The market for cable telephony services is maturing and worldwide subscriber numbers are growing rapidly. In many markets around the world, cable TV operators consider telephony service to be an integral part of their telecommunications service bundle. This has led to increasing service availability in North America, Europe, and in a few countries in Asia. Voice-over-Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology has proven to be a key market enabler for cable telephony services and subscriber growth. Generally less expensive to provision than more traditional circuit-switched telephony, the increasing availability of VoIP services in North America was directly responsible for the almost two-fold increase in the number of North American subscribers during 2006. This report covers the market for cable telephony services around the world. It discusses the business case for provisioning cable telephony services, looks at the availability of the service, and breaks down cable telephony’s cost structure by specific network architecture. In addition, the report updates leading cable TV operator telephony service strategies and presents the results of a US cable telephony subscriber consumer survey that was conducted in December 2006. The report provides forecasts for worldwide cable telephony subscribers, VoIP cable telephony subscribers, and installed cable telephony lines through the year 2011.
