Voice-over-Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology is the key market enabler for cable telephony services and subscriber growth, according to In-Stat.
The increasing availability of VoIP services in North America was directly responsible for an almost two-fold increase in the number of North American subscribers during 2006, the high-tech market research firm has said.
“In a growing number of markets around the world, cable TV operators consider telephony service to be an integral part of their telecommunications service bundle,” says Mike Paxton, In-Stat analyst.
“This has led to increasing service availability in North America, Europe, and in a few countries in Asia.”
Worldwide cable telephony subscribers increased to over 22 million in 2006, up sharply from 15.8 million in 2005.
Cable telephony service revenues are also growing at a rapid pace and are projected to reach US$10.4 billion in 2007, up from $7.9 billion in 2006. North America will account for two-thirds of the worldwide service revenues in 2007.
In a few countries, reports In-Stat, the number of VoIP-based cable telephony subscribers has already exceeded the number of circuit-switched cable telephony subscribers. One of these countries is the US, where there are over 6.6 million VoIP subscribers and just 2.8 million circuit-switched subscribers.
Cable telephony’s growth spurt in the US market has been a relatively recent phenomenon, says the company. According to a US consumer survey, 42% of all US cable telephony subscribers signed up for the service during the past 12 months.
eMarketer has recently forecast that 46% of US broadband households in 2011 will subscribe to a VoIP service, equating to 41.3 million VoIP subscribers (see US VoIP Numbers To Increase), whilst ABI Research has said that worldwide there could be a subscriber base of over 267 million in 2012 (see VoIP To Reach 267 Million Subscribers Worldwide).
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