‘Anything’ over IP

The phone of the future. XoIP or Anything over IP is what product vendors, solution providers and service providers associated with the IP business across the globe chant. While it may still take some time before XoIP becomes a reality in the strict sense, as of today, IP or for that matter IP telephony does offer tens of new service opportunities for service providers. Industry observers are adamant that these new services, often referred to as value-added services or enhanced IP telephony applications, would be the main source of revenue in the face of voice losing its prominence as a key application on IP telephony networks. There would be greater value-added service opportunities for service providers in markets where prices for international traffic are already low.

IP Telephony Value-added Services

Unified Messaging: Service providers can offer end customers a single, convenient mailbox that contains their e-mail, voice mail and fax messages. Users can access their mailboxes from anywhere in the world using their preferred devices (PC, phone, PDA, fax).
Fax over IP: Service providers can offer domestic and international fax services at significant savings and with additional features, enhanced security and personalization. The average Fortune 500 firm spends $10-15 million per year on fax transmission. VoIP sets the stage for other enhanced fax services such as fax broadcast, fax-on-demand, desktop faxing and fax to e-mail inboxes that allow users to access their faxes via e-mail from any location.
Web-based Call Centers: Businesses that operate e-commerce web sites can allow end customers to have live phone conversations with customer service or sales representatives while viewing merchandise or services online.
Internet Call Waiting: With an IP network, end customers can benefit from a single line that enables access to voice calls while simultaneously using a dial-up Internet connection.
H.450 Business Services: VoIP supports a full suite of enhanced voice services such as call waiting, call forwarding, call transfer, caller ID and more.
Managed Multimedia Services: Service providers can leverage their IP networks to deliver voice, video and data from a single platform. This can enable significant operations savings, while simplifying management and billing.
Telemetry: Moving even further from traditional voice telephony is the emerging field of telemetry – the monitoring and reporting of anything, anywhere. Audio-enabled devices can deliver sound levels and transmit images from industrial installations, day care centers or babies’ cribs.

When it comes to plain voice telephony too, service providers have different marketing approaches and can offer retail and wholesale phone to phone services. These services could form the mainstay of the IP telephony business in countries where prices for international traffic are high. In such markets, the main opportunity for IP telephony would be for price arbitrage of simple voice transmission. ITU believes that in markets where international call costs are going down for both retail (consumer) and wholesale (settlement), IP telephony traffic may already be playing a role in promoting price competition. This is something which has happened in Thailand and Hungary.

Retail Phone to Phone Voice Services

Discount International Services via Access Numbers
Like other alternative or “dial around” long distance and international services, Phone to Phone Internet telephony and VoIP services require the user to dial a local access number to get a “second dial tone.” After dialing the gateway server of an IPTSP, the user inputs an access code and then the destination phone number. Examples include Czech Telecom’s “Xcall” service 3 and CLEAR’s “CLEAR 0505” service. Panasonic offers an “Internet phone”, with a button by which the user can “select” (speed-dial) an IPTSP instead of his regular long distance or international provider.

Preselected Long Distance and International Mobile
The most common implementation of Internet telephony and VoIP as a preselected route for outgoing, long distance and international calls is on mobile networks. Indeed, a good deal of pioneering use of IP telephony technology was done by mobile operators, such as the Czech operator Radiomobil, which routes its international calls through a Global One gateway to its partner Deutsche Telekom’s global VoIP network.

Calling Cards
In practice most retail Phone to Phone Internet telephony and VoIP services are marketed through pre-paid calling cards. Just as in the above scenario, the user dials the local PSTN access number of an IPTSP, is prompted to enter an account code and then gains a second dial tone to dial the desired telephone number. Services of this type are offered by independent IPTSPs all over the world, often without any indication to the user that the service is provided with Internet telephony or VoIP.

Freephone Access
Specialized services such as ITXC’s “Borderless800” give callers around the world access to toll-free (freephone) numbers in the US, which would otherwise be unavailable to them.

Source: ITU

Ravi Shekhar Pandey