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Net4India sees huge potential in voice over broadband
By siliconindia staff writer
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Monday, 19 April 2004, 19:30 IST
NEW DELHI: Despite the slow take off of broadband in the country due to slack speed and absence of applications, IP company Net4India sees a huge potential in another usage of the service -- voice over broadband.
If there is a broadband connection, the cost saving for international long distance telephony out of that is phenomenal, Net4India CEO Jasjit Sawhney said, adding that in the US, there were packages like $40 a month for unlimited calling within the US.
He said the voice over broadband was allowed in the country as long as one had an IP connectivity for international calls. Within India, calls could be made only from one IP device to another but not to cellular phones or to the fixed line phones.
"We have done substantially well in the IP device-to-device calls within India," Sawhney said giving the instance of its customer L&T.
L&T is Net4India's largest customer in terms of locations with 20 sites across the country, which have Net4India's IP devices, he said.
Net4India charges for unlimited fee calling between these devices at a fixed monthly fee of Rs 2000 per annum per location.
The real cost saving comes when PSTN is not used. If there are one million broadband connections with these IP devices in place, for instance, it means the existence of a close user group of one million telephones where calling between each telephones, there is no termination or settlement costs. The only cost is the Internet bandwidth which is being paid anyways for the broadband connection.