Skype becomes world's largest international long distance voice provider
The service saw significant international traffic growth last year, reaching roughly 8% of the world's international telephone market.
TeleGeography says that Skype's cross-border online voice communication traffic grew 41% in 2008, outpacing the rest of the world of international voice communication (including traditional long-distance phone providers), which grew 12% as a whole.
The site concludes that Skype has become the world's largest single provider of voice communication services across international borders, besting old-time long distance providers. You can imagine why; you can call friends and family all around the world at no cost whatsoever. There's no monthly or per-minute fee if you're calling another Skype user.
You can also call land line and cell phone numbers, but that does cost money — not much, though.
Some folks are predicting that land lines will be completely replaced by Skype-like voice over IP (VoIP) services in the near future. And with cell phone data plans getting cheaper, you never know; mobile calls could go that way too, eventually. It might be a while, though.
This story around the web:
- Trusted sources:
Skype’s share of the international… [telegeography.com]
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Techmeme: Skype, Now the Largest… [techmeme.com]
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Skype, Now the Largest Long-distance Phone… [gigaom.com]
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Skype Sees Huge International Growth -… [DSLreports]
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