Yesterday, I had written a post on how technology disrupts consumers' use of an existing product or service. And how it often leads to changes in the product mix of companies.
I wanted to discuss on how telecom companies' mix of their revenues would change with VOIP becaming a reality in the near future. For decades they are used to earning revenues from voice services. Imagine if voice services become free! Then, there will be whole set of new services that will drive their revenues, I presume. Monthly charges on internet thro' the same pipe, value-added services like ring tones, wallpapers etc., entertainment content - music downloads, movie downloads, games, education content on a pay-per use basis, SMS...and may be many more.
It will be whole new world out there for telecom companies. It will be no more only about ARPU( as in voice only- Average Revenue Per user), it could ABPU( Average bytes per user!) or ADPU ( Average Downloads per user!) or ASUPU( Average services used per user) or it could be a new metric altogether.
What do you think it will be? Let's discuss.