U.S. VoIP Passes 8 Million Sub Mark

U.S. VoIP providers added 1.27 million net subscribers in the third quarter, boosting total sub count to 8.2 million, a year-over-year increase of 130 percent from the same quarter last year, according to Telegeography. Revenues increased a bit faster, up 146 percent year-over-year, to $732 million.

Vonage remains the market leader with 1.95 million U.S. subs. Time Warner is second with 1.64 million subs, but its growth rate braked dramatically. Comcast continues to grow fast, adding 483,000 net subs in the quarter, passing Cablevision and claiming the number three spot.

With the notable exception of Vonage, the cable companies are where the high growth is occurring. Independents 8x8 had 169,000 total subs; SunRocket had 156,000 while Primus had an estimated 112,000, says Stephan Beckert, TeleGeography analyst.

Collectively, the cable companies had 5.1 million VoIP subs at the end of the third quarter.

TeleGeography now projects that U.S. VoIP subs will reach 9.7 million by the end of the year, representing about 8.7 percent of U.S. households, with annual revenue of $2.6 billion.

Beckert sees no cause for alarm when evaluating Time Warner's unusual results. "I think in significant part, the slowdown is due to market swaps with Comcast, all related to their dividing the spoils of the Adelphia bankruptcy," says Beckert. "Time Warner and Comcast swapped a few markets to rationalize their geographic footprints, and also dissolved partnerships in Houston and Kansas City."

As a result, Time Warner effectively "transferred" 143,000 IP voice subs to Comcast.

On the other hand, "it does appear that Time Warner's 'organic' growth is slowing, but one quarter--especially one that involved such significant asset transfers--doesn't make a trend," says Beckert. "I expect we'll need to wait another quarter or two to see if their underlying growth rate really has slowed."