Cable Telephony Subscriber Growth Up, Thanks to VoIP
Source: www.voip-news.com
VoIP technology has given a boon to cable telephony services and subscriber growth, so say the research team at In-Stat (http://www.in-stat.com). Its increasing availability in North America was “directly responsible for an almost two-fold increase in the number of North American subscribers during 2006,” the market research firm says.
“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.”
Additional research found by In-Stat include:
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 $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, 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. According to a US consumer survey, forty-two percent of all US cable telephony subscribers signed up for the service during the past 12 months.
