Faroe Islands don’t give two hoots about IMS
Faroese Telecom is the incumbent operator of Faroe Islands, a small cluster of 18 islands with population of around 50,000. Its VoIP trial – which envisaged enterprise and residential VoIP offerings - prolonged unnecessarily for over 2 years. The company had thought a thousand flowers would blossom. So far they have not.
The delays caused in IMS enabled miracles has not discouraged Faroese Telecom. The company has found a ‘niche’ market to offer VoIP services. The main economic activity of the islanders is fishing and people remain onboard almost throughout the year to make a living. Monetizing the communications requirements of this segment, Faroese Telecom is offering telephony services to the ships and vessels which operate in the surrounding seas. It has a sister concern that gives these ships the satellite broadband connectivity. Faroese Telecom offers VoIP over these satellite broadband connections.
The satellite has coverage all along the neighboring countries of Norway, Ireland and right up to Iceland and Canada. So people on board can use VoIP to call home besides the necessary business communication. There is also a big ferry which serves as the main sea transport vehicle between Faroese Island and Denmark. On an average it has 1,000 people on board besides the additional 300-400 crew members. They are also provided with VoIP over satellite broadband.
The call volume is no Mickey Mouse stuff. Faroese Telecom handles VoIP traffic in millions of minutes. Revenue from VoIP is in the region of $120-150k per annum which is not bad considering the size of the population it serves. Faroese Telecom is also exploring services for the oil basins which can also be tapped in the same manner. Although, it is not a major oil producing country and most of the sites are in the exploratory stage, the operator is committed to extend the scope of VoIP.
