[asterisk-biz] How is Skype pulling this off ?

[Mohammed Lambat]

The Skype model has created a lot of stir in the Telecoms market since its
launch and until its demise in to the black hole of Ebay. For one, it has
proved that calls over the Internet work and people are willing to use it;
however, this model has also proved that giving something away for nothing
has no real rewards.

Consumers on the other-hand embrace the model and love the idea of FREE,
this in turn had a negative impact on VoIP especially for medium/large
enterprises that were looking in to VoIP and discovered Skype, and turn
their back on it. Real VoIP is noway near as simple or cheap to deploy as
Skype made out to be and these associated cost as usually passed down to
consumers on a commercial model. VoIP is still a lot cheaper than PSTN
deployment and most opportunities are ready and waiting to be snapped up in
emerging markets. Just to give you an idea, I received a call last week from
a contact within a large international telecom provider, who is looking to
deploy Asterisk in Africa. They are looking for team who can deploy, support
and maintain the infrastructure of I quote; "8 potential installations which
run from Telco's with just 300k subs through to 8.5mil subs" (we, at
Pophongo, are too busy to take this on, however, any interested parties
contact me off list to discuss this). Skype giving away 10K minutes, will
just result in another failed attempt to make a viable telecoms business.

For those of you that have never spoke to me, which is a majority in this
list, I am currently working on a project which will turn this whole
argument on its head. Just to give you all a little clue, have a look at
http://www.pophongo.com, am not going to say a whole lot more, but what I am
going to say is, taking on the Skype model and re-establishing a market
after Skype in the VoIP arena is going to be difficult for anyone, so were
planning something away from all this chaos....watch this space….
Mohammed
Pophongo.com
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