Skype now biggest international telco
VoIP outfit Skype is now handling more international voice minutes than anyone else – the eBay-owned operation is responsible for eight percent of the world’s chat time.
Skype handled 33 billion cross-border minutes during 2008, a jump of 41 per cent against an industry that increased traffic by twelve per cent to 384 billion minutes.
But Skype isn’t giving everything away: 8.4 billion of those minutes were Skype-out, calls made to traditional phone lines,
While it may be the largest supplier of VoIP Skype doesn’t dominate the market: other VoIP providers were responsible for 23 per cent of international minutes, leaving traditional switched-circuit connections handling only 69 per cent of calls – down from 73 per cent during 2007.
VoIP has certainly driven operators to cut prices, meaning that the increase in international calling hasn’t led to any significant increase in revenue, but that’s always been the great thing about VoIP: even people who don’t use it are gaining from the lower prices.
Since September 2009, Skype has added 12 million more users, for a total of 66 million.
The company’s popular software lets people make free calls over the Internet from one PC to another. Skype-to-Skype minutes are growing much faster than SkypeOut and this only makes sense when you consider broadband is spreading and computers are getting much cheaper.
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