India on Voip

Many of you might have read in news if ever interested in India Telecom Market that Mtnl has launched voip service in Delhi. Voip service was available before also however was moslty on dialer based platform while this one is sip based that is you do not need a pc for usage. Thus overcoming the major roadblock for usage of voip as pc penetration is quite low in India.

This could be a giant step in free voice calls as in India free local landline calls regime is still non prevalent. Mtnl said it will provide voip ata or adapters on rental basis and also on one time fees of as low as 1000Rs. While it need to seen that these ata are locked or configurable to any other provider still the cost of device is quite reasonable.

This sip based voip call was already being provided by WorldCom, AnyUserIndia and Net4India however all of them are small Isps with subcriber base not worth to mention. Mtnl on other hand has is leader in fixed line and broadband market of Delhi and Mumbai with subsriber base of more than 4 million FixedLinePhone and 5lakh Broadband customers. It clearly has niche in voip market and soon it would be joined by its sister concern Bsnl(service the rest of India except Delhi and Mumbai). Both of them with substantial marketing budget would make Indians aware of voip services which they think is limited to Yahoo/Msn/Skype only.

There are two plans launched currently Plan A (VoIP400) and Plan B (VoIP200) with 800 minutes SIP-SIP Calls free and 400 minutes SIP-SIP Calls free respectively. These plans are limited on number of sip-sip calls which are mostly offered free in global voip market. Also you are limited to voip2voip and international calls only as the current Indian regulation does not allow voip calls to be terminated domestically it need to come via international long distance provider with all the termination charges to be paid thus eroding the voip cost advantage moreover dids or incoming numbers can’t be availed on a voip line. This may be a major drawback for voip penetration however we hope that in future when voip demand picks up this regulation might be relaxed.