VoIP Usage Increases, But US Businesses Not Ditching Traditional Phones According to In-Stat
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. - US businesses continue to embrace VoIP, but they are not abandoning traditional voice lines, reports In-Stat (http://www.in-stat.com). VoIP is currently used by 20% of US businesses, but 44% of these businesses’ voice lines remain TDM, the high-tech market research firm says. Robust business adoption of VoIP will continue, as In-Stat predicts that two-thirds of US businesses will have some form of VoIP service by 2011.
“VoIP is particularly attractive to businesses with dispersed workforces, where long distance savings can be easily achieved,” says David Lemelin, In-Stat analyst. “However, VoIP is not typically embraced as the sole source of voice communications for the vast majority of businesses that have adopted VoIP to date.”
Recent research by In-Stat found the following:
> Multiple VoIP solutions are used by 36% of businesses that have adopted VoIP, with broadband IP telephony solutions resonating most strongly with smaller businesses and IP PBX with larger ones.
> Hosted IP revenues will exceed Broadband IP Telephony (BBIPT) by 2010 in the business market, despite more BBIPT lines being in place.
> Roughly 14% of US businesses have at least some workers who use voice-enabled IM for business purposes.
The research, “Business VoIP: Multiple Flavors Drive Growth” (#IN0703862CT), covers the market for business IP telephony. It contains forecasts for hosted IP seats in service and revenue in the US business market through 2010. It also includes forecasts for broadband IP telephone lines deployed and resulting revenues through 2011. It provides analysis of the types of currently deployed and planned BBIPT by US businesses, and business VoIP market trends and barriers.
For more information on this research or to purchase it online, please visit:
http://www.instat.com/catalog/pcatalogue.asp?id=18 or contact a sales representative:
Eastern North America: Tina Sheltra, 480.609.4531; tina.sheltra@reedbusiness.com
Western North America: Erin McKeighan, 480.609.4551; emckeighan@reedbusiness.com
Outside of North America: http://www.instat.com/sales.asp
The price is $2,495 (US).
About In-Stat
Technology vendors, service providers, technology professionals and market specialists, worldwide, rely on In-Stat’s experienced staff and in-depth research to support critical business, product and technology decisions. In-Stat’s insights are derived from both a deep technology understanding and comprehensive research, which examines each segment of the value chain for each market. Regular and ongoing end-user demand and primary research surveys underpin much of the analysis, enabling In-Stat to provide incisive market knowledge and guidance on future market opportunities.
In-Stat is a strategic segment of the $9 billion Reed Elsevier global information network, with access to an expansive worldwide electronic network, extensive technology databases and well-informed personnel. As a member of Reed Business Information, In-Stat is a division of the largest business-to-business publisher in the U.S.
Vonage Holdings Chief Executive Officer Steps Down
HOLMDEL, N.J., April 12 — Vonage Holdings Corp. , a leading provider of broadband telephone services, today announced that Michael Snyder stepped down from his position as Chief Executive Officer and resigned from the Company’s Board of Directors effective April 11, 2007. The Company also announced that Jeffrey A. Citron, the Company’s Chairman, has been appointed as the Company’s interim Chief Executive Officer and is expected to serve on a short-term basis. In addition, the Company will immediately commence a search for Mr. Snyder’s replacement.
Mr. Citron, Vonage Chairman and interim CEO said, “Mike has made valuable contributions to the growth of our business and we will miss him. We thank him and wish him well in his future endeavors.”
The Company also announced its preliminary estimation of its operating and financial results for the quarter ended March 31, 2007:
Forge valuable relationships at The World’s Only IP Communications Development Event. Communications Developer Conference is May 15-17, 2007 in Santa Clara.
Click here to learn more about DSP modules and how they power multimedia messaging services for mobile networks while decreasing the development costs.
Forge valuable relationships at The World’s Only IP Communications Development Event. Communications Developer Conference is May 15-17, 2007 in Santa Clara.
Click here to learn more about DSP modules and how they power multimedia messaging services for mobile networks while decreasing the development costs.
Vendor Guru has done the research to help you quickly find respected, cutting-edge CRM companies with the products and services that are right for your business. Click here to learn more.
