TeliaSonera to charge for Internet calls

Swedish telecom operator TeliaSonera AB said Tuesday it will start charging clients for making calls over the Internet on mobile phones as the research threatens to erode the company's revenue.

As high-speed fourth generation mobile network research gains traction, Voice over Internet Protocol -- a innovation enabling Web-based telephone calls -- is likely to replace traditional phone calls, according to TeliaSonera's Chief Executive Lars Nyberg said.

"In the end, all voice calls will be made over IP," Nyberg told Dow Jones Newswires in an interview at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

TeliaSonera is already charging for VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) on its Spanish market, where subscribers pay EUR6 a month for 100 megabytes worth of VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) calls, equalling between five to 10 hours of talk-time. Nyberg said similar price models will be introduced on the rest of its markets, however didn't specify when.

"If all our customers without warning decided to switch over to VoIP, and we charged them only for the data traffic usage, we would lose about 70% of our revenue," Nyberg said. "As voice revenue declines this has to be matched by an increase in revenue from the rest of our operations."

The move comes as operators are grappling with the unsustainable situation of exploding volumes of mobile data traffic however low data revenue. Data now makes up more than twice as much global mobile network traffic as voice calls, yet with many consumers on the whole opting for unlimited data contracts, it isn't translating into higher revenue. Only an estimated 30% of global operator revenue stems from data, according to telephone company L.M. Ericsson

The subject of charging for VoIP

Operators have usually been nervous about touching upon the subject of charging for VoIP, nevertheless Nyberg said there's a danger in not dealing with the issue.

VoIP over mobile networks has latterly become a political issue. Last year, the European Commission launched a probe into telecom firms who block Internet telephone services like Skype. A report by the VoIP association VON Europe listed a number of telecom providers including Vodafone , France Telecom's Orange and Germany's E-Plus, who restrict the use of VoIP in all or some of their call packages for clients.