*****
And here we are in Sunny South Africa still arguing a convergence bill when there are over 5 million international subscribers to VoIP and ever increasing....
PLease please could someone drag our communications ministry out of the dark ages and into the 21st century?
************
Article from www.point-topic.com
Use my login - peapd/peapod
Voice over broadband – over 5 million subscribers from double-play and triple-play
6 December 2004
There were over 5 million VoIP subscribers by the middle of 2004, with the majority of customers shared by half-a-dozen or so operators.
There are now approximately 1000 VoIP providers around the world. Most of these have set up during 2003 or 2004. Many have very few subscribers at the moment.
The number of start-ups shows that there is clearly widespread belief in the potential of VoIP. But how many people are actually using VoIP?
Point Topic has researched a sample of the IP Telephony market to produce a profile for its Broadband Money Makers service. This sample does not include Internet-only services like Skype. It concentrates on telephony services where the customer plugs a telephone into the customer’s broadband modem. These operators are sometimes called voice over broadband providers.
Yahoo Broadband in Japan reported over 4 million VoIP subscribers, around 80% of worldwide VoIP subscribers. Helped by traditionally high telephony tariffs in Japan Yahoo Broadband boasts an impressive penetration rate of over 94% of its broadband subscribers. The other 5 leading reporting operators totalled just under 1 million subscribers.
Q2 2004 Subscriber numbers for 6 leading VoIP operators
Operator
Subscriber numbers
Date
B2 (Sweden)
50,000
July 2004
Cablevision (USA)
115,050
30 June 2004
FastWeb (Italy)
300,000
September 2004
Free (France)
330,000
30 June 2004
Vonage (USA)
200,000
July 2004
Yahoo Broadband (Japan)
4,038,000
30 June 2004
Total
5,033,050
That gives a total of a little over 5 million VoIP subscribers at mid 2004, not counting subscribers using VoIP from the host of other VoIP providers.
Yahoo Broadband's dominance will steadily reduce as other operators catch up after their head start, developing products and marketing strategies that suit local market and regulatory conditions.
Significant other operators include Free in France, with around 330,000 customers taking its triple play of broadband Internet, TV and telephone.
In the US, Vonage, which pioneered the market for IP Telephony companies, reported 200,000 customers by July 2004, up from 44,000 12 months earlier. But competition, especially from cable companies and inter-exchange carriers like AT&T, is growing fast.
During 2004 therefore, the trend in VoIP subscriber growth outside Japan is for broadband service providers like Free or FastWeb to add voice subscribers as part of a double play or triple play offering. Pure-play VoIP providers like Vonage are less important to the overall picture than they were 12 months ago.
In the medium term, tariffs from incumbent operators will become lower, and broadband service providers will offer VoIP services. This will eventually all but remove the competitive position (based on pricing and second line provision) of pure-play VoIP providers.
And here we are in Sunny South Africa still arguing a convergence bill when there are over 5 million international subscribers to VoIP and ever increasing....
PLease please could someone drag our communications ministry out of the dark ages and into the 21st century?
************
Article from www.point-topic.com
Use my login - peapd/peapod
Voice over broadband – over 5 million subscribers from double-play and triple-play
6 December 2004
There were over 5 million VoIP subscribers by the middle of 2004, with the majority of customers shared by half-a-dozen or so operators.
There are now approximately 1000 VoIP providers around the world. Most of these have set up during 2003 or 2004. Many have very few subscribers at the moment.
The number of start-ups shows that there is clearly widespread belief in the potential of VoIP. But how many people are actually using VoIP?
Point Topic has researched a sample of the IP Telephony market to produce a profile for its Broadband Money Makers service. This sample does not include Internet-only services like Skype. It concentrates on telephony services where the customer plugs a telephone into the customer’s broadband modem. These operators are sometimes called voice over broadband providers.
Yahoo Broadband in Japan reported over 4 million VoIP subscribers, around 80% of worldwide VoIP subscribers. Helped by traditionally high telephony tariffs in Japan Yahoo Broadband boasts an impressive penetration rate of over 94% of its broadband subscribers. The other 5 leading reporting operators totalled just under 1 million subscribers.
Q2 2004 Subscriber numbers for 6 leading VoIP operators
Operator
Subscriber numbers
Date
B2 (Sweden)
50,000
July 2004
Cablevision (USA)
115,050
30 June 2004
FastWeb (Italy)
300,000
September 2004
Free (France)
330,000
30 June 2004
Vonage (USA)
200,000
July 2004
Yahoo Broadband (Japan)
4,038,000
30 June 2004
Total
5,033,050
That gives a total of a little over 5 million VoIP subscribers at mid 2004, not counting subscribers using VoIP from the host of other VoIP providers.
Yahoo Broadband's dominance will steadily reduce as other operators catch up after their head start, developing products and marketing strategies that suit local market and regulatory conditions.
Significant other operators include Free in France, with around 330,000 customers taking its triple play of broadband Internet, TV and telephone.
In the US, Vonage, which pioneered the market for IP Telephony companies, reported 200,000 customers by July 2004, up from 44,000 12 months earlier. But competition, especially from cable companies and inter-exchange carriers like AT&T, is growing fast.
During 2004 therefore, the trend in VoIP subscriber growth outside Japan is for broadband service providers like Free or FastWeb to add voice subscribers as part of a double play or triple play offering. Pure-play VoIP providers like Vonage are less important to the overall picture than they were 12 months ago.
In the medium term, tariffs from incumbent operators will become lower, and broadband service providers will offer VoIP services. This will eventually all but remove the competitive position (based on pricing and second line provision) of pure-play VoIP providers.