Vendor Guru has done the research to help you quickly find respected, cutting-edge Telephony companies with the products and services that are right for your business. Click here to learn more.
– Total Revenue (in millions): $195
– Gross Subscriber Line Additions: 332,000
– Net Subscriber Line Additions: 166,000
– Average Monthly Customer Churn: 2.4%
– Marketing Cost per Gross Subscriber Line Addition: $275
The Company has not finalized its financial statements for the quarter ended March 31, 2007.
Additionally, Vonage announced cost cutting measures focused on reducing the Company’s loss from operations. Mr. Citron said, “In order to strengthen Vonage’s financial position, we are taking a number of measures to reduce our costs and operating expenses. We remain focused on improving our competitive position in the marketplace.”
Vonage announced plans to reduce its marketing expense by approximately $110 million. As a result, the Company expects marketing expenditures of roughly $310 million for 2007.
The Company also announced plans to reduce its G&A by $30 million through the remainder of 2007 through consolidation of operations and workforce reduction.
The Company expects its cost cutting measures to enhance shareholder value and improve its competitiveness in the marketplace.
Conference Call and Webcast
Management will host an investor conference call on Thursday, April 12, 2007 at 8:00 AM ET to discuss this information and other recent developments. To participate, please dial (800) 289-0533 approximately ten minutes prior to the call. International callers should dial (913) 981-5525.
The webcast will be broadcast live through Vonage’s Investor Relations website at http://ir.vonage.com/. Windows Media Player or RealPlayer is required to listen to this webcast. A replay will be available shortly after the live webcast and will be available for two weeks.
Safe Harbor Statement
This press release contains forward-looking statements regarding financial and operating results, the planned reduction in our workforce, anticipated SG&A savings in 2007 and marketing expense for 2007. In addition, statements in this press release that are not historical facts or information may be forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements in this release are based on information available at the time the statements are made and/or management’s belief as of that time with respect to future events and involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results and outcomes to be materially different. Important factors that could cause such differences include, but are not limited to, our history of net operating losses and our need for cash to finance our growth; the competition we face; our dependence on our customers’ existing broadband connections; differences between our service and traditional phone services, including our 911 service; uncertainties relating to regulation of VoIP services; system disruptions or flaws in our technology; our ability to manage our growth; the risk that VoIP does not gain broader acceptance; our damaging and disruptive intellectual property and other litigation; and other factors described in the “Risk Factors” section of our registration statement on Form S-1, as amended (File No. 333-136773), and in our subsequent periodic reports filed with the SEC. While we may elect to update forward-looking statements at some point in the future, we specifically disclaim any obligation to do so, and therefore, you should not rely on these forward-looking statements as representing our views as of any date subsequent to today.
About Vonage
Vonage is a leading provider of broadband telephone services with 2.4 million subscriber lines. Our award-winning technology enables anyone to make and receive phone calls with a touch tone telephone almost anywhere a broadband Internet connection is available. We offer feature-rich and cost- effective communication services that offer users an experience similar to traditional telephone services.
Our Residential Premium Unlimited and Small Business Unlimited calling plans offer consumers unlimited local and long distance calling, and popular features like call waiting, call forwarding and voicemail — for one low, flat monthly rate. Vonage’s service is sold on the web and through national retailers including Best Buy, Circuit City, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Target and is available to customers in the U.S., Canada and the United Kingdom. For more information about Vonage’s products and services, please visit http://www.vonage.com/.
Vonage Holdings Corp. is headquartered in Holmdel, New Jersey. Vonage(R) is a registered trademark of Vonage Marketing Inc., a subsidiary of Vonage Holdings Corp.
Word has come down that Vonage CEO Michael Snyder is stepping down. Specific reasons were not given, though the company has been beleaguered pretty much from the day it went public last year. Chairman Jeffrey Citron will take the reigns while a permanent CEO is found. In phone call with analysts this morning, Citron said that Vonage would turn its attention to cutting its marketing expense, which stands at $275 per new customer acquired. That’s actually $31 better than it had been in the previous quarter.
