VoIP to Saturate South Africa in 2005

4 January 2005

Voice over IP will be the fastest growing technology application among South African corporations this year, according to research firm World Wide Worx.

A survey conducted by the company indicates that VOIP will develop from the emerging technology it was last year with 78% of the surveyed corporations using it this year, up from 31% last year.

With 100 corporations taking the survey, amounting to more than 10% of JSE-listed corporations, World Wide Worx MD Arthur Goldstuck says the results are a good indication of future VOIP use.

“The next decade is expected to witness a rapid transformation of the global communication system from basic telephony to a multimedia broadband network with voice, data, photos, instant messaging, TV, radio, and collaboration on a seamless interconnected wireline, wireless, mobile and satellite network based on Internet Protocols”, says John Joslin, telecommunications analyst at World Wide Worx.

With deregulation of telecommunications being implemented on 1 February, it will be legal to use VOIP for all calls and not just for calls within an organizations network as the existing law states.

Cost and the notorious problems SA has with bandwidth may hinder these figures. But according to the report, VOIP will significantly enhance the already mature arena of least-cost routing, used by many businesses to route outgoing phone calls via the most cost-effective channel, even if initial set up costs may be high.

Goldstuck does see bandwidth as an obstacle but he says that the report shows a willingness among South African corporations to optimize existing bandwidth.

Another finding was that fixed-line operator Telkom is the second most preferred provider of VOIP, even though it is the most opposed to the idea of VOIP.

However, Joslin says that mobile networks will probably be the biggest beneficiaries of all, but in a more subtle and long-term context.

“The new 3G services are designed to utilize the Internet protocol in both the core networks of the mobile providers as well as in mobile voice communication itself. IP makes for much richer communication, at lower cost,” he adds.