India continues struggles for VoIP

For a country that has a huge amount of mobile subscribers, some 600 Million, India is really lagging behind in Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) provisions. VoIP allows users to make cheap calls over the internet by using switched packet data.  
There are currently only 3.5 million VoIP users in India, while the number of subscribers is much lower at 113,000. According to an industry survey by Ovum there are only 32 VoIP Internet Service Providers in India. The main problems have been slow internet access and the lack of a VoIP infrastructure.

India has been trying to regulate VoIP in the country since 2002, but progress has been slow. The Department of Telecom (DoT) in India has been the main barrier to VoIP, keeping restrictions in place about how it is used. Currently only International Long Distance (ILD) calls and IP to IP calls are permitted in India.

However the industry is eagerly waiting to see what the affect of the 3G and 4G wave will be on VoIP in India.

It is estimated that the Indian VoIP consumer market will expand rapidly to reach 6.5 million users by the year 2014.