eBay, Google, MSN pose threat to more than just plain old telephony

摘要

Loss of telephony revenue is not the main threat to telecoms operators from leading internet companies' recent moves into the voice-over-IP (VoIP) market. The greater danger, say analysts, is that the likes of Google, eBay and MSN will create new environments to draw users away from the PSTN. The three internet companies have each made a major announcement relating to VoIP in the past month: last week eBay acquired Skype for up to $4.1 billion (?3.3 billion) (see box, "Skype revealed"); just a few weeks earlier Microsoft made the smaller acquisition for an undisclosed sum of Teleo, a US VoIP-technology provider; and Google launched its instant-messaging and VoIP service called Google Talk around the same time.