Telecoms NZ and Italia

Telecom NZ now earns less than half their revenue from traditional telephone services. They also view Skype as a threat. No surprises there on either count.  Telecom Italia view things differently and say VoIP providers will only win a small percentage of the pie. But it leaves you wondering how big the pie will be and how long mobile operators can continue to charge over the odds for termination. To its credit Telecom Italia is way ahead of its New Zealand counterpart in respect to broadband take-up so it, at least, can take some comfort from that.  On the other hand telcos that already have flat rate plans, as much as they tried to dittch them in the past (such as Telecom NZ) will come to realise the benefit from that comapred to telcos that have had metered local calls.  That is why VoIP will eventually have a bigger impact on Europe than the USA.