Look for a story or two about VoIP in your local paper if it’s published by Knight Ridder. More jumping on the bandwagon press, likely driven by Vonage and their new PR team in NYC and the cable industry’s sudden romance with bundling phone service in with your cable bill.
Cable providers will likely see the most rapid growth in the near term. Why?
1) They already have happy customers.
2) They have service techs who show up on time (well most of the time)
3) They have proven then can deliver more than TV stations with high speed internet
4) They bill to credit cards and make payment processing easy
Compare that to the local phone company which wants to get into delivering TV to your home.
1) They have customers who are using them because options before now did not exist.
2) The telco service techs are not always on time, may disconnect or use your phone without telling you when working on a neighbors lines.
3) The Baby Bells were brutal and viewed as amateurs when it came to rolling out DSL. Their approach was choke the CLEC’s. Do you notice they don’t play nice with others.
4) It took years to get the Baby Bells to accept credit cards and some still don’t. Even worse those that do, don’t take American Express. Let’s see. Do I want a customer with debt or one who pays their bills on time.