What is the impending US recession doing to the Voice over Internet Protocol VoIP industry?
It is well known that the current situation in the United States has led to a significant slowdown in the economy. This ominous event is witnessed by: skyrocketing gasoline prices, rising prices of precious metals like gold, the falling US dollar, high unemployment rates, and plummeting home values. All of this leads to lower business-to-business (B2B) and consumer-to-business (C2B) spending. These elements have fueled the media firestorm and terrified many Americans.
On a positive note, VoIP is very inexpensive compared to traditional PSTN phone services, so it’s in a good position to weather a cyclone like a likely looming US recession. More businesses could switch to VoIP to save money. This is especially true due to the high costs of travel due to the increase in the price of fuel. VoIP allows employees to telecommute at low prices. Webex and 1videoconerence, also known as vmukti, are examples of low-cost video conferencing providers. Conferences are a green solution because they allow people to get on planes and cars less frequently, which saves on personal carbon footprint. If some small VoIP termination providers close due to this virtual recession, other companies will be able to increase their share of the Voice over IP market, improving their results. VoIP customers will benefit from reduced prices from the VoIP provider due to excess network capacity. It may be brutal, but the VoIP industry is better established than it was in 2001, and it won’t be eliminated indefinitely.
On the downside of the spectrum, businesses using VoIP can cut it down. VoIP service providers need to be able to handle small amounts of traffic, or they may not get any business. VoIP software providers and equipment manufacturers will see less sales due to reduced business. They will need to find creative new ways to get more business with less demand.
Service delivery platforms provide VoIP service providers with hosted PBX solutions, callback, SIP blocking solutions, policy control, softphones, and other features. Providing open source technology that makes many of its services free and available to everyone is one way that hosted platforms for network and application providers are overcoming the problems that the impending recession is causing. Open source initiatives are growing faster internationally than on US soil due to more aggressive proprietary attitudes in the US and a lazy attitude abroad.
We will have to wait and see how this all plays out, and see how far the bottom of this near recession will go. Despite this, the VoIP industry appears to be in good shape. Perhaps VoIP industry analysts are right because VoIP’s already low costs won’t hurt the VoIP industry as much as they would a maker of luxury goods that is highly vulnerable to a faltering economy like Apple, which makes media players. mp3 player for iPod, iPhones, Apple TV, accessories. and more. Perhaps industry insiders are too confident about how VoIP will hold up in the probable downturn. I think that in this case the coach is right.