately with a proven platform that delivers least cost routing, the Dialpad engine that routes international traffic and enables termination plus gives them the billing, OSS and capability to make a Pre-Paid offering that terminates and possibly originates PSTN calling. Clearly this means Yahoo is going after the international audience and is looking to go right after Skype. Since Yahoo is already SIP enabled, something Skype isn’t this also opens the door for more robust features that could even include Video.
Yahoo purchased the six year-old Dialpad.com - a provider of Internet phone services.
Full story from CNET
