Reselling wholesale VoIP service is becoming an increasingly appealing proposition to many businesspeople, especially those who run cable network operations. This trend was illustrated in a recent report from ABI Research (News - Alert), in which the firm looked at alternative revenue streams for cable operators.

 

ABI reported that the four alternative revenue streams with the most promise are voice telephony, broadband data services, SMB and cellular backhaul and advertising. Cable operators are looking to these, and other, offerings as a way to supplement income from residential video services.

 

These alternate revenue streams will become more and more important as time goes on, perhaps even someday supplanting video for its leading role. For 2007, ABI predicts that residential video will account for roughly $170 billion in revenues worldwide; voice, data, SMB/cellular backhaul and advertising collectively will add another $92 billion.

 

By 2012, ABI estimates, though, those figures will be almost equal, at $268 billion for video and $279 billion for other services—with the supporting players overtaking video.

 

“Advertising revenues alone will grow from $40 billion this year to $194 billion in 2012,” said ABI analyst Stan Schatt, in a statement.

 

What’s causing this shift? The answer depends on which region of the world you’re talking about. In North American, cable providers are looking to wholesale VoIP and other offerings because the video market is saturated. In Asia, video subscriber bases are still growing but operators also see that alternative services can be lucrative as well.

 

Of course, technology trends play a role as well. In North America and certain other markets, cable operators are starting to add Ethernet to their core networks as a way to support the type of services businesses are now depending.

 

VoIP plays a large role in this, but advertising is also a very promising alternate revenue stream.

 

“The rise of advertising as a revenue alternative will produce a profound change in how things are advertised,” Schatt said. “This will have an impact on technologies as well as revenues, and even in the way that advertising agencies construct ad campaigns, which will feature more interactivity.”

 

To learn more about alternate revenue streams for cable providers, please visit the Wholesale VoIP channel on TMCnet.com, brought to you by Dalcom Telecom (News - Alert).