Nine Percent of U.S. Households Now Use a VoIP Telephone Service

Cable operators and Vonage are driving continuing growth in the U.S. residential Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) telephone market, according to In-Stat. According to data from the high-tech market research firm's U.S. Residential VoIP Market Tracker service, more than 10.6 million U.S. households now have at least one active VoIP user, up from approximately 9 million households at the end of Q3. The emergence of the cable operators as a dominant market force seems to have slowed the growth of the client-based VoIP market, with only Skype showing gains in this segment during the 4th Quarter.

Recent research from the service also revealed that:

• More than 61 percent of active residential VoIP users reported that they had discontinued or replaced a traditional (non-VoIP) phone service when they got their VoIP service, including a whopping 76 percent of those who use only a network/ATA-based service like those offered by the cable companies or Vonage.
• Skype's dominance of the client-based VoIP market has grown as its major competitors in this segment lost active users during the fourth quarter while it continued to show strong growth.
• The ability to bypass international tolls continues to be a big driver of client-based VoIP services, with users of client-based VoIP services reporting that 52 percent of their VoIP calls are international long distance while network/ATA-based VoIP users report only 6 percent of their calls are international long distance.
• The percentage of residential VoIP users who report that they use their service for business calls either in part or exclusively continues to rise with 51 percent reporting that they use the service for both business and personal calls and 4 percent reporting they use it exclusively for business calls.