Europe outpacing US VoIP growth

VoIP companies in Europe are having more of an impact on their local telecoms industry than their counterparts in the US, a new study suggests.

Due to the growth of VoIP, traditional telecoms companies in Europe lost ten million fixed line subscribers last year, according to market research firm In-Stat.

Over the same period there were 14 million VoIP subscriptions in Europe, with three million earned back by the phone companies through their VoIP efforts.

However, in America the telecoms market remains much more static with just 4.5 million fixed line subscribers lost and only 4.4 million new VoIP sign-ups, out of which 300,000 went to an established telecoms firm.

According to the report, the main reason for this difference is the increased competition among telecom companies in Europe and the added VoIP features embraced by European companies, such as online address books and free calls to many more countries than the US offerings.

Analyst Robert Poe, writing for VoIP News, explains the central difference as being that "in Europe, the traditional phone companies are playing significant roles in the growth of VoIP. In the US, the telcos are trying hard to stop it".