Up, Up, and Away!

Yours Truly was perusing some market statistics the other day, and came across PriMetrica’s recent U.S. VoIP (define - news - alert) 2006 Quarterly Update, based on TeleGeography research figures. What is says is quite fascinating:

“The books have closed on 2006, and consumer VoIP service providers generated over $2.7 billion in revenues over the course of the year. Subscriber growth was high throughout the year, and continued to grow rapidly in the fourth quarter of 2006, although growth rates have been leveling off. Quarterly subscriber growth slowed from 26 percent in the fourth quarter of 2005 to 16 percent in the fourth quarter of 2006. This slowing rate reflects the increasing size of the VoIP subscriber base. VoIP service providers gained 1.28 million new subscribers, comparable to subscriber gains in the third quarter, and finished the quarter with 9.5 million subscribers, a 112 percent increase from the fourth quarter of 2005.” (For a graphical representation of what’s happening, look at the figure accompanying this editorial.)

Certainly the revenue figures seen in the illustration indicate a classic growth curve for a highly successful technology. Doubtless the recent perturbations of the world’s equity markets will have little effect on this growth — indeed, if anything, corporate efforts to both save money and bolster productivity should serve as an accelerating factor for the adoption of not just VoIP but IP Communications in general. We’ll be waiting anxiously to see what the figures are for the first quarters of 2007. . .

New Column!
Yes Gentle Readers (strange how the Victorians thought that all readers were gentle), we are adding yet another new column to our stable of luminaries. “Tech Score” is written by Jeff Hudgins, the VP of Engineering for Alliance Systems (News - Alert) (news - alert) (http://www.alliancesystems.com). In his column’s debut in this issue, Hudgins looks at what’s happening with the AdvancedTCA (News - Alert) (ATCA) computing form factor for heavy-duty telecom applications, and attempts to fathom “who is winning the game”.

hard Grigonis is Executive Editor of TMC’s (News - Alert) IP Communications Group.