When you have only one direction you can go, and that direction is up it’s not hard for prdictions to abound.
Yankee Group today announced just how rapidly they expect VoIP to grow in the United States.
In reading between the lines they seem to be calling into question how much growth will go to Vonage, the early mover in the category. In their prognostication they cite that the nation’s cable MSO (multiple system operators) will garner 56 percent of the market by the end of 2005 and by 2006 surpass the cable industry’s cable telephony numbers.
This means the cable companies like Cox which have some heavy duty investment in CT, not VoIP in select markets will need to quickly evaluate how soon they take a write down of those assets and make the move, or partner with a company like AT&T, Level3 or Sprint who already has the VoIP network in place to manage and terminate call.
The comment about the three S’s, SBC, Sprint and Bell South has more to do again with a few factors. Sprint is largely a business network provider, with a patchwork of consumer services and markets. SBC and Bell South both lagged in rolling out DSL compared to Verizon and Qwest so it’s no surprise that their behavior in turn follows their past. That said, SBC can’t sit on the sidelines too long, and on the enterprise side clearly is not. Consumer will follow for them because in some of their markets (California and parts of Texas at least) the consumer is very tech ready and savvy.