From the trenches: Time for wake-up call

OPINION: After at least two years of toing-and-froing from a throng of vendors pushing their own proprietary VoIP technology, we are now most certainly on the cusp of market acceptance.

Not only are more open standards being delivered around this technology, ‘unique’ applications that make it compelling for the user to adopt VoIP are rearing their heads and it is the consumer market that will drive VoIP growth.

The two most notable in recent weeks are being delivered around the Skype platform. I was impressed to learn that Linksys teamed with Skype to market a cordless phone that lets users make free Skype calls while they roam around their home. I want one!

But alas! Someone has taken this concept one step further. Norwegian IT supplier IPdrum has launched Mobile Skype Cable -- a cable and related software connects Skype to a mobile telephone allowing users to make free worldwide calls. Users can turn an old mobile handset into a wireless gateway. For the record, the product is being distributed in Australia through Integrated Wireless.

Now if this doesn’t get consumers interested in VoIP, I don’t know what will.

Robert Beck, from integrator CallTime Solutions, said earlier this month that consumer operators such as Skype and engin were driving market awareness of VoIP, reaffirming what others had said previously.

My question is: where does this leave the telecommunications providers? IPdrum would tell you it’s a handy addition to their existing services.

Oystein H Kvarme, COO at IPdrum, who demonstrated this product to me, is adamant that smaller service providers could use this particular service as a marketing tool to flog free international calls.

And Daryl Chambers from Integrated Wireless said dealers could make margins of between 20 percent and 30 percent with the product.

Ultimately products such as these are going to drive VoIP acceptance in this country.

But in the end, what role the channel plays in the VoIP consumer market and even at the enterprise end of the town (there seem to be only a handful of resellers selling VoIP solutions) is yet to be decided. 

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