22 September 2005
Telecoms companies are gearing up for a time when most home telephone calls will be made over the internet, new research has said.
According to market analyst Heavy Reading's publication 'The Future of VoIP: A Heavy Reading Service Provider Survey', half of the world's largest telecom carriers believe that more than 50 per cent of their voice traffic would be VoIP by 2007.
VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) technology allows users to make home telephone calls over a broadband internet connection.
The survey includes responses from more than 175 carrier professionals representing more than 130 network operators worldwide, including Britain's BT Group.
"The single biggest reason for deploying VoIP is fear that traffic would otherwise migrate to competitors' networks," said Graham Finnie, Heavy Reading senior analyst and author of the report.
"Not surprisingly, this view is especially true among incumbent telcos [telecoms companies] -- over three-quarters of incumbent respondents saw fear of traffic loss as important or critically important to their VoIP strategy."
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