Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP for short, continues to have a major impact on businesses and the telephony industry in general. Both consumers and the enterprise are finally waking up to the advantages of cheaper (or free) calls, and as such are embracing the technology in even greater numbers. And that’s not just speculation; research is proving it to be true.

In a recent report, the Dell’ (News - Alert)Oro Group, a trusted source for market information about the networking and telecommunications industries, noted that the market has grown strongly in the past year.

In its recent “Carrier IP Telephony Quarterly Report” the company noted that multimedia system revenues surged by 50 percent (year-over-year) in the third quarter of 2014. Further, it was announced that overall Carrier IP Telephony market revenue grew three percent in the third quarter of 2014 versus the year-ago period. “Growth segments, which include IMS Core, Voice Application Servers and Session Border Controllers, were within $50 million of the $1 billion per quarter mark,” Telecom Reseller (News - Alert) said in commenting on the news.

“We are seeing operators expand their service offerings to deliver multiple services on shared infrastructures, resulting in significant interoperability benefits to customers and increasing leverage on network investments,” Chris DePuy, VP of Carrier IP Telephony research at Dell’Oro Group, said in a statement. “IMS-based infrastructures now power multiple services for operators. In addition to Voice over LTE (News - Alert) (VoLTE) services that provide high-definition voice, the same service providers are also launching Voice over Wi-Fi (VoWi-Fi) that addresses indoor cellular wireless coverage shortfalls. We also anticipate additional services will appear over the next several quarters at these same operators, such as Rich Communications Services (RCS) that allow advanced messaging and video calling that competes with Over the Top (OTT).”

It was further noted by Telecom Reseller that “The overall Carrier IP Telephony market, which includes devices used to serve both circuit switched subscribers, Voice over IP (VoIP) and Voice over LTE subscribers, approached $1.7 B in the third quarter 2014.”

In short, the market is growing, and VoIP appears to be a significant player in the growth.