“Recent research by In-Stat found the following:

• In-Stat projects that by 2013 mobile VoIP applications will generate annual revenues of $35.2 billion.
• While the EMEA region has more mobile VoIP related revenue currently, Asia Pacific will be the largest regional market in revenue terms by 2013.
• Dual-mode handsets (Wi-Fi + Cellular) will be well over 400 million units shipped in 2013.”

Here is the full report – http://www.in-stat.com/press.asp?ID=2747&sku=IN0904428MCM

VoIP over 3G is catching up.

The three other (other than BSNL) major Telco’s in India that at the moment offer PRI to subscribers are mentioned below. To terminate them on to your cisco router , you shall need to know one very important parameter.

The FRAMING

TATA : crc4
RIC: crc4
MTNL: no-crc4

So your config for the E1 controller would look like for a MTNL PRI circuit

isdn switch-type primary-net5
controller E1 2/0
pri-group timeslots 1-31
framing no-crc4
no shut
description : ISDN PRI (XXXXXX)

Apple has apparently updated its iPhone SDK to allow VoIP applications to run over 3G data networks. Previously, VoIP applications were only approved for sale in the App Store if they were limited to Wi-Fi.

The developers of the iCall VoIP application for iPhone issued a press release yesterday that they have the first VoIP over 3G app for the iPhone.

Apple Computer, Inc. has updated the iPhone developer SDK to allow VoIP over cellular networks. iCall is the first and only VoIP application that functions on the iPhone and iPod Touch over cellular 3G networks.

iCall CEO Arlo Gilbert is quoted as saying, “I applaud Apple’s decision to allow iCall to extend its functionality beyond Wi-Fi and onto the 3G networks. This heralds a new era for VoIP applications on mobile platforms, especially for iCall and our free calling model. I hope that now more developers will begin using our VoIP as a platform to integrate VoIP into their applications.”

CNET was also able to get comment from both AT&T and Apple confirming that VoIP applications are now supported on the 3G network.

AT&T said it informed Apple and the Federal Communications Commission of its decision Tuesday afternoon.

“We are very happy that AT&T is now supporting VoIP applications,” Apple spokesperson Natalie Kerris said. “We will be amending our developer agreements to get VoIP apps on the App Store and in customers’ hands as soon as possible.”

VoIP on the iPad?

At yesterday’s announcements Apple reiterated over and over that “virtually” all of the 140,000+ apps in the App Store would work with the iPad. Skype was mentioned by David Pogue in his coverage and I’m fairly certain Apple provided him with more briefing on the iPad than they did for me. While there is no explicit announcement confirming VoIP for the $29 unlimited 3G service, it seems possible that iCall (or Skype) would run unaltered on the iPad and would work over the 3G data plan. This could mean a $30/month unlimited calling plan for the iPad that would work anywhere, not just when in range of a Wi-Fi signal.

VOIP Means the iPad Needs Multitasking

While I was quick to dismiss the early complaints about the lack of multitasking on the iPad, it seems that VoIP calling is a critical application that would require this functionality. On the iPhone, it is really convenient to jump into email and contacts while on a phone call to pull up some information relevant to the conversation. It will be really annoying to be on a VoIP call on your iPad and have to hang up (by quitting the VoIP app) to look something up.

I suspect we will see some VoIP apps with integrated web browsing for the simple reason that conference calls with web slides will work a lot better if you can look at the slides while on the call.

Google Voice?

It is less clear if this change in the terms of the SDK and AT&T’s policies will allow Google to move forward with a native iPhone app. Apple apparently rejected the app because it substantially duplicated existing functionality and the interface could confuse customers. Google Voice is not a VoIP application in that it actually uses your cell phone minutes by redirecting calls to and from your Google Voice number (which might result in free calling using AT&T’s A-List feature). Still, if there are VoIP apps that run on 3G, it seems like the duplication and confusion arguments would be weakened and might convince Apple to approve the Google Voice app. In the mean time, I have found the new Google Voice web app to be a good implementation given the lack of integration that would have been possible with a native app.

