55 mln VOIP subscribers by 2009

The global market for consumer VoIP services has arrived, with total VoIP subscribers worldwide at 16 mln in 2005 and projected to grow to over 55 mln in 2009, reports In-Stat. But despite an impressive 62% year-over-year subscriber growth rate in 2005, few consumers have ever heard of the term "VoIP". 73% of all VoIP subscribers worldwide have migrated to VoIP without making a conscious buying decision to adopt the new technology. In North America and Canada, cable operators are aggressively expanding their VoIP footprint, but are marketing VoIP as plain old telephone service. In Asia, South Korea will have the highest VoIP growth rate, followed by Hong Kong and Singapore. In Europe, broadband ISPs, such as Free Telecom (France) and FastWeb (Italy) are leading the way with innovative consumer triple-play service bundles.