VoIP Telephony Grows with Telecommunications Boom
Mark Walters
The VoIP telephony and the international telecommunications market is not only healthy, it is robust! The market is expected to continue its double-digit growth and reach over $2 trillion by 2008.
Spending on telecommunications equipment and services in Canada, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Latin America and Asia/Pacific will grow at a rate of 10.6% say the experts. What's behind this growth in telecommunications? Prosperity! With improving economic conditions throughout the world there is increasing demand for Voip, mobile devices and wireless telecommunication services.
The number of subscribers to wireless telephone services is growing faster than the number of landlines in all regions. 1.9 billion wireless subscribers are expected by 2008 and they will outnumber landline subscribers by 69.1%.
The accessibility of high-speed broadband will drive equipment revenue over the next few years. This will give a boost to Internet telephony service and that growth will continue as broadband access revenue triples in future years.
As the move to wireless, voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) and cable telephony continues, the landline market will increase from $391 billion in 2004 to $422 billion in 2008.
Internationally Europe is expected to be the largest region in support services spending, reaching $354 billion by 2008 as the demand for equipment increases there will be increased demand for services to support that equipment.
In the United States the broadband market is expected to reach an estimated 56.9 million subscribers by 2008. That up from 32.5 million subscribers in 2004. The broadband market has had a huge move since 2001, when there were only 5.1 million subscribers.
Broadband's faster speeds are behind the increasing demand for cable modem and DSL providers. Telephone companies are offering more bundled DSL services and cable operators are losing subscribers to direct broadcast satellite. The gap between the number cable and DSL subscribers is narrowing and will continue to decrease.
In addition, there is plenty going on with wireless communications. The U.S. wireless market includes transport services, handsets, capital expenditures and infrastructure equipment including Wi-Fi equipment plus the emerging market for wireless broadband access. The future of VoIP technology and wireless VoIP promises to be one of the most exciting developments in telecommunications.
Not counting PC-to-PC services, the number of residential VoIP customers more than tripled to 4.2 million in 2005. That number is expected to grow by a compound annual rate of over 43% in the next few years. That will result in about 18 million VoIP users.
Growth in the residential VoIP market is being driven by a number of factors. First and foremost is that VoIP telephony provides consumers with inexpensive voice communications. VoIP escapes the burden of the many regulations and taxes governments have imposed on traditional telephone services. So far that has allowed the VoIP service providers to beat the prices charged for wired telephone services. The burst of growth in broadband subscribership is a good sign for VoIP, because it works best over a broadband connection,
In the United States and around the world, people are talking and they want to do that with speed and economy. VoIP phone services are prepared to meet that need.
About the author:
If you have not yet made the switch to VoIP telephone service
author Mark Walters offers a free introduction called Five Reasons for VoIP.