Skype is biggest international telco

If we're counting free minutes across the internet

By Bill Ray, 25th March 2009

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VoIP outfit Skype is now handling more international voice minutes than anyone else - the eBay-owned operation is responsible for eight percent of the world's chat time.

Skype handled 33 billion cross-border minutes during 2008, a jump of 41 per cent against an industry that increased traffic by twelve per cent to 384 billion minutes, according to TeleGeography's annual report.

But Skype isn't giving everything away: 8.4 billion of those minutes were Skype-out, calls made to traditional phone lines: so the company has revenue, if not profit.

While it may be the largest supplier of VoIP Skype doesn’t dominate the market: other VoIP providers were responsible for 23 per cent of international minutes, leaving traditional switched-circuit connections handling only 69 per cent of calls - down from 73 per cent during 2007.

VoIP has certainly driven operators to cut prices, meaning that the increase in international calling hasn't led to any significant increase in revenue, but that's always been the great thing about VoIP: even people who don't use it are gaining from the lower prices we're all paying for phone calls.

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Posted Thursday 26th March 2009 14:42 GMT

Anonymous Coward

That's why I moved from BT

BT decided to charge me an extra £4.50 admin fee because I paid by card every month (and on always time) - they weren't happy unless I used DirectDebit.

So I moved to Skype for the majority of calls or use mobile free minutes. My quarterly bill (calls only) has dropped from ~£40 (+£4.50) to (literally) £0, mobile cost unchanged. Despite my initial complaint about the fee, I did try to thank BT afterwards for driving me to switch to Skype but all I found was a complaints section on their site so I sent it there instead, again I still didn't get a response.

I also pay bills slightly later now too to get my £4.50 worth of "admin charge", meaning I save interest on the £4.50 - bless BT for saving me ~£180 a year in call charges!!!