Analysis Research says VOIP is hot and it will grow. So to tell us something we may not know they go out on a very fat and sturdy limb and make a projection:
According to Analysys forecasts, by 2008, VoIP penetration is expected to reach 17% of broadband-enabled households (growing from under 1 million at the end of this year to 11.7 million in 2008), and 23% of broadband-enabled small-business establishments (increasing from less than 100,000 in 2004 to 800,000 in 2008). Together, consumers and small businesses are expected to provide almost 13 million VoIP subscriptions and USD5.7 billion in annual service revenue in 2008. Although this is a significant amount, it represents 2.5% of the 2003 total US telecoms revenue of USD224 billion.
For medium and large businesses VoIP growth is also very strong. Analysys expects the estimated installed base of IP station lines to increase from just over 3 million in 2004 to more than 18 million by the end of 2008. This represents a compound annual growth rate of over 50%.
My view is different. I think VOIP will be the carriers big push and most people won't know that their calls are going over VOIP. While the last few feet initially will be copper twisted pair, the local telcos will be pulling the fiber to the B-Boxes as fast as they can, and having SIP gateways at the CO's as fast as they can. The ILECs and CLEC's in the USA will want to get the VoIP traffic because just like the make tons of money off of the services embedded inside the Class 5 switches such as call waiting, three way calling, call forwarding, call forward busy no answer, they won't want to lose the revenue from the customers they already have who want the better feature set of applications that VOIP and SIP enabled systems can deliver.
Thus, I think the market by 2008 will be much bigger. It's just how you count when it comes to research and statistics.
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