Skype’s Road to China
Although worldwide VoIP market is booming, and Skype got wooed by millions of users, its road to China is not so bright as in other world, especially its VoIP revenue.
We know there are four kinds of voip services: phone to phone, phone to PC, PC to phone, PC to PC. In China, the phone to phone and phone to PC is clearly defined as the basic telecom services that no cooperates besides those six services providers (China Mobile, China Telecom, China Netcom, China Unicom, China Railcom, China Satellite Com.) can touch.
As to the PC to phone market, there are still legal restrictioins from the specifications of the Ministry of Information Industry (MII). According to the notification no. 413(2005) at July 18, MII expressed their serious attitude on the ban of commercial PC-phone voip services, except the trial at four cities countrywide: two for China Telecom at South China(Shenzhen and ShangRao, Jiangxi Province), while two for China Netcom at North China(Changchun, Jilin Province and Tai’an, Shandong Province). During the service trial by Shenzhen Telecom(a subsidiary company of China Telecom), the price of IP phone is lowered to 0.20RMB/minute(~2.5cents per minute), no matter domestic or international calls.
The joint venture with TOM won’t help to walk around the restriction, unless it pursue another joint-venture with China Telecom or China Netcom. But without clear outlook to commercial benefits, joint ventures are not attractive to those two fixed line carriers at all.
Considering those disadvantages from legal restriction, most revenue of Skype’s SkypeIn and SkypeOut will be originated only from the international calls. So the marketing approaches shown below might be suitable for Skype into China:
- the First, continuously fight for a increasing market share at IM and PC to PC VoIP market, competing against QQ, MSN, YIM, Google Talk, Sina UC, Netease PP and etc. Skype’s competitive advantages come from its voice quality, encryption, ease of use, and etc.
- the Second, cooperation with those smartphone/handset/pda hardware vendors for solutions like USB-plugable PC phones.
Although it’s a grey area, actually, more and more China users have been using Skype for PC to PC and PC to PSTN phone communications. It’s by far cheaper than traditional long distance call, and even cheaper than other VoIP calls. Only the SkypeOut, but also SkypeIn have become very popular in China.
Hi, Juanni, thanks for your comment. I visited vbuzzer.com just now. at the first glance, i can master much of this product/technology. does it use some open standards, e.g SIP, or Jabber, or something? is it based on P2P tech?
Skype using non-standard protocol and it’s not easy to be controlled by network admin. That’s something good or not good. Internet itself can not lost controll. If all software using that way to open back door, take as much as possible of bandwith, internet will be break down. For this case, I believe govenment more concern that the content of people using skype can not be mornitored. Most of other provider did not get banned even it’s not a small one like vbuzzer.
Skype 宣布七家合作伙伴
2006/01/06
Skype公司昨天宣布同七家消费电子产品公司签署协议，共同提供方便用户使用的Skype电话产品。这些公司和产品分别是Creative的无需电脑的Skype电话，D-link的USB口电话适配器，IPEVO Skype无绳电话，柯达的图像共享系统，NETGEAR的一款产品以及松下的Skype无绳电话。Skype公司表示通过和这些设备制造商以及零售商RadioShack的合作，他们将为用户打造全面的Skype电话解决方案。
Hi, Boaz,
thanks for your interests at my blog. generally speaking, there are not restrictions from laws and technology filtering by telco operators for PC to PC voice communications. VoIP over 3G, GRPS, WLAN, WiMax, and etc. is technically feasible and allowed. FYI,
Richard
Dear Richard,
I am trying to explore regulatory problems in implementing VoIP technology over GPRS and UMTS networks.
The ‘saying’ in Europe is that China is an example of a place in which telcom carriers do impose actual restrictions in using VoIP services.
I understand from your article that the regulator in China do restrict PC-to-phone services. Do you know if there are restrictions, denial-of-services or blocking of PC-to-PC services as well?.
Thanks, Boaz
Israel.