Residential VoIP
Residential VoIP is coming on
strong as milions are staying home and saving big. Residential
VoIP subscribers are expected to jump from 3 million
today to 27 million by 2009. Residential VoIP spending
is forecast to increase 64-percent per year over the
next 5 years. Telecom consultancy Atlantic-ACM estimates
that home VoIP use will reach $20.4 billion in revenue
within the next 5 years.
Until this year, residential
VoIP has been in the early adopter stage of development.
That is expected to change by the end of 2007. At this
point, residential VoIP will be moving fully into the
mainstream and will not be looking back. With companies
like Vonage, Cablevision and Time Warner leading the
way (in 1st place, 2nd place and 3rd place order), the
residential VoIP market is on the verge of becoming
a buzzword in the home as well as the workplace.
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One
of the biggest reasons that residential VoIP will
be taking off in 2007 is that explosion of broadband
use into the households. Approximately 42.3 million
homes are expected to have broadband connections
by the end of the year, accounting for 36.2-percent
of the households, according to marketing expert
Steve Butler. This broadband explosion means that
Internet DSL, cable and satellite providers will
be able to bundle residential VoIP packages into
their current offerings.
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Residential VoIP is not a U.
S. phenomenon, but rather a global one with Europe and
Asia leading the way in current subscribers. Japan leads
the way in Asia with over 4 million residential VoIP
subscribers. France and Italy lead the European nations
in residential VoIP, each outnumbering the top provider
in the U. S.
Some of the most popular residential
VoIP service providers include Vonage, CableVision,
Time Warner, VoicePulse, SunRocket, Packet8, Lingo,
Dialpad, Skype, AT&T and Verizon. Two of the top
three residential VoIP service providers are cable companies
with many more cable operations like Cox Communications
expected to compete heavily in the near future in this
market. Even satellite companies like Hughes Electronics
and SkyFrames are forming strategic alliances with Vonage
and Net2Phone for the purposes of adding residential
VoIP to their bundled packages.
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| Residential
VoIP has recently received a boost by the FCC who has
required all residential VoIP service providers to offer
full emergency 911 services by September 2005. The e911
residential VoIP service has been mandated as mandatory
by the FCC (unlike currently where many providers offer
it as an optional service). The mandate will provide subscribers
with the same security they have known using their landlines
and will be the last major obstacle for many in deciding
to remove their landline service and opt-in to residential
VoIP service. |
