Worldwide cable telephony service revenues reached $5.6 billion in 2005, up from $4.5 billion in 2004 and are projected to hit $10 billion by 2009.
According to a recent report from In-Stat, voice over internet protocol (VoIP) is increasingly becoming the technology choice for cable operators, with the technology having a big impact in the US. The high tech market research firm expects US cable telephony households to reach 4.4 million by the end of 2006.
In-Stat also notes that VoIP is increasingly becoming the choice for cable operators, with Michael Paxton, In-Stat analyst explaining: “The key attraction for cable operators is the cost advantage that VoIP offers in comparison with circuit-switched service.”
Paxton continued: “Based on our analysis, it costs between 17% and 25% less to provision a VoIP cable telephony subscriber than a traditional circuit-switched cable telephony subscriber.”
In-Stat projects that total worldwide cable based telephony will reach almost 7 million households by the end of 2006.
According to recent forecasts from Banc of America Securities, cable operators are pushing ahead with their broadband and voice offerings, enabling them to offer customers the increasingly popular “triple-play” service that looks set to enjoy a surge in popularity over the coming years (see Cable Providers Push Triple Play Offerings).
Despite figures suggesting that cable operators are losing subscribers to DSL line adoption, Doug Shapiro from the Banc of America Securities claims that, on a year on year basis, these losses should amount to less than 1%.
This estimate means that cable’s overall customer count should remain around 68 million currently, stabilising for the next four to five years.
VoIP is proving a lucrative technology for cable providers, with Comcast saying it ended 2005 with more than 200,000 VoIP customers, while Cablevision has more than 600,000 digital voice subscribers.
According to Bernstein Research, VoIP net additions are expected to accelerate through to 2007, with a peak of 4.6 million additions over the next year. The International Data Corporation also forecasts strong growth for VoIP, projecting 27 million users to have subscribed by 2009 (see VoIP Gaining In Popularity).
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