The very mention of the “new” over the top (OTT) VoIP operators
such as Skype and Viber is often enough to send shivers through many African
operators. The impressive growth and billions of international minutes that
these “new” operators experience is seen as having the potential to eat the
lunch, dinner and breakfast of “traditional” operators, not just in Africa but
across the world.
Yet the success of the OTT operators has demonstrated the
international voice remains a healthy and growing market. Through using VoIP,
the OTT operators have managed to uncover new markets and uncover new growth
areas in a market environment where many established commentators thought
growth was history.
Rather than fear this OTT trend, operators should see VoIP
as a huge opportunity to grow their business by retaining and attracting more
high value customers. With their own VoIP service, operators can capture
opportunity with the advantage of already being trusted brands in their home
market. Launching their own VoIP service may be seen as encouraging
cannibalizing their own business. In reality, it is a potential new revenue
source and as Steve Jobs said, “If you don’t cannibalize yourself, someone else
will”. A suite of robust, global VoIP services from a trusted supplier allows
African operators to win against those that threaten their business.
VoIP services do not have to be complicated, time-consuming
and expensive to launch.
A fully hosted VoIP service, such as the IDT Beyond Global
VoIP platform, delivers new revenues quickly and easily. All the technology,
platform and provisioning are taken care of by IDT, so operators can remain
focused on their core business. With IDT Beyond, VoIP services are robust,
scalable and “white labeled” using the brand of the operators. The operator
brand will be on everything the customer sees, including the equipment, portals
and applications.
VoIP services enable residential and small business
customers to use standard telephones and a broadband connection to make and
receive phone calls. Operators have the flexibility to offer calling plans
based paying per minute, “buckets” of minutes or even unlimited calling. These
customized calling plans increase the loyalty and revenue from customers.
Importantly, operators also retain the direct relationship with the customer
and are well placed to up-sell other services to them.
Offering SIP Trunking can uncover the enterprise sector
opportunity, delivering a unified network that saves money without any
significant infrastructure costs.
The increasing opportunity in mobile VoIP can also be
uncovered by working with IDT to develop own brand mobile applications so
customers can make cheaper international calls over WiFi, 3G or traditional
local access.
With a little help from the right partner, VoIP services
transform from a worrying threat to a wonderful opportunity for African
operators. As the world’s largest distributor-based VoIP providers in the world
and one of the world’s biggest international carriers, IDT is the right partner
for African operators.
Jonah Fink
Senior Vice President, IDT Telecom Solutions
Visit IDT at AfricaCom 2013. Come and meet them at stand F11 by registering for your free ticket to AfricaCom Here
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