FCC: 13% of Voice Connections are VoIP Based

 

In its "Local Telephone Competition: Status as of December 31, 2008" report (here) the FCC, for the first time, shows VoIP statistics. The information, collected from US operators ("Form 477 program") counts now "interconnected Voice over Internet Protocol" (see definition below - it excludes Skype).

According to the report, there were over 21M such VoIP lines vs. 141M PSTN lines - i.e. 13% of voice connections were VoIP based (20% for residential links). 4M VoIP connections were "Standalone" (2.5% of all voice connections) while 17.3M were part of "Broadband Bundled" (is part of an Internet service - Standalone are other cases).

Source - FCC report, page 3

"An interconnected Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) service is a service that:

(1) Enables real-time, two-way voice communications;

(2) Requires a broadband connection from the user’s location;

(3) Requires Internet protocol-compatible customer premises equipment (CPE); and
(4) Permits users generally to receive calls that originate on the public switched telephone network and to terminate calls to the public switched telephone network.
We note that the current interpretation of element (4) of the definition excludes the VoIP services that Skype offers in the United States, and subscribers to those services are not reported on Form 477."