In a prediction destined to cause heartburn at mobile carriers around the globe, Gartner says that more than 50 percent of mobile voice traffic will be end-to-end VoIP by 2019. Third-party app-based providers pose a "huge and direct" challenge to the $692.6 billion global voice market.

Gartner predicts that network-based mobile carriers face the "real prospect" of losing a major slice of voice traffic and revenue to new non-infrastructure players that use VoIP. 

However, Gartner also says that conditions for the rapid expansion of mobile VoIP aren't yet right, and it may take anywhere between five to eight years for conditions to become right. (No, it doesn't have to do with Microsoft banning VoIP apps from its mobile store).  

The long pole for mass adoption of mobile VoIP is 4G, says Gartner, and the firm doesn't see that fully happening until 2017. Once that happens, moving to mobile VoIP portals should be fairly rapid because of convenience and cost savings. Gartner thinks 30 percent of mobile voice traffic will be done through third-part mobile portals such as Google, Facebook, MySpace and Yahoo, which will leverage VoIP through WiFi.

Ironically, the biggest competitor to mobile VoIP may be text messaging and email, as people choose to use those mediums to communicate because they are non-intrusive, less emotional and less time-consuming.

For more:
- Read the Gartner summary. Release

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By Kevin Breault, Vice President Sales and Business Development, Dash Carrier Services

In today's marketplace, buying of wholesale services are more often than not, acquired as a 'bundled' offering.  For example, one such bundle could include the DID, E911, UC features, and actual minutes. 

When VoIP first hit the scene, all of the aforementioned services were purchased separately, as the technologies did not exist in an available format to provision all the services from the same vendor.  SIP dramatically changed the landscape and enables service providers to deliver what I referred to earlier as a "bundle". 

The benefit of the bundle is obvious: simplicity of product delivery through a single provider.  Until now, that method has been an effective model driving VoIP growth. But as competition grows increasingly fierce, buying habits change, and new services become more readily available. As such, the pricing model must change in parallel with the changes in the market.

"Because of the ubiquity of VoIP and the Internet, enterprises are able to save money by buying from a larger array of service providers directly rather than through ‘bundling' intermediaries, said Micah Singer, CEO, VoIP Logic.  "Several of the over 100 service providers who use VoIP Logic for Managed Services are beginning to sell ‘wholesale' services directly to the enterprise."

The downside of the bundle is the profit lost before the end-subscriber makes his or her first call.  This margin ranges from as low as 10 percent to as much as 50 percent. For providers to remain competitive, this lost margin must be recouped to ensure continued market penetration. In addition, as all providers make the move to converged IP communications, per minute rates continue to fall, reating more opportunities to recoup costs.

Unbundling the bundle for wholesale services is a clear necessity: better margins, more pricing flexibility, and better positioning from which to offer other high-margin applications.  In addition, service providers will need to place more emphasis on back office applications and accurate billing - an area most have avoided in the past. 

The European Union (EU) is preparing legislation to force carriers to allow VoIP to run on their cellular networks.
EU Telecoms Commissioner Viviane Reding has said that "action" should be taken against carriers that use their market power to block "innovative services".

Deploying HD voice services on both landline and mobile systems would provide carriers with a service differentiator and a product with a price premium people are willing to pay for.
That's the opinion of VoIP industry expert Jeff Pulver, who says HD voice has the potential to reverse the trend of declining landline sales.

International voice traffic continues to rise - despite the availability of an ever-broader range of substitutes for standard telephone calls.
Cross-border telephone traffic grew 14 per cent in 2007 and is estimated to have grown 12 per cent in 2008, to 384 billion minutes, according to data from TeleGeography.

O2 and Orange are reportedly quite unhappy about Nokia's plans to bundle Skype onto its flagship N97 device.  The two mobile carriers may not stock the N97 or any future N-series phone loaded with Skype, so either Skype goes, or the phone goes.

The report from Mobile Today says the fight is around ownership of the customer, as well as the potential lost revenue from calls routed through Skype rather than through the carrier. One operator is quoted as saying "‘This is another example of [Nokia] trying to build an ecosystem that is all about Nokia and reduces the operator to a dumb pipe...Nokia has tried several ways to own the customer over the years and operators have had to say no."

Other UK operators seem to be content to work with Skype, with T-Mobile offering its support for a Skype-loaded N97 and mobile carrier 3 already having a handset with a Skype client. An unnamed source defined Nokia's position and noted that 3 has done well by its Skype-loaded phone.

Mobile carriers are no doubt more than a little nervous at Skype's continued proliferation into what used to be a pristine space to make money before all this fancy data/client stuff appeared to cut into roaming and international calling profits. Not to mention all the high-profile lobbying Skype is doing to promote open networks and network neutrality.

On the other side of the coin, mobile VoIP players have to be unnerved that Skype continues to crunch into their space with a bigger brand and landing deals with Nokia and Sony Ericsson. Carriers and the mobile VoIP firms are likely to be conducting some backroom "The enemy-of-my-enemy" discussions if they can work out terms without cutting each other's throats in the process.

For more:
- MobileToday UK calls it. Post.

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Writing to the FCC chairman, Kevin Martin, he said that if the Commission wanted to live up to its stated goal of making open networks more accessible, it would affirm that this policy covered wireless networks.