Cable VOIP Subs Jump 900%

BOSTON -- The number of cable VoIP subscribers in North America jumped 900% between 2003 and 2004, from less than 50,000 to close to half a million, while cable broadband subscribers grew 26%, from 17.7 million to 22.4 million, according to Infonetics Research's latest report, "Cable VoIP Equipment Market Outlook," which includes VoIP equipment revenue and subscriber forecasts through 2007.

North American cable companies increased their investments in VoIP equipment to keep up with surging subscriber growth, nearly doubling their spending between 2003 and 2004, from $63 million to $123 million. Infonetics' forecasts indicate strong growth will continue.

"MSO investments were up sharply in 2004 as more MSOs either began trials or introduced commercial offerings to a wider market," said Kevin Mitchell, directing analyst for Infonetics and author of the report. "Although the number of cable VoIP subscribers is still fairly small and two MSOs made up over 90% of that subscriber total in 2004, we expect the penetration of VoIP service delivered directly from MSOs among cable broadband subscribers to increase from 2% in 2004 to 15% in 2007."

"We forecast ample growth for the cable VoIP equipment market, especially as PacketCable Multimedia matures, because it promises to further unite the communication and entertainment realms and blur the line between PC and TV," Mitchell continued.

The Cable VoIP Equipment report tracks cable broadband and cable VoIP subscribers, media gateways, media servers, session border controllers, softswitches, voice application servers, and EMTAs, providing annual equipment revenue and subscriber forecasts through 2007.

Infonetics Research Inc.