Growth in international call traffic has slumped while international traffic routed via Skype, the largest provider of internet-based voice communications, continues to accelerate, data showed.
International phone traffic grew an estimated 4 percent in 2010 to 41,300 crore minutes, down from 5 percent growth in 2009, which is a far cry from the 15 percent average growth rate achieved during the previous two decades, according to TeleGeography.
The company, which specialises in delivering global market intelligence to the information technology and telecomm industries, said the deep recession of 2007-2009 has played a major part in the decline, affecting business demand for international communications and many consumers’ ability to pay for international telephone calls.
Meanwhile, internet-based voice services, like Skype, account for another, longer-term challenge to international carriers. Cross-border traffic routed by Skype is projected to grow by an astonishing 4,500 crore minutes in 2010 — more than twice the volume added by all of the world’s phone companies, combined.
Skype is a software application that allows users to make voice calls over the internet. Calls to other users within the Skype service are free, while calls to both traditional landline telephones and mobile phones can be made for a fee using a debit-based user account system.
Headquartered in Luxembourg, Skype has also become popular for its additional features that include instant messaging, file transfer and video conferencing.
“Demand for international communications remains strong,” said TeleGeography analyst Stephan Beckert. “But ever more people are discovering that they can communicate without the services of a telco.”
TeleGeography, a division of US-based PriMetrica, has published its namesake annual report continually since 1989, providing the most comprehensive source of data and analysis of the international long-distance market.
It offers individual and enterprise subscriptions to online databases and reports on subjects ranging from wireless carrier competition to global Internet backbone traffic.
