Skype Gaining Steam in Ukraine

By Natalia Kovalchuk
Communications Specialist  Willard

After a slow start, Internet telecommunication-the most famous example being Skype-- is catching on with Ukrainian businesses. There are two major and obvious reasons for this: It saves time and money.

Even considering the advent of the telephone itself, the inventions and development of the automobile, the airplane and even instant copying it is difficult to imagine scientific and technological advances conquering the world this fast. The appearance of the Internet served as a basis for new technologies, without which we would live in a far different, less communicable world.                                   

The slow start a few years ago was due to poor connection quality. Callers like the cheap calls, but felt the IP telephony (digital internet connection) was not worth the hassle of not being able to clearly hear the party on the other end of the communication.

Skype's main advantage is that it doesn't transfer calls via a central server but makes connection using a peer-to-peer method. Simply speaking, Skype - which has been around since 2003--connects users' computers directly without involving an intermediate standby server.

The number of Skype users reached 480.5 million worldwide in the second quarter of 2009.

In Ukraine, according to results of iVOX research, an online market research and opinion polling company, 36.7 per cent of Ukrainian Internet users use Internet telephone communications. In fact, 45.5% of respondents in the 45-59 age range indicated that they use Internet telephony on a regular basis. "Thus, it could be supposed that Skype is actively used for work," Alyona Sidak, iVOX director, says.  

Now Skype can offer not just low priced calls, but a high-quality connection and a wide range of services that can be effectively used in organizing office work. Indeed, it can save a company's money on international calls and additional equipment. It also allows conference calling.

"The conference option is used in our company when colleagues are in different offices and can't gather in one room for discussion," said Anna Savchenko, BMU77 marketing specialist. "If somebody is busy, it is very convenient to include him in the general written chat to give that person the possibility of being acquainted with the conversation's history."

Many international companies can't imagine their work without Skype since it is the best option today to communicate inexpensively and effectively with colleagues from other countries with the help of paid Skype-In and Skype-Out services.

"We actively communicate with our Belgium colleagues on a daily basis efficiently. Using Skype, we can brainstorm on issues. It is difficult to imagine how much we save," Sidak says.

Many companies have already tried Skype with their clients in order to provide more qualified and faster services. One recent example was Privat Bank.

"Since December 2008, Skype has been the primary way we communicate in the bank. We decided to remove all fixed-line phones from our offices," said Alexader Vitiaz, Privat Bank's electronic business department head.  In fact, the bank signed a partners' agreement with Skype.

Privat Bank considers Skype as a platform for building a social network of banker-client relationships.  "Partnership with Skype gives us the possibility to earn on payments processing, attract new clients, and integrate our services with Skype more closely. For example, we have a Skype call-center," Vitiaz explains.

"It is an alternative communication tool for reaching out to the client and getting feedback," Daria Nykyforova, DEOL Partners' brand manager said.

Nykyforova said their team actively uses Skype for the company's Senator Apartments project.

"Service apartments as a product is not well-known in Ukraine, so Skype allows us to answer client's questions and give recommendations in an informal atmosphere," she said.

Moreover, as Sidak emphasizes, it is easy to use and saves time.

For now, the question of telephone security remains open and some countries try to forbid Skype. The program's developers don't pay taxes, thus don't make their input into a country's infrastructure. It also competes against local mobile services.

Skype's website, however, assures consumers that the system is completely safe, has protection from advertising and spy programs and also uses antivirus software.

"I think that using Skype in our country is safer than fixed-line or mobile communication," Vitiaz says.

However, many companies still refrain from using Skype due to a fear that information can be compromised.  Though the specific Skype logs have always been the company's commercial secret, specialists say it is hard to imagine anyone tapping into the peer codified calls.