International VoIP revenue to reach $2.1bn

Voice over IP (VoIP) revenues are expected to grow by a huge 40 per cent in 2017 to reach $2.1 billion (£1.6 billion), according to new research published by wholesale operator BICS.

The recently published BICS report has revealed that VoIP will account for 15 per cent of the total wholesale voice revenue around the world this year, an increase of 12 per cent compared to 2016.

Based on data sourced from across the industry, the research analysed trends across telecoms to find that the volume of VoIP traffic is likely to grow by up to 22 per cent in 2017, accounting for 61 billion minutes of voice time. However, BICS also found that the total volume of international voice traffic is predicted to fall despite increase VoIP demand. According to the report, this will mark the first ever drop and will bring the total to below 423 billion minutes.

Commenting on the results of the study, BICS CEO Daniel Kurgan released a statement suggesting that the fall in voice traffic was likely to be a result of failing traditional business models. He added: "Without adapting to change and adopting fresh approaches, telecoms' old guard will not succeed in the face of new competition."

Mr Kurgan highlighted that many companies are now turning to virtual public branch exchanges as an alternative, allowing them to make the most of cloud-based technology for both incoming and outgoing calls.

He continued: "This has created an important revenue source for wholesale carriers, which can now deliver full cloud based communications services to the enterprise market."

As a result, the report concluded that cloud computing services are now under more pressure than every to ensure their cloud-based services are able to boost VoIP traffic and offset to fall in traditional voice traffic.