U.S. well behind Europe in VoIP

Maybe Al Gore should make a movie about U.S. cooling... in the area of VoIP that is. According to a report released by In-Stat, more than 14 million Europeans took up VoIP service in 2006 and a total of nearly 34 million Europeans will call themselves VoIP subscribers by year's end. Meanwhile in the U.S., only 4 million users signed up last year for the service and the number will grow to only 15.9 million by the end of 2007. Astonishingly, the U.S. currently accounts for less than 20 percent of the global VoIP market--worth $15.4 billion in 2006 and forecast to reach $44 billion in 2011. If the U.S. hopes to pick up the pace and attract VoIP investment dollars, carriers need to stop relying so heavily on traditional voice services and invest in converged technologies, according to the author of the report.

For more on the potential ramifications of the Europe, U.S. VoIP gap:
- read this article from Red Herring

Related Article:
Aussie VoIP market growth estimated to slow. Report
Nortel targets 'services' to drive growth. Report