Report: International Skype Calls Increased 41 Percent in 2008

On the heels of its announcement that businesses using SIP-based IP-PBX (News - Alert) systems soon will be able to place calls with a new service, Skype today is being hailed by a communications market research firm with U.S. headquarters in Washington, D.C. as an emerging platform of choice for international callers.

 

Officials at TeleGeography say that international traffic that uses Skype – a Luxembourg-based company that’s owned by eBay (News - Alert) – is soaring to new heights, with a 41 percent uptick in 2008, to a total of about 33 billion minutes.

 

TeleGeography analyst Stephan Beckert (News - Alert) called the increase “remarkable.”

 

“Only five years after its launch, Skype has emerged as the largest provider of cross-border voice communications in the world,” Beckert said.

 

Here’s how Skype’s share of all international traffic from last year looks in a pie chart from Beckert’s firm:

 

 

The TeleGeography report follows news from Skype that with its so-called “Skype For SIP” product – in beta now –SIP-based PBX owners can place low-cost calls to fixed and mobile phones around the world, and receive Skype calls directly into their PBX system.

 

According to Stefan Oberg, vice president and general manager of Skype for Business, this is a significant move for Skype and for any communication intensive business around the world.

 

“It effectively combines the obvious cost savings and reach of Skype with its large user base, with the call handling functionality, statistics and integration capabilities of traditional office PBX systems, providing great economical savings and increased productivity for the modern business,” Oberg said.

 

Generally speaking, SIP trunking is a service offered by Internet telephony service providers so that businesses can adopt VoIP using their Internet connection. That way, they can communicate with others who rely on the PSTN, since the enterprise IP-PBX is connected to the service provider’s PSTN gateways over the Internet.

 

Officials at Skype say that businesses can now be reached by a community of more than 405 million Skype registered users through click-to-call from their business Web sites.

 

Here’s how it would work: Calls will be received through an existing office system (at no cost to the customer). Or, businesses can use Skype’s low-cost calling rates when placing calls to landlines and mobiles from devices connected to their PBX systems. They also can buy online Skype numbers (available in more than 20 nations) to receive calls from business contacts and customers who are using traditional fixed lines or mobile phones.

 

As TMC’s (News - Alert) Greg Galitzine writes here, Skype’s move was only a matter of time.

 

“The financial benefits are clear, allowing businesses to connect to over 400 million registered Skype users while offering the features and integration capabilities of traditional office PBX systems,” Galitzine writes.

 

According to TeleGeography, not all of Skype’s traffic is a net loss for international carriers.

 

For example, Skype’s paid-for “Skype Out” service, which lets users make calls to standard telephones, generated 8.4 billion minutes of calls in 2008. Skype relies on wholesale carriers, such as iBasis (News - Alert) and Level 3, to connect this traffic to the telephone network, the firm says.