By Sharla Sikes
New VoIP providers and plans are popping up all over the world, and new users are scrambling to sign up.
Except in the United States.
Not that things are bad here, but VoIP isn’t catching on as fast as it is in Europe. New VoIP subscriptions worldwide boomed by 34 million users, according to In-Stat.
“Europe showed the largest gain in consumer VoIP subscribers,” says Keith Nissen, In-Stat analyst. “The European consumer VoIP market increased by over 14 million subscribers last year. The European VoIP market is being aided by local loop unbundling, the introduction of cable telephony and triple-play service bundles, as well as operator consolidation. In contrast, U.S. wireline operators added only 4 million VoIP subscribers in 2006. No one seems interested in selling anything other than plain-old-telephone-service.”
France, Germany and the Netherlands claim the largest number of new VoIP subscribers. The U.S. is forecast to represent only 18 percent of the global consumer VoIP market by 2011, by which time In-Stat predicts the market will total $44 billion worldwide.
So, why the lag?
Some say the competitiveness of telecom companies in Europe gives users many attractive VoIP choices. European land-line providers lost ten million subscribers last year, according to In-Stat. European VoIP providers offer nifty features like online address books and free international calling that is a powerful draw to consumers.
Analyst Robert Poe, writing for VoIP News, explains the central difference as being that “In Europe, the traditional phone companies are playing significant roles in the growth of VoIP. In the US, the telcos are trying hard to stop it.”
It’s unclear how hard they will continue to try to stop it. Lawsuits like the one Verizon brought against Vonage may be one of the methods we’ll see traditional phone service providers continue to use.
But it makes you wonder—wouldn’t it be a better option to embrace it, and ride the wave of VoIP’s new technology?
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