(Excerpt from ACMA's Telecommunications Performance Report 2004-2005)

During 2004–05, there was considerable consumer and industry interest in the future role of voice over internet protocol (VoIP) services in the voice telephony market. While VoIP services constituted only a very small number of residential voice telephony services in 2004–05, this is expected to change rapidly in the next few years. VoIP is increasingly being used by corporate organisations to reduce the costs of their telephony services and provide greater service flexibility, although VoIP is understood also to be a relatively small sector of the corporate market.

The allocation of geographic (local) telephone numbers to service providers planning to offer VoIP services was the primary reason for the very large increase in the number of these allocations in 2004–05, with 1.97 million metropolitan and 8.79 million non-metropolitan geographic numbers allocated during the year (see Chapter 11). The demand for geographic numbers was more than 14 times the average annual demand over the last three years.

At public workshops held during 2004–05, the Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts (DCITA), the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission and the ACA jointly canvassed some of the regulatory implications of VoIP—such as ensuring appropriate access to emergency services—in anticipation of VoIP services increasingly entering the voice services market.

As discussed in Chapter 6, the rapid expansion of broadband services in Australia in 2004–05 has established a platform for the mainstream take-up of VoIP services. ACMA will be monitoring developments in VoIP closely during 2005–06 and reporting on associated trends and emerging issues.