March 18, 2007	Sunday	Safar 28, 1428

KARACHI, March 17: A survey by Oracle and the Economist Intelligence Unit reveal that over 80 per cent of communication industry executives believe that voice calls will no longer make-up the primary revenue source for communications carriers within six years.

Furthermore, over half of the senior executives questioned believe this will happen within the next four years, emphasising the need for operators to immediately identify and develop new revenue streams to avert steep declines in their business.

Survey results show that world-wide, executives believe that new on-line Voice over IP (VoIP) services, such as Skype, are the greatest threat to the fixed line revenues with 68 per cent of respondents identifying VoIP operators as the primary cause of declining revenues.

Additional results include 72 per cent of executives believe that introducing new services is the most effective strategy to counter falling voice revenue, much more so than pricing changes or marketing initiatives.

Around 65 per cent of respondents comment on bundled triple-play offerings as important or critical, emphasising the importance of the overall service packaging within the communications industry. Some 51 per cent of executives say mergers and acquisitions with mobile operators are strategies they are most likely to pursue in the next two years.

Executives in every region cited operational cost efficiency as the main obstacle in developing new revenue streams. Respondents acknowledged that service providers must act now to upgrade their core networks, streamline their organisational structures and business processes and must provide greater functionality and more compelling user experiences, such as converged instant messaging, in-call-content sharing and push-to-talk over cellular.

Doing this is vital if they are to compete effectively with smaller, highly mobile start-ups leveraging disruptive IP-based technologies and platforms.