VoIP overtakes PSTN in China
Source: voipcentral.org
In a country where 100,000 new users sign for a particular VoIP service (Read Skype) everyday, it is not surprising to announce sidelining of traditional phone services from mainstream. Yes, I am talking about China, which according to ReportLinker report, has enjoyed tremendous VoIP growth recording 109.931 billion minutes upto September 2006. It is 11.8 percent growth year over year.
Although, the call duration of VoIP in China is equal in number to that of PSTN, however the growth VoIP call duration is higher than PSTN. VoIP today accounts 43.16 percent in the long-distance call duration.
The research firm has claimed that the share of VoIP in the long-distance call market will be equal to or even exceed the total long-distance call of PSTN and mobile (GSM and CDMA) in the following two or three years gradually.
The compound annual growth rate of VoIP equipment spending by Chinese businesses will amount to 48% in the next five years. They will spend nearly 4.2 billion Chinese yuan renminbi in 2009.
Meanwhile, China also is suffering from illegal VoIP calls, which have been growing 30% every year from 2003 to 2006. Last year, illegal international call volume was about 500 million minutes. Therefore, the China government needs to take a cautious approach towards VoIP.
