SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. – Worldwide cable telephony service revenues rose from US$4.5 billion in 2004 to US$5.6 billion in 2005, and are projected to reach US$10 billion by 2009, reports American research firm In-Stat.
"The widening availability of VOIP-based cable telephony services has resulted in thousands of new cable telephony subscribers for operators like Time Warner Cable and Cablevision in the United States, Videotron and Shaw Communications in Canada, and Liberty Global in Europe," says the In-Stat release.
"The key attraction for cable operators is the cost advantage that VOIP offers in comparison with circuit-switched service," says Michael Paxton, In-Stat analyst. "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."
Also in the report:
* VOIP-based cable telephony is having a big impact in the U.S. Fueled by Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Cablevision, In-Stat projects that U.S. cable telephony subscriber households will reach 4.4 million by the end of 2006.
* Total worldwide VOIP cable telephony subscriber households are expected to reach almost 7 million by year-end 2006.
* U.S. cable operators are beginning to look beyond wired cable telephony services to the wireless world. In November 2005, several leading cable operators announced an agreement with Sprint Nextel to develop a wireless telephony option for cable TV subscribers. (Ed note: In Canada, Rogers Communications is the country’s largest cable company and largest wireless company and cable operators such as EastLink and Access Communications sell Rogers Wireless phones).
