Parts of the Middle East are known for their somewhat constrictive ways of life that most democracies take for granted, like voting, or women driving. Monarchies can be that way, and those in power tend to keep it as such, not only because of tradition but also because of the financial incentives involved. If you’re making money with a certain way of life, any threat to that income must be addressed.
And that might be why Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP, is being looked at askance in some parts of the world. Allowing people to make calls for free – or a lot less than they would by paying a telecom company – and the government owns the telecom company, well, that’s sure to attract attention.
In a recent feature piece in Arab News, reporter Saad Al-Dosari took a look at the growth of VoIP applications like Skype (News - Alert), WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and others, and compared them to telecom companies’ voice services.
“The margin of profits [that] used to be comfortably guaranteed through the charges of the per-minute voice calls is thinning under the weight of the flat rates of the broadband data bundles usually provided by telecom providers,” he noted.
Al-Dosari cited research by Ovum (News - Alert), which predicted last year that consumer use of VoIP will grow at a compound annual rate of 20 percent between 2012 and 2018 to reach 1.7 trillion minutes. “Translated to monetary value, that would be equal to around $386 billion in lost revenue in that period, with $63 billion in the final year of the forecast,” he said.
The reporter also noted two recent developments that have caught the attention of the powers-that be in the region:
- WhatsApp recently rolled out its VoIP services and it is now active for Android (News - Alert) users. “According to some reports, one of the local companies is already banning the use of the service,” Al-Dosari said.
- Facebook just rolled out its video chat for Messenger, and in the first two days of the service, Messenger users made over one million video calls.
As such, government-run telecom companies are scrambling.
“Wherever telecom companies look, they are losing ground; people are no longer using phones as they used to do, to talk or text. Everything is done on the Internet now. They talk, they text, they share, they generate content and consume it,” he said. “The pace of change on how people are consuming and exchanging data is very fast and even unpredictable, and everyone has to be ready.”