Aussie VoIP engin + Nokia team up
Telstra, Hutch, Voda & Optus are all trying to combat the increasing problem of shrinking average revenue per user (ARPU) by increasing the data usage of consumers (there was actually a The Oz article this morning on how there’ll be a Free TV Australia-like ‘consumer education’ campaign coming soon).
The core reason for the carriers looking to data services is of course a drop in ARPU from voice-only services - a result of competition leading to things like capped plans etc.
I wonder if there’ll be much more impact on voice $ as a result of partnerships like one announced today: Nokia and engin (he publicly listed VoIP company that also happens to be 33% owned by Seven Network) are to release the first Australian internet mobile phone.
The first model, the Nokia N80 Internet Edition, sounds like its available now. The whole benefit of an ‘internet mobile phone’ as they’re calling it is access to typcial VoIP consumer pricing structures: cheap untimed national landline calls for example, from the mobile.
(First found at Vishal Sharma’s blog, by way of Trevor Cooks delicious page. The full announcement engin made to the ASX is here).
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