Time Warner reported its second quarter 2008 numbers with good news on the VoIP front and bad news at AOL; it's the bad news that may lead to some other VoIP-related changes.
Time Warner Cable (TWC) added 251,000 residential VoIP phone customers in the quarter. Voice revenues climbed 39 percent--$112 million for the quarter--for a total of nearly $400 million. TWC now has a total of 3.4 million digital phone subscribers and a growth rate likely to continue to give incumbent telcos heartburn.
AOL continues to drag on Time Warner's result, as the company lost 604,000 web access subscribers; a total decline of 2.8 million subscribers from this time last year. Time Warner has announced it is prepared to operate AOL's access and audience businesses separately in 2009, potentially allowing the company to sell off its dial-up business.
Given AOL's continued decline in dial-up (abet profitable) revenues, the company may not want to carry around the bits and pieces of its online voice services as it hunts for a buyer for the dial-up business.
For more:
- Time Warner 2Q08 financial [1] report in .PDF format
Related articles:
AOL opens up [2], Yahoo outsources PSTN interfaces
Cable Raids [3] Independent VoIP Companies, Telcos
Links:
[1] http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/TWX/378207468x0x218746/44385332-ffd3-4157-8ccf-b774958797b1/q22008earnings.pdf
[2] http://www.fierceenterprisecommunications.com/story/aol-opens-up-yahoo-outsources-pstn-interfaces/2008-05-01
[3] http://www.fierceenterprisecommunications.com/story/cable-raids-independent-voip-companies-telcos/2008-07-27