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No VOIP yet for Emirates

Alex Kayle
By Alex Kayle, Senior portals journalist
Johannesburg, 08 Feb 2011

No VOIP yet for Emirates

Etisalat and Du have postponed the roll-out of voice-over-Internet protocol (VOIP), despite the grace period given by the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) in the Emirates region, reports Emirates 24/7.

Both telecom operators were supposed to start operations before the end of last year. Officials from both the telecom operators say the TRA has not yet set a policy for the operation of the service, except for determining pricing policies and this delayed the start of the service.

Mohamed Al Ghanim, director general of TRA, refused setting a date for the introduction of VOIP services and adds: "It is a very complicated matter."

Social media to drive VOIP

Social media will drive the mass adoption of mobile VOIP services with user numbers set to reach just less than 139 million by 2014, according to research firm In-Stat, states Strategy Eye.

The report claims that an increasing number of social applications with integrated VOIP capabilities and 4G networks will broaden the options for using such services, which have not yet been widely adopted on smartphones.

In-Stat claims mobile operators will gradually relax their stance on VOIP services, despite the threat they pose to traditional call revenues.

Skype to boost revenue

Armed with a new CEO, Skype is looking to add new products for both its consumer and enterprise businesses in order to boost revenue, says Tech Crunch.

Already, Skype introduced video chat capability to its iPhone application, acquired mobile streaming startup Qik, and released paid group video functionality to its enterprise offerings.

Skype's consumer vice-president, Neil Stevens says: “Video, especially on mobile devices, is going to be a significant area of development for the company. At any given time Skype now has 28 million simultaneous users (which is up from 27 million reported in early January), with 42% of these users engaging in video calls.”

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