Circuit switched POTS may still be the dominant form of voice communications, but the FCC's Local Telephone Competition report showed that over 21 million end-users now have a VoIP subscription from a cable, traditional telco or VoIP provider. Out of this 21 million figure, 81 percent buy VoIP service as part of a service bundle and 92 percent receive their VoIP service via a cable provider.
In total, there were 162 million wireline retail local telephone service connections as of the end of 2008 with 141 traditional switched access lines in service and 21 million VoIP subscribers. When these 162 million total connections are broken out, 48 percent were residential POTS lines, 39 percent were traditional POTS business lines, 12 percent were residential VoIP, and 1 percent were business VoIP subscriptions.
At first blush, the 21 million VoIP users milestone may seem impressive but let's not forget that there's still 141 traditional business and residential POTS lines still in service. Obviously, this means that even all of VoIP advertised ease of use and new features (one number dialing and unified communications), circuit switched voice is not going away anytime soon.
For more:
- see the FCC release here
- Broadband DSL Reports sounds off on the report
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