Skype's Zennström: 'No need to regulate VoIP'

One potential threat to the burgeoning voice over IP (VoIP) market is the imposition of regulations and taxes similar to those for standard telephone companies.

But according to Niklas Zennström, CEO of VoIP software maker Skype, there's not much to worry about.

"You only regulate if the market cannot regulate itself," he told silicon.com in an interview this week. "VoIP is not subject to that kind of monopoly situation."

Regulators, he said, are keen to protect customers from monopolies and create a good competitive environment. If anything, VoIP has lead to more new entrants and competition in the telecoms market than before it arrived, so there's no need to regulate it.

As for his company's Skype software, he said: "It's is a software app [used] to communicate just like any other... There's no need to regulate it just like there's no need to regulate email or IM or web browsing."

Skype is often thought of as a competitor to VoIP services such as those from Vonage and AT&T CallVantage, though the offerings are quite different. Skype is software-only and carries voice data exclusively over the internet. Vonage and AT&T's services require the installation of a router alongside a telephone and computer and allow a user to make calls on the telephone.

To Zennström, though, the latter "is not a growth market" but an intermediary service between true VoIP and fixed-line that uses the net only for the final portion of the call.

VoIP applications such as Skype could be a €6.4bn business in Western European by 2008, according to a recent report from consultancy Analysys.

For more about Zennström's vision for Skype, read silicon.com's profile piece.