But industry players who now offer the service, refusing to speak in such absolute terms, said VoIP will grow but is more likely to complement than overtake home phones.

"I can say this unequivocally, that this new technology is the future.  In a couple of years - I can't say when - it is bound to take over," said Jackson in an interview with the Financial Gleaner.

"You have to understand that as use of the Internet increases and more people and more businesses subscribe to the Internet, eventually it will replace our present system."

Broadband Internet connection

The technology allows telephone calls using a broadband Internet connection instead of a regular (or analog) phone line.  It's up to providers whether to restrict calls to an area within national boundaries or to offer cellphone and international calls.

For now, only only seven local Internet service providers (ISPs) offer VoIP at prices ranging from $1,500 to about $2,000 per month for unlimited calls, based on Financial Gleaner checks, with the majority of the companies located in the capital, Kingston.

There is usually a set up cost for VoIP, with Anbell Telecommuni-cations, for example, charging $2,620 to initiate the service, and a monthly fee of $1,964.22 thereafter.

Anbell was one of the first to offer the service five years ago, and now the OUR is conducting a survey, contracted to Market Research Services, on VoIP cover across Jamaica.

The survey findings should have been delivered about three weeks ago, in July, said Jackson, but were still being collated.

In the meantime, he refuses to even estimate how popular the service is, but is holding to the position that it enjoys heavy subscription, pointing to the low cost as a driver.

Cheaper

"It is a lot cheaper than the present system, and might probably reach a point where the service will be free," Jackson predicts.

Local VoIP providers allow unlimited calls, especially overseas, using high speed Internet access.

Fixed line provider Cable and Wireless Jamaica, in comparison, charges $15.75 per minute to call overseas, while its mobile calls are priced at $17.50.

VoIP converts audio into digital data, transmitted via a phone line.

Roger Richards, senior vice- president for Net Voice and Data Service at C&WJ, the island's largest telecommunications company, while refusing to divulge any figures, says that for the first four months since the fiscal year ending March 2006, subscription to their VOIP service stood at 50 per cent, way above the 80 per cent projection they had for a 12 month period.

The OUR says it will be able to provide an estimate of subscribers once the survey data is in.

Individual companies would not comment on their customer base.

However, if Richards' comments and that of other providers like Anbell is anything to go by, VOIP is expected to cut substantially into revenues from traditional voice over telephony service as the technology proliferates.

But probably more worrying for the traditional telecommunications providers is the fact that already some VoIP providers like GOTEL offer, free of charge, calls to other clients who subscribe to GOTEL.

Other providers are planning to go that route.

However, Hugh Campbell, Chief Executive Officer of Emoquad Internet Services, says that while he sees VoIP playing a more dominant role in the coming future there will always be a place for the present system.

Campbell adds, however, that mobile services might be affected but will likely hold its own because of its advantage of mobility.

Coupled with this is the fact that only 120,000 Jamaican households and businesses have Internet access which, means that it might be sometime before VOIP really takes off.

However, with 500,000 land lines available "there is no reason to believe that this industry will take much time to expand," says Jackson, who predicts more landline customers will eventually opt for VoIP.

But Garfield Bolt, ISP manager at Anbell Telecommunications Limited, sees this as an over-reading of the market, saying it "merely represents a shift" in the industry rather than the death of fixed phones.

"It is kind of like when cars went from using carburettors to being fuel-injected.  It's just a newer and better technology," said Bolt.

There is no reason for anyone to fear that VOIP will eat into the revenues of companies that offer traditional voice telephony ... this is much ado about nothing as VoIP creates demand for other services, especially high speed Internet access, which should compensate for any business that these companies would have lost."

However, the fact that the island's major telecommunications providers have complained that up to 50 per cent of all overseas calls terminating in Jamaica bypass the formal channels, may serve to undermine Bolt's assertion.

The bypass problem was so widespread that executives from, C&WJ, and mobile providers Oceanic Digital/MiPhone and Digicel complained that their profits were being affected.

Some 20-50 per cent of the $524 million worth of calls from the United States alone, were made in 2002 using services like VoIP.

The latest figures have not been tabulated, but the Chief Operation Officer (COO) at C&WJ, Sean Bryan, said it was still a big problem.

"And it will only get worse for those companies, because there is just no stopping the technology," said Jackson.

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