Signals Telecom Consulting released the second edition of its "Analysis of VoIP Services: Latin America," which predicts that though regulation and low PC and broadband penetration have slowed VoIP growth in the area, the VoIP services market will surpass $10.2 billion in revenues by 2014. The report, which details VoIP regulation, adoption and projections of VoIP revenues in Latin and South American countries, predicted that Brazil will still be the market leader in 2014, accounting for 38 percent of the area's VoIP revenues.

Signals predicts strong growth for wireless VoIP and estimates that revenues for these services will cross the $1 billion mark in Brazil and Mexico in 2012, and Argentina and Venezuela in 2014. The report also found that VoIP proliferation has led to the establishment of three operator types in the region: facilities-based, non-facilities-based, and hybrid partnerships between the two.

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LG-Nortel has responded to an expected doubling of IP phone penetration in businesses this year by launching a new line of desktop IP Phones.
Geared towards business users and carrier-hosted VoIP services, JD An, vice president, Enterprise Solutions at LG-Nortel, said the IP Phone 8800 series had been designed to meet rising demand for IP phone solutions from enterprises.

As Skype says, so Skype does.  The company has made arrangements to embedded its software on Nokia's newest devices and get a "screen" on the Sony-Ericsson Xperia X1 phone.

Skype's announcements at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain are fulfillment of an objective announced at CES and other venues to have its client pre-loaded and integrated onto handsets to provide better ease-of-use and market penetration. Downloading and working with a client not integrated into a handset is seen as a hurdle to further penetration; if users have to download it and then have to hunt for it on their phones, it is more of a headache. Skype wants seamlessness to the communications experience.

Nokia has agreed to integrate Skype into its devices, starting with the Nokia N-series and the N97 "flagship" device.  The N97 will incorporate Skype in the third quarter of 2009, with Skype as a part of the address book of the phone, enabling presence, IM, and voice calls. Users will be able to see when Skype contacts are online, IM them, launch free Skype-to-Skype voice calls, and use the client to make low-cost Skype-Out calls.

On the other hand, Skype is one of a bunch of new panels added to the Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 phone over the past two weeks. Users can customize the X1 user interface, bringing the apps and content they want to their active desktop.  Skype's panel brings up Skype on the X1 and provides the functionality you'd expect - IM, presence, and calling.

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