RE Skype’s future, I had put up a post last week suggesting a telco acquisition would be the second best option (the best option being a spinoff) for Skype. A lot of you fine gentlemen do not agree with my suggestion. So let me highlight one more point today.
Skype can potentially save a telco $3 billion. Here is how: The proportion of IP-to-IP calls is increasing. It is directly proportional to the penetration of VoIP in a country. So if France has 25% VoIP penetration, expect 25% of VoIP traffic in France to be IP-to-IP. However even for these on-net calls, telcos use licensed call servers (apart from a few daring telcos who use open source platforms … I will be writing about those telcos next month). All their VoIP calls make use of a call agent to seek routing information and a feature server to enable features such as Caller ID etc. It is a client-server setup. Skype on the other hand is a peer-to-peer set up. There are no core network servers involved.
If a peer to peer capability could somehow be integrated into the home gateway units that would save telcos a lot of capex on VoIP infrastructure. IP-to-IP calls could be set up and transported peer-to-peer requiring no call servers. As an example, BT in the UK supplies a Home Hub that includes a broadband modem, wifi port, ATA, and a DECT type broadband phone – all in one. If instead the hub had a peer to peer intelligent agent like Skype the IP-to-IP calls can go peer to peer. Even for the IP-to-PSTN calls, the agent on the phone/hub can liaise directly with the breakout media gateway. Again no call servers involved.
With the Skype acquisition, not only does a telco get a field proven intelligent peer to peer client for its home gateway, its customers get instant access to 300 million Skype users via their broadband phone. A call server license which includes both call control element as well as a feature server license costs an average $10 per subscriber these days. With the imminent increase in IP-to-IP calls, a telco with a global ambition looking to serve hundreds of millions of VoIP customers could potentially save billions of dollars in capex. Skype has proven its peer-to-peer architecture and scaled up to the 300 million subscriber figure. If it had been a telco it would have saved itself at least $3 billion in capex.
To be Continued ….