Consumer spending on voice, long distance, dial-up, cable and broadband reached $114.8 bln in 2004

According to In-Stat, total consumer spending on communication services, including local voice, long distance, cable TV, dial-up, and broadband was $114.8 bln in 2004. The largest revenue opportunity of this total wallet was voice services, with local and long distance combined accounting for more than 50% of revenues. Over time, service revenues are expected to deteriorate, falling to $106.7 bln in 2009. This decline in revenues is a factor of decreasing revenues for the voice services as well as dial-up, while both cable TV and broadband services are expected to continue to rise.

Based on a recent survey, 35% of respondents were currently buying two or more services as a bundle from a single provider. The most common service bought in some type of bundle was local phone, followed by long distance and Internet. Only 32% of respondents purchased cable TV services as a part of a bundle. This suggests that cable providers have been less successful in selling bundles in general as compared to the telcos. However, only 5% of respondents purchase satellite as a bundle (satellite being the typical video offering in the telco triple play), which suggests that telcos have been less successful in selling the full triple play of services. In its consumer telecom survey, In-Stat found that the incidence of purchasing services increased with income, as did the incidence of purchasing those services as a bundle. While 23% of those with incomes under $25,000 bought services as a bundle, in the higher income groups this rate more than doubled to 47%.