BANGALORE, INDIA: Back in 2002, when India began its journey on voice over Internet protocol (VoIP), its mobile phone subscriber base stood at a mere 10 million. Today, after eight years, wherein  its mobile subscriber base stands at over 600 million, the VoIP user base is still trotting well below a four million mark!

While the mobile industry grew 6000 percentage over a period of eight years, the Indian VoIP industry could not showcase a similar growth, owing to several factors. The reasons vary from low bandwidth, bad Internet user experience over 2G networks, to lack of VoIP infrastructure.

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However, one of the major reasons cited is the skepticism of the Department of Telecom in loosening its grip over the usage of VoIP, thus relegating it, even today, as a niche technology.

VoIP is a transmission technology for delivery of voice communications over IP networks such as  Internet or packet-switched networks.

According to market research firm Ovum, there are approximately 32 ISPs offering VoIP services in India (as of December 2009). It is estimated that there are about 3.5 million Internet VoIP users (who utilize general VoIP services over PC), as of December 2009. However, dedicated VoIP subscriber numbers stand at mere 113,000 for the same period.

Moreover, the total voice traffic going over IP is valued at $700 million, currently. However, not all of this traffic is end-to-end VoIP, as many carriers use IP for backhaul or in the carrier phase also, finds Reve Systems, a mobile VoIP provider.

Over the years, although the Department of Telecom (DoT) had eased its restrictions over VoIP and its usage, it is still very skeptical over its usage in the domestic market. Today, apart from IP to IP calls, only ILD calls are possible over VoIP in India.

3G to boost VoIP usage
A lot is being expected from 3G and 4G technologies, especially in the wireless broadband milieu.

Now, as the third generation technology is slated to be launched later this year, Sanjit Chatterjee, director, Global Marketing and Strategy, Reve Systems, feels that with better data availability on hand-helds, mobile VoIP usage is expected to increase significantly.