In an effort to better position its services and products and strengthen its global presence, Voip-Pal announced that it will begin developing a potentially profitable sales channel to India.

Voip-Pal, a broadband VoIP provider of local and long-distance telephone services for next generation devices, first unveiled its Joint Venture Licensing Agreement with two website domains www.RupeeChat.com and www.RupeePhone.com on Aug. 14, 2008.  RupeeChat.com and RupeePhone.com are licensed by Voip-Pal to host its technology on its websites and will operate as an Indian version of PointsPhone.com. Today, with Voip-Pal's current cloud server, softswitch platform and implementing the latest smartphone mobile apps available, Voip-Pal is ready to finish the development of these new sales channels to India, according to company officials.

"India's market potential is huge," said Dennis Chang, president of Voip-Pal, in a statement.  "India is the second largest English speaking country in the world with a potential of almost a billion buyers.  Travelers and Expatriates from India who need to communicate with friends, family and business in India will be our target market.  Development has started with our Indian partners to build a social network site as well as a VoIP calling site to target this market.”

“Although this is a niche market, it represents tremendous revenue potential through a new sales channel for Voip-Pal,” he added. “Through RupeeChat and RupeePhone, we will have an exclusive Indian social and chat network for east and west communication that will rely on Voip-Pal's products and services, thus increasing our revenue potential."

VoIP is still a relatively new to India as prior to 2002 VoIP in any form was banned from India. In April of 2002, the Indian government finally allowed VoIP to enter the country albeit in a limited manner. And, in late 2008, after years of crack down on VoIP and internet telephony, India's telecom regulators began the process of allowing unrestricted internet telephony and VoIP.  

Now, vendors such as Voip-Pal see India as an untapped market and one that is potentially huge. There are an estimated 20 to 25 million Indian immigrants recorded worldwide of which 15 percent live in North America alone.  Indian immigrants generally stay in touch with contacts in their homeland India, and it is this niche market that Voip-Pal will be targeting, according to Voip-Pal.

In other industry news, wholesale VoIP company Alcazar Networks has a whole host of services it can list on its resume including wholesale origination, wholesale termination, local termination, dialer termination and toll free termination; but there is an additional service that the company wants to spread the word about – its CNAM services.

Alcazar Networks, which was founded in 2003, provides a wide range of services and targets companies looking for wholesale origination, wholesale termination, T38 fax compatibility, nationwide e911 (News - Alert), CNAM publishing and lookups, directory listings and API based configurations all from one company.