For more on the Snyder’s departure:
- check out Vonage’s press release
Mark your calendar for April 24. That’s the day Vonage and Verizon are due back in court to talk about the restraining order Verizon got that would keep Vonage from signing up new customers. Vonage got an appellate judge to temporarily hold off the order until a fuller argument can be heard; that’s what will happen on the 24th. The judge basically has three options: lift the stay and stop Vonage from accepting customers, throw out the underlying injunction, or take some time to think about it. On a side note, the two sides are going back to the trial court later today (Thursday) to hear arguments about whether Vonage should have to post $189 million in addition to the $66 million bond already posted to cover the damages that the jury awarded. Verizon, it would appear, is trying to cut off Vonage’s financial oxygen any way it can.
For more information about the Vonage/Verizon court dates:
- read this article from Exchange Online
Related Articles:
No new Vonage customers? Report
Vonage reportedly signs with VoIP Inc. as Plan B. Report
Signs of life for Vonage–for now. Maybe. Report
The perils of Vonage. Report
Here’s a good question: what exactly are the patents that are causing all of Vonage’s problems? Network World pored through the patent database and court transcripts and figured it out. One patent is about how VoIP systems do packet translation, changing domain names into PSTN phone numbers and back. A second is about supporting features like Caller ID and call waiting for VoIP customers. The third is about how calls can be moved from the Internet to a wireless network on a customer’s premises.
For more information about the Verizon patents:
- read this article from Network World
Related Articles:
More Vonage patent news. Report
Comcast dodges a VoIP patent bullet. Report
As you’re putting together your business plans, you might want to keep in mind some research from In-Stat. The company found that even though 20 percent of U.S. companies are using VoIP, 44 percent of their voice lines are still TDM. VoIP migration is steady–the industry’s building traffic numbers abundantly show that–but customers are moving carefully until the technology has proved itself and the old TDM equipment depreciates out. And there’s still plenty of experimentation going on out there: of the companies using VoIP, 36 percent are using multiple types of VoIP communication. In four years, In-Stat expects, about two-thirds of businesses will be using some form of VoIP. In other words, there’s still plenty of headroom in the VoIP business.
For more information about the In-Stat study:
- read this press release from In-Stat
Related Articles:
Spun-off Dialogic will focus on TDM. Report
Top 10 ways your VoIP migration could go wrong. Report
“Hard-to-use” and “easy-to-use” are relative terms. Nemertes Research has a study that suggests that although VoIP equipment vendors are doing a great job building features, they’re doing a less-good job at building the interfaces that let network designers and operators get at and manage those features. VoIP, at the network level, is complicated and as it gets more popular it’s inevitable that it will come up against more and more engineers who are less than totally astute. This means customer satisfaction scores will naturally decline until the equipment becomes if not idiot-proof, perhaps idiot-resistant. If that doesn’t happen, expect the SMB market to head pell-mell for hosted services, where the level of required technical skill is minimal.
For more information about the Nemertes Research study:
- read this article from IT Business Edge
Related Articles:
$68 billion in wVoIP equipment in 2012? Report
IMS, next-gen voice equipment sales up 48%. Report
New Global Telecom is launching a white-box VoIP service that will let its VARs quickly deploy a VoIP solution under their own brand name. Article
> Vonage (remember them?) and emergency responders are backing a Senate bill that would require telcos to let VoIP providers connect to E911 systems. Article
> For today’s entry in the “analyst who misses the point” sweepstakes, I give you Forrester Research. Analyst Zayera Khan looked at five VoIM European services and pronounced them too hard for the mass market to use. I don’t know what qualifies as a “mass market,” but Skype claims 136 million registered users. If only 10 percent of them are active, that’s 13.6 million–a market that strikes me as being pretty “mass.” Report
> Phil Zimmerman, the inventor of the PGP e-mail encryption software, has some up with ZRTP, an encryption protocol for Internet telephony. The product is called Zfone. Article
> Cisco’s latest products have features aimed squarely at small businesses. Report
> One stock analyst thinks Verizon and Vonage will work thing out, because there’s too much investment money at stake. Article
> Four open-source VoIP alternatives. Report
And finally… About time, my wife says. Article