Updates on Fring support for 3G

With fring on 3G, users get unrestricted, mobile communication. Now iPhone fring users can call, video call, chat and more for FREE over 3G and wifi!

fring from anywhere from your iPhone. Take fring to beach, the ski slopes, or on the bus and enjoy the same always-on freedom millions of other fringsters on other platforms have enjoyed for years.

http://theappleblog.com/2010/01/26/google-voice-arrives-on-the-iphone-via-the-web/?utm_source=gigaom&utm_medium=need-to-know

This is clearly a partnership made to ensure that Cisco’s  move into the enterprise video conferencing space doesn’t go unchallenged. Gear from this alliance will be designed for providers offering videoconferencing services. Also as part of the partnership, Juniper routers will detect a Polycom video link and allocate the optimal bandwidth for it in real time.

When Cisco said it would buy Tandberg, a Polycom rival, for $3 billion last year, we explained why it had reason to move deeper into the middle market for video conferencing. However, I’m not sure that Juniper and Polycom are an ideal match, mostly because tying the product to the networking gear is a strategy that ultimately follows along with Cisco’s aims. As a smaller rival to Cisco, Juniper can’t win by playing by the same rules as the larger company — it needs to break them.

Cisco is tying its networking expertise to servers, video conferencing gear, consumer equipment and whatever else it thinks it can get away with, because it can guarantee a better quality of service, but also because that gives Cisco the means to keep its margins up. Cisco, may call its servers open, but they are not commoditized the way other servers are because Cisco has integrated this networking component.

By adding in the network layer, Cisco hopes to keep its servers from becoming the commodity that Dell’s, HP’s and IBM’s are. The same goes with things like the Flip camera that Cisco acquired when it bought Pure Digital. Sure it wants to boost bandwidth consumption so it can sell more telco gear, but it also wants to build a high-margin ecosystem around the home tied to its gear, in the manner that Apple has. But creating this end-to-end ecosystem tying the network and the device together isn’t the only way to ensure quality (although it may be the easiest).

Taking this back to the Juniper-Polycom deal, it’s not enough for these guys to shout, “Me too!” and hope that they can win playing Cisco’s game. A far more disruptive decision would be to open up the standards and ecosystem for teleconferencing and make Cisco-Tandberg gear look costly and less relevant. Polycom already delivers a standards-based telepresence products that will work with other non-proprietary gear (Cisco’s Telepresence is proprietary). Of course, by opening up too much Polycom and Juniper are facing an innovator’s dilemma that will almost certainly commoditize their hardware sales.

The breakdown of Indian operators are Bharti Airtel remaining the market leader with 116 million customers from 113.21 million in October. This was followed by Reliance with 90.987 million subscribers, Vodafone Essar with 88.607 million subscribers, BSNL with 60.78 million and Idea with 55.9 million subscribers. Tata Teleservices ended the month with 53.99 million subscribers, while MTNL saw its subscriber base reach 4.81 million. Sistema Shyam saw its subscriber base grew to 2.64 million from 2.29 million in the previous month. The fixed subscriber base declined to 37.16 million from 37.25 million in October. The total broadband subscriber base rose 2.26 percent to 7.57 million from 7.40 million a month.

TeleGeography found that the projected growth of international telephone traffic was almost halved in 2009 — to a mere 8 percent — while Skype’s growth accelerated by 51 percent.

TeleGeography also notes that over the past 25 years, international call volume from telephones has grown at a compounded annual rate of 15 percent. In the past two years, however, international telephone traffic growth has slowed to only 8 percent on an annual basis, growing to an estimated 406 billion minutes in 2009 from 376 billion minutes in 2008.

Skype’s on-net international traffic (between two Skype users) is projected to grow 63 percent in 2009, to 54 billion minutes. In comparison, the Skype-to-Skype traffic grew 51 percent in 2008.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/12/business/12road.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

I read an article from Om Malik on Gogo a couple days back, sounded as if the latency was pretty high, so for now atleast VoIP on the Gogo service is ruled out.

They seem to be a mix of Jajah, truphone etc