VoIP expected to replace existing wire telephones Widespread interest in VoIP is expected to ignite when VoIP/IP Telephony World 2005- Communicate on the Net! is held over three days from Dec. 8 to 10, 2005 at COEX, Seoul. This is expected to speed up Korea's replacement of existing general wire telephones. Since Saerom C&T marketed the company's free Internet telephone for the first time in Korea on Jan. 2000, VoIP has come to grow as a differentiated niche market. VoIP is literally a future-model service on which integration services such as voice, data, and screen are possible, while on the other hand, its service is possible with moderate price in comparison with the existing telephone service. As VoIP is emerging as a substitute telephone for the established PSTN telephone, it is growing in popularity around the globe. VoIP users remained at 16 million persons in late 2004, and this is forecasted to increase to approximately 200 million persons by 2008. VoIP market turnover is expected to increase from $1 billion in 2004 to $16 billion by 2008, accounting for 6% of the entire voice communication market. Along with the rapid dissemination of high-speed Internet, the growth of the VoIP market is also accelerating in Korea. Business providers with diverse backgrounds, including wire telephone, highspeed Internet, network facilities as well as IT solution, and cable TV etc., are making inroads into the VoIP market with different strategies and fierce competition among them to dominate the market is anticipated. Through market experience's accumulation and continuous complementing of the existing system based on this, associated business providers should induce VoIP service's activation, experts point out. With this year's VoIP/IP Telephony World 2005 as an impetus, the Korea Telephony Association is planning to enlarge the exhibition's participation scope more next year plus the Association's participation in consecutive VoIP exhibitions overseas.