A decade ago, call shops were the most convenient way for tourists and immigrants to contact their families. Today however, this has changed, the number of ways getting in touch with their families abroad has increased with the Internet, and currently it is threatening to the survival of the call shops.
IDC projected over 9 billion minutes of voice traffic to travel over worldwide packet networks in 2000, exceeding 135 billion minutes in 2004. Service revenue is projected at 1.6 billion in 2000 and 18.7 billion in 2004.