Services available on the Internet or services that have been enabled through the widespread availability of high-speed Internet in homes and businesses are continuing to be incredibly successful, and there is every indication that this trend will continue. The popularity of worldwide VOIP services has increased to almost $16 billion in 2006, after doing an amazing and unprecedented doubling act in 2005.
But one of the things that is even more amazing is that several studies have concluded that VOIP services, based on its current trend, popularity, and financial price points, is well set to triple by the year 2010. Hosted VOIP services are managing to outnumber and outpace the IP PBX market, and the biggest thing fueling this is the implementation of VOIP in the residential market.
Residential VOIP services are well established and pretty much bug free, providing a very stable platform to replace the traditional telephone. It was well over a year ago that the number of new VOIP activations passed the number of new traditional phone activations for the first time in history.
Business VOIP services are gaining significant ground also. While some say that business VOIP is still a year or more away from being ready for "business prime time", that fact really depends on what a business requires from their VOIP services. To be sure, business VOIP has gained significantly in recent years, where it was only a few years ago that the best business VOIP phones sounded as if you were calling from the bottom of a bathtub.
The biggest thing holding back more widespread acceptance of VOIP is the availability of reliable high-speed Internet access and bandwidth. For the residential customer, they often have very low-end DSL service, which often is not much faster than dialup and equally as unreliable. Even if they do not have a "low end" plan for their DSL or cable Internet service, the service is not reliable enough for use with VOIP, and that is not the VOIP provider's fault.
Consumers need to understand that the reason they are paying $30-$50 per month for Internet access is because their Internet service provider has oversubscribed their connection. Some consumers may get the service they think they are getting, but when you see the ads that say "3 mb speed", most consumers don't realize that 3 mb is not guaranteed, nor in most cases, will they ever see it, since it is a theoretical maximum only. Consumers also do not realize that the advertised speed is their "download" speed only, and that their upload speed is significantly less, perhaps only as much as twice the speed of a dialup connection. With one computer using the connection, they may not see it, but if they are using one computer AND VOIP services, they could be asking more of their Internet connection than it is capable of providing.
Businesses face the same problem. Even if a business has "business class DSL" or "business class cable", that still does not give them dedicated or guaranteed bandwidth in most cases. Sure, the business class service is significantly cheaper than getting a T1 line, but sharp business owners are quickly finding out that you get what you pay for. If you want dedicated and reliable, then you get a T1 line, but if you want "cheap" and "maybe it will work most days" service, you get service like DSL or cable that is really designed for the residential market, even with the name "business class", which is a marketing gimmick more than anything else.
Even a small business with 6-8 phone lines, which also means 6-8 computers online at the same time, cannot make a long term plan for success with business class DSL or cable, especially if they want to migrate those phone lines to VOIP service. It is only a matter of time before the realities of that shared and non-dedicated Internet connection catches up with them.
Sure, a T1 line costs more, but a T1 line provides dedicated bandwidth availability and a 99.99% uptime guarantee, 24x7. The cost of a T1 is prohibitive for residential use, but for a business, even a small business, that depends on the Internet for their business operations, and which could save even more money with VOIP, the real question becomes one of whether or not a business can afford NOT to get a T1 line, or are they willing to let their competition (who DID implement a T1 line) pass them by and leave them in the dust.
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