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State-owned telecom operator MTNL switched off its internet telephony services a few months back, as applications like Skype have replaced the technology.
“There are other alternatives that have come up like Skype. The demand for voice over intenet protocol or internet telephony (VoIP) has come down. It became expensive for us to keep the service going, so we stopped it,” A K Garg, the chairman and managing director of MTNL, told Business Standard.
The operator which offers services in Mumbai and Delhi, used to offer VoIP to customers who make international calls. The services that they offered mirrored the old telephone network systems, which was easily accepted by many of their wireline customers.
As broadband usage increased, their subscribers preferred to use technologies like Skype which allows video chat. Mobile-based applications like Viber also offers calls over the data, apart from chatting, which have gained traction. Moreso, these applications are free. Though Skype calls to telephone numbers (unlike for accounts) are much cheaper than VoIP charges, say experts.
MTNL said that shutting off VoIP made no difference, as contribution from the service was negligable. “We had only 3,000 customers in Delhi and Mumbai and the whole business was not even at Rs 1 crore per annum,” said Garg. MTNL has 4.5 million wireless susbcribers, 3.5 million wireline subscribers and 1.1 million broadband subscribers.
MTNL is not the only operator to have shut off the service. In the same period, yet another player Zylog Systems too shut them, according to the latest performance indicators report, released by the telecom regulator. Currently, 32 operators offer internet telephony.
Internet telephony has total minutes of usage of 249.5 million for the quarter ending March 2013. The service also registered a negative growth of four% from the previous quarter. “Corporate accounts which used VoIP too have shifted to applications like Skype, unless they are serious security issues or non-disclosure agreements with clients. If you look at it, from the hardware side too, VoIP vendors have come down,” said Anil Patrick, independent technology analyst.
