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China: VoIP Growth Outstrips PSTN
 TMCnet Contributing Editor
The enormous and lucrative Chinese VoIP  market is calling. According to a report from Thomson ( News - Alert) Dialog NewsEdge, over the past few years, voice over Internet protocol has exceeded the growth rate of voice calling over the Public Switched Telephone Network in China. The Thomson Dialog NewsEdge report cites ReportLinker, a market research engine.
The change in the business attitude for the traditional telecom operators in China came in 2006 when many of them were involved in the construction of next-generation networks and VoIP. Also, there has been an increasing demand for VoIP in China as more business users understand the economical and functional benefits of VoIP. Also contributing factors include the decreases in costs of VoIP equipment and the more ready availability of such equipment in the Chinese market.
The volume of IP calls totaled more than 110 billion minutes in September 2006 accounting for 43% of long-distance calls. Analysts expect the share of VoIP in the long-distance market to exceed the total long-distance PSTN and mobile calls in the next two to three years.
And the competition has just begun. As the Chinese government opens up its territories to foreign operators, many international VoIP players will find the Chinese market irresistible and the competition will only heat up. With a vast number of Chinese small and medium businesses eager to switch to VoIP call systems, it appears now is an excellent time to enter the Chinese VoIP market.
But there is a flip side for this story too. Between 2003 and 2006, illegal VoIP calls registered a growth of 30%, in what amounted to illegal international calls to the tune of about 500 million minutes.
The legal operators and the new players who are all set to start business in China will be aware of this fact. But they will also be aware of the fact that illegal calling network can be defeated by offering extraordinary service and low rates for the calls.
Don’t forget to check out TMCnet’s White Paper Library, which provides a selection of in-depth information on relevant topics affecting the IP Communications industry. The library offers whitepapers, case studies and other documents which are free to registered users.
Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) | X | | A PSTN number is a dialed call which is switched or connected via a CO switching system called a Class 5 End office or in SS7....more |
Internet Protocol (IP) | X | | IP stands for Internet Protocol, a data-networking protocol developed throughout the 1980s. It is the established standard protocol for transmitting and receiving data
in packets over the Internet. I...more |
Voice over IP (VoIP) | X | | A real-time communications system that converts voice into digital packets containing media and signaling data that travel over networks using Internet Protocol....more |
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