17 million worldwide VoIP users... and counting

[Steve]

Voice over IP is ever growing, with a new report stating over 17 million people worldwide now use it. Tom's Hardware reports:

Analysts had expected VoIP to change its face as a geeky application to a mainstream application sometime this year. A new report released by Point-Topic is yet another indication that Internet-based phone services are quickly gaining traction: According to the market research firm, the global subscriber base of retail VoIP services more than doubled within the past nine months. About five million consumers used such a service in mid-2004; at the end of March this number was estimated to be 11.5 million. Counting in soft phone services such as Skype, the current total comes to about 17.4 million, Point-Topic said.

So VoIP is no longer just something us geeks flirt with? Oh well, it was good while it lasted!

[DR]

Its impressive but I am very suprised at how slow the growth is?

[Jonny M]

As long as you need to pay BT phone line rental to have ADSL, VoIP will go nowhere in the consumer market space in the UK.

[iMc]

Most people I know don't run their comps 24/7, that means its much easier to pick up a mobile/landline and use that to make a call. People don't want to have to boot into Windows to make a call, letalone recieve them.

Things will start to change when BT properly launch their VoIP service, it will most likely increase awareness of what VoIP is, and people will then learn about Skype etc...