Users slow to take advantage of VoIP

Although voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) has been bandied about for years already, it has yet to take off in a big way in Singapore. Apart from being able to make the occasional long-distance phone call over the Internet, business implementation of the technology has been less than spectacular.

According to research by International Data Corp. (IDC) late last year, 60 percent of companies in Singapore are not planning to bundle voice and data on their wide area networks (WANs) while an estimated 33 percent are considering doing so but at a later time.

"The public switch telephone network (PSTN) infrastructure in Singapore is very good which made companies reluctant to use a new technology," said Sandra Ng, vice president for communications and peripherals research, IDC Asia-Pacific. "There is a natural resistance among human beings to move away from what's comfortable."

The benefits, however, of moving towards IP telephony can be substantial. Even a casual survey of service providers reveal that long distance calling services using VoIP technology may have discounts of more than 50 percent off traditional PSTN rates.

In order to stay competitive, most service providers in Singapore are offering long distance dialling services using VoIP. Singapore Telecom (SingTel) and StarHub are touting similar international calling services called V019 and I-Call 018 respectively.

According to Lim Eng, SingTel's vice president of corporate products, VoIP-routed calls constitute about 20 percent of the company's total international voice traffic, and the importance of the technology is only expected to increase.

"IP is rapidly becoming the predominant protocol for communications networks due to its ubiquity and inherent flexibility," said Lim. "VoIP will certainly play a significant part in SingTel's strategy as it will reduce our cost of providing services if the technology improves to a stage when it can replace traditional switching technology."

And with the onset of telephone deregulation last year, even the newer Internet-based startups like Wherever.net and UGotACall are aiming to serve the IP segment of the market. More such offerings are expected to crop up, increasing the volume of IP traffic.

However, a move to VoIP portends more than just making cheap long distance calls.

Most voice calls are made via the PSTN using circuit-switched technology -- or in other words, the plain old telephone lines that we use to talk to each other every day -- while computer information tends to be transmitted over a separately maintained packet data network.

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