VoIP (Internet Telephony) News 1999

• "Working with Nortel Networks, the Canadian equipment manufacturer, BT announced [5/18/99] it would roll out its IP network in 12 Spanish cities this year and install 90,000 fiber optic lines with a capacity of 1.5 million customers. Within three years it planned to extend coverage to 27 cities. ... The company said the cost of building an IP network was half that of a traditional circuit-switched network, operating costs were less and network build-out could be achieved more quickly. It said it would invest £600m ($971.5m) in Spain over the next ten years." Tech Web, Racing Toward Net Telephony (Dec. 20, 1999)
• "INTERNET PHONE SERVICE CATCHES ON WITH MILLIONS IN CHINA China Telecom's monopoly is facing competition from IP telephony providers. Millions of customers in China have begun using low-cost IP telephony although the service has only been available for six months. Although the government's control over licensing and pricing is an obstacle to true competition, IP telephony providers have emerged as China Telecom's most formidable rivals. The Yankee Group predicts that over a third of China's international traffic may be routed over the Internet in three years. IP telephony providers will grab one third of China Telecom's business in the next five years if the company's pricing scheme does not change, according to Edward Tian, CEO of China Netcom, which is licensed to provide service. China United Telecommunications, Jitong Communications, and China Telecom are the other companies licensed to offer Internet telephony." (Wall Street Journal 12/21/99) EDUCAUSE
• "'Today infrastructure is only about 10 to 23% of cost. Switching and transmission account for only about 6 percent of total cost, while overhead represents 49 percent, access 34 percent and operations support systems (OSSs) about 11 percent, according to Sidgmore." Sounding Board, May 1999
• Taking the Garbles Out of Internet Phone Calls, April 15, 1999 (on speech testing at Nortel)
• IP Telephony to Top $14 Billion by 2003. "Within four years, the market for IP telephony-related software, hardware, products and services will boom to $14.7 billion, according to "The IP Telephony Report -- Driving the Open Communications Revolution", by Edward R. Jackson, a senior research analyst at Minneapolis-based investment banker Piper Jaffray Inc. (www.piperjaffray.com). ... Eventually, he believes, enhanced services such as click-to-call, Internet call waiting, unified messaging, surf-with-me, collaboration and conferencing will become the dominant driver. ... In 1997, 70 million minutes -- less than .1 percent of all minutes over the public switched telephon network -- went over IP networks. By 2003, however, Jackson predicts that there will be 70 billion minutes, 6.1 percent of all PSTN minutes." (Sounding Board, April 1999, p. 10)