The number of retail voice over IP (VoIP) subscribers
increased by 83% worldwide during 2005.
VoIP allows users to make free or cheaper voice calls over the
internet by avoiding the traditional public switched telephone
network (PSTN).
According to the latest IP telephony report from analyst Point
Topic, the number of subscribers to retail VoIP services rose from
10.3m users at the beginning of 2005 to over 18.7m subscribers
worldwide by the end of the year.
John Bosnell, an analyst at Point Topic, said: “If you then add
in the PC-to-phone sector, Skype and the like, then the number of
global VoIP subscribers gets close to 24m, which is about 65% up on
the year before.”
Japan, France and the US continue to dominate the VoIP market in
terms of subscriber numbers. But other European nations, notably
Germany, the Netherlands and Norway began to see a significant
number of VoIP subscribers by the end of 2005; and many of these
markets were reporting strong growth for early 2006, said Point
Topic.
Point Topic said the main barriers to VoIP take-up were
“consumer inertia” and local regulations.