The number of
voice over IP (VoIP) users in Europe has quadrupled in two
years, driven by aggressive pricing for bundled communications
services, says telecommunications analyst
Telegeography.
The firm
reported that at year-end 2007, 25.3 million consumer VoIP
lines were in service in Western Europe. This was up from 15
million in 2006, and nearly four times the 6.5 million VoIP
subscribers in 2005.
The key driver of growth has been aggressively priced bundles of
voice, broadband, and video service, a Telegeogphy survey of 13
European countries found. While prices vary widely, many operators
charged as little as £24 (€30) for all three services, including
unlimited calling.
"This strategy has been spectacularly successful," said
TeleGeography in a statement. It expected Western European VoIP
subscribers to top 37 million and to account for 29% of Western
European fixed lines by the end of 2008.
Legacy telcos have fought back, it said. Most European incumbent
phone companies have introduced dual-play or triple-play bundles.
These often included flat-rate IP telephone services. Despite
overall mixed results, France Telecom was now the largest VoIP
service provider in Europe, and traditional telcos were five of the
10 largest European VoIP service providers, it said.
Penetration of consumer VoIP services differ widely from 43% in
France to 2% in Spain, it said.
"A fixed-line revolution is underway in Europe," said
TeleGeography analyst Paul Brodsky, "but it's certainly not
happening at a uniform pace."