4 September 2007
Consumers in the UK have been slow to embrace phone services offering free calls over the internet, Ofcom has found.
According to the communications regulator, web-based phone services such as those offered by Skype, Tesco, Vonage and BT are currently only being used by a small proportion of the population.
Only 17% of broadband users said they used the service, otherwise known as Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) at least once. Of these, just 14% used the service on a daily basis.Despite this, the communications watchdog estimates around 2.4 million households in the UK have now used a VoIP service, and predicts that this figure will grow in the near future.
VoIP converts voice sounds into data and sends this via the internet like an email. It was launched in 2003 by Skype with claims that it would prove more popular than land-line phone calls.
Ian Watt, analyst at Enders Analysis, the telecoms and media research group, commented that VoIP may have been slow to catch on because the UK telecommunications market was very competitive, “It has been difficult for VoIP players to make headway in the UK because of existing competition,” Mr Watt said.
Some consumers have also been deterred from the services by reports of poor-quality calls or having to use a specialised headset with their computer to talk.
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