By Sharla Sikes

A recent study by the Yankee Group suggests that VoIP usage among consumers may experience continued growth in the next few years. The consulting and research firm estimates 37 million subscribers will choose VoIP for home communication services.

Yankee bases its estimate on 2006’s growth rate of 125 percent, with 9 million new subscribers choosing VoIP. Yankee’s report, titled “Growing Pains Persist in a Adolescent Market: Yankee Group’s 2007 US Consumer VoIP Subscriber Forecast,” says that VoIP services are present in 9 percent of U.S. households, up from 4 percent last year. With VoIP solutions present in many web sites and advertisements, and growing consumer insistence on cheaper calling rates, VoIP fills the bill.

“The US consumer VoIP market continues to evolve and propagate,” said Patrick Monaghan, Yankee Group Consumer Research senior analyst. “The disruptive impact of global connectivity will continue to change the VoIP market—making it even more difficult to measure. Despite some growing pains we’ve seen in the VoIP market recently, the market continues to grow and has significant potential as ILECS begin to migrate and create increased competition for both cable MSOs and broadband VoIP providers.”

More findings:

• Cable VoIP grew the most at 167 percent.
• Most residential VoIP customers will choose calling packages from cable companies by 2011.
• Competition is growing in the broadband VoIP market.
• There is significant potential for VoIP with FTTH in the market, considering the ongoing initiatives by Verizon with FiOS and AT&T with U-verse.

The growing pains have been significant lately for VoIP providers, including lawsuits and catastrophic collapse among some of the biggest names in the business.

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