Rising broadband penetration is keeping equipment makers for Internet phone service on their toes in light of their aggression participation in the upcoming Taipei telecom show, event organizers said yesterday.
"Along with the popularity of broadband services, we think Internet phone service will catch on quickly," said Enoch Du (杜全昌), secretary-general of Taipei Computer Association (台北市電腦公會), one of three organizers of the 10th Taipei International Telecommunications and Networking Show.
Users of Internet phone service, or Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), need to connect their phones to a broadband line rather than a traditional phone line.
A reduction in rates of 50 percent will provide an advantage for VoIP to replace traditional wire phones, Du said.
As of June, Taiwan had 3.4 million broadband subscribers, which brought the penetration rate to around 43 percent, a surge from 4 percent in the end of last year.
About 150 companies -- including state-run Chunghwa Tele-com Co (中華電信) -- have signed up to show their latest products at 560 booths this year, a 46 percent increase from the 390 booths last year, according to Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA, 外貿協會), another organizer.
The were 108 companies at the show last year, TAITRA said.
The four-day telecom fair opens next Thursday.
"The nearly 40 percent growth is primarily coming from VoIP sector," TAITRA said in a press statement released yesterday.
VoIP equipment makers led by Cisco Systems Inc have already booked 150 booths at this year's fair. Last year they accounted for just 30 of the booths, according to an organizer.
"The technology is mature enough to provide stable voice quality for multinational company staffers to call overseas over Internet, or broadband, at lower rates," said Won Win-long (萬雲龍), a marketing manger at Step Tech Inc (岱昇科技), a VoIP solution provider for corporate users.
In contrast to such optimism, Kagi Chen (陳佳宜), an industry analyst with the Topology Research Institute (拓璞產業研究所), said "there are still several steps to go."
"A major obstacle to the adoption of such service is users can't call friends who subscribe to different operators," Chen said.
That will remain an important issue as long as telecom regulators keep the lid on a series of special numbers starting 070 for telecom operators to share, she said.
Digital United Inc (數位聯合電信) -- or Seednet -- was the first local company to offer free phone service over broadband Internet lines late last year. It aims to boost subscribers to 30,000 by the year-end.
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