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Future Trends In VoIPNo doubt, future trends in VoIP are based on the fact that its usage is growing at an alarming rate, and as we've discussed through The-VoIP-Network.com, we're almost certain to see this continue. More and more VoIP for business and for the consumer is becoming part of everyday life. This section looks at five of the key trends that we’re likely to see over the next few months. 1. Mobility Mobile phone companies will obviously be resisting the development of technology as much as possible – by being able to use VoIP totally flexibly, the impact on the mobile phone operators’ revenues would be dramatic – high cost calls on their networks now have direct competition from cheap VoIP. However, for the consumer it is a future trend in VoIP that is eagerly awaited. The key to this change will be WiMax technology, which enables consumers and businesses to gain direct access to the Internet via wireless technology over a very wide area. For example, one WiMax station can supply an area up to 70 miles in diameter – which obviously offers significant competition to both mobile operators as well as fixed-line operators who now don’t have the monopoly over local access. So where are we now in terms of WiMax? The technology is there, and kit has already been developed that could roll out a WiMax network. In fact, there are more than 100 concurrent WiMax testings taking place around the world. The main question to consider is where the value is in WiMax for a network operator, and that question itself will impact the future trends in VoIP. In fact as mentioned, both fixed line and mobile network operators have little incentive to roll out these networks. Therefore, it is likely that the main proponents are going to be driven by the consumer, and will be new entrants to the market, or alternative operators hoping to gain advantage over their bigger rivals. However, the market will manage this development, and don’t be surprised to see these future trends in VoIP playing a significant part in the evolution of communications.
Already we are seeing many bundled packages offering lower cost to the consumer for their voice calls. We’re also seeing free PC-PC calls. Now, as the market develops, and more in-country operators build their national backbone networks on IP, the possibilities to offer service to the far end consumer in a flexible market start to increase dramatically. In that instance, local access is no longer such an issue, and there is likely to be a change in interconnect pricing to reflect the new network infrastructure - another of the future trends in VoIP. Therefore, expect a future trend in VoIP to be a reduction in the cost of VoIP service down to very low levels, reflecting the low underlying costs of providing the service.
For example, many large companies are making investments in VoIP solutions that allow them to choose their own Least Cost Routing for their international minutes. Some have such sheer volumes of minutes that their buying power is already strong. This future trend in VoIP will have a dramatic impact on the Carrier Services model, as Service Providers foind themselves struggling to retain voice minutes that they had previously won from these big corporations.
As the cost of hardware continues to fall, this future trend in VoIP is set to continue, as more companies of all sizes find the benefits of VoIP outweighing the costs of changing over.
The question that is asked, not only about the growth of Voice Over IP traffic, but of IP traffic in general, is whether the internet has sufficient capacity to handle the demand into the future, and if not, who will ultimately pay for the expansion of networks that are required? Service Providers are already drastically cutting their expenditure on international capacity expansion in light of cost-cutting and revenue erosion, so a new wave of investment will be required.
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