According to media reports, 'Net Telephony' has been the windfall of the season for hundreds of thousands of Indians who have members of family or friends abroad, with a clutch of operators offering near-unbeatable tariffs for international calls using Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). The players include Satyam, Caltiger, Dishnet and iServ India, offering rates as low as Rs. 5 per minute to the US, Canada, Singapore and the UK, and Rs 8 per minute to Australia and Moscow.
The report notes that the advent of Net telephony is expected to drastically change the existing ratio of outbound-inbound calls. At present, only about a fifth of India's international telephone traffic comprises of outgoing calls, owing to the high cost of using conventional lines. Callers using Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) can now reach any telephone, whether land or mobile, anywhere in the world at an attractive cost.
The report states that India is considered a high potential market for Net telephony since high-cost outbound rates have kept outbound traffic traditionally low. States like Kerala and Punjab, where there are hundreds of thousands of families having near and dear ones working abroad are expected to be ripe markets for Net telephony.
Latest estimates place the number of non-resident Keralites in the Gulf region alone at over a million. For their families back home, VoIP calls now come at a fraction of the existing telephone rates. Net telephony accounts for about 4 per cent of the total telecom market worldwide, and is projected to increase with the spread of cybercafes and mobile telephony at a brisk pace.
- nriol.com report
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