Because the industry is so variable and because it’s becoming integrated into so many parallel telecom industries, estimates for VoIP market growth range widely, from 12 million to 44 million estimated residential customers by 2010. According to a 2008 study, almost half of all global IT organizations globally have installed or implemented VoIP into their infrastructure. The jump was from 31% in 2007 to 48% in 2008.

 

VoIP Rapid Growth

 

According to a report released by Telecommunications Industry Associations (TIA) in 2006, the number of VoIP customers tripled from 2.1 million in 2005, with a projected continued growth rate of an impressive 43.9% through 2009, reaching upwards of 18 million customers.

 

According to the TIA report, a similar explosion within the overall broadband industry is driving the rapid growth. Since broadband technology serves as the backbone to VoIP functionality and quality, as broadband services became more commonplace, more customers are opting for VoIP due to lower cost and additional services and features that are usually only provided at additional cost with traditional phone service. The following chart from the TIA report shows how exponentially the VoIP industry has grown.

 

 

Economic Impact On Telecom Industry

 

Throughout the traditional Telecom industry, companies have been calling VoIP a “disruptive technology” for years. This choice of words isn’t by chance. VoIP technology has started revolutionizing the entire Telecommunication Industry, and the network of large Telecom companies who virtually controlled the lion’s share of the market did not like it. VoIP technology would allow even small Internet providers or other Internet-based companies to start capturing large segments of the Telecom market. In order to understand the impact VoIP technology has on the Telecom industry, it’s important to examine some of the data and charts for the Telecom niche.