I was reading Ike Elliott’s incomplete, but telling, post about the number of business VoIP subscribers some of the players in the business VoIP space are touting. While the report is very interesting, the results are not that impressive (with the exception of CBeyond and Bandwidth.com’s 110,00 SIP trunks).
According to the 2002 US census, there are 22,974,655 registered businesses in the US. Considering that the providers polled are all US based and that they focus on the US market, they have penetrated a very very small percentage of the marketplace; with the ten business VoIP providers who reported delivering less than 1 million seats.
This tells me two things:
- The low barriers to entry in becoming a Business VoIP provider has made the market very fragmented.
- The Business VoIP marketplace has a long way to go before it is a serious threat to traditional telecommunications providers.
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
Good headline, but misleading. Suggest you do a straw poll of the Fortune 500 to see what percentage aren’t running VoIP. My poll tells me the figure is less than 10%
Yes, but that is only 450 companies out of 22 million a very small percentage and given that the companies mentioned above target the SMB is sort of irrelevant to the point I was trying to make that business VoIP has a long long way to go.
I’m still looking at the headline. To me it reads “Business” not “SMB.”
The fact that SMBs and SOHOs haven’t signed up for VoIP on mass shouldn’t surprise. The cost savings from deploying VoIP accrue to businesses with distributed national / international operations (i.e. those in the Fortune 500). They’re making savings on the cost of “internal’ long distance calls. These savings aren’t available to your average SMB.
Single location SMBs are subjected to a different sales spin. For them the arguments for signing onto VoIP are: project a big corporate image, UC and of “it’s the future.”
That is correct, I said business and if you look at the total number of ALL businesses (soho, small, medium, large, enterprise) you will see, as I pointed out, that business VoIP has a very long way to go before it makes any real dent in the total telecommunications market for business class services, regardless of the cost savings.
In the end, IP communications is not about cost-savings; I wish folks would get this out of their heads. IP communications make their greatest impact on SOHO and SMB customers because of it’s ability to integrate voice with just about anything which will lead to an increase in efficiency and productivity.
If anything, business VoIP is not catching on because folks are still tauting the cost savings and big corporate image crap.
Don’t hold your breath waiting for SMBs and SOHOs to get excited about convergence and UC.
It’s not going to happen!
Anyone who thinks differently needs to get out more.
SMB’s … have got other matters to obsess about, like paying their phone bills.
I agree with those statements and I wasn’t referring to UC when I talked about integration. I was talking about integrating voice with business systems and processes that allow people to do more with less.
I agree with thous statement and I wasn’t referring to UC when i talked about intregration.I was talking about integrating voice with business systems and processes that allow people to do more with lessI is very good headline.
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johnson789
MINUTETRADERS.com | Buy/Sell AZ & Direct Termination Routes,Wholesale,TDM,VoIP
MINUTETRADERS.com | Buy/Sell AZ & Direct Termination Routes,Wholesale,TDM,VoIP
The providers polled are all US based and that they focus on the US market, they have penetrated a very very small percentage of the marketplace; with the ten business VoIP providers who reported delivering less than 1 million seats.While the report is very interesting, the results are not that impressive
The bussiness VOIP numbers are very attractive but the result is not immpressive because the provider polled are all us based so they pay more attention on us marketplace,and it is a serious thread to tradtional telecomunicaton provider.
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