According to eMarketer's estimates, an important milestone will be reached over the next 12 months — high-speed Internet penetration will surpass 50% of US households, equating to over 60 million residential broadband subscribers.
While that statistic may be of significance on some level, perhaps a more important element of the trend is that an increasing number of broadband households are utilizing their high-speed connections for value-added services such as voice over Internet protocol (VoIP), Internet protocol TV (IPTV), paid audio and video content and more. A recent report by high-tech research firm In-Stat suggests that as of third-quarter 2006, nine million US households had at least one active VoIP user. The research firm indicates that the leading facilities-based VoIP providers were Vonage and Time Warner Cable, each with approximately 1.7 million subscribers, while Skype, MSN and Yahoo! dominated the client-based category.
In-Stat further added that 49% of current residential VoIP users reported that they had discontinued their traditional (non-VoIP) phone services when they initiated their VoIP services, including nearly 12% of respondents who reported that their only VoIP service is client-based. This indicates that even free services such as Skype are having an impact on traditional voice services.
In-Stat's latest findings are not out of line with eMarketer's estimates produced earlier in the year. eMarketer, measuring only paid subscribers (and not users of free services), estimates that by the end of 2006 there will be 9.6 million VoIP subscribers in the US, equating to 18.8% of broadband households. This will rise to nearly 40% of broadband households by 2010.
Broadband is now no longer about the size of your pipe, but how you use it.