Voice Over Broadband Traffic Skyrockets In Europe

Voice over Broadband (VoBB) voice traffic in Europe skyrocketed in 2004, going from half a million connections to 2.5 million connections, according to a recent study from IDC. The research firm also found that the number of connections will rise to more than 22 million by 2008, for total revenue of $7 billion, of which 60% will come from the consumer market.

The study found that most operators in the European broadband market are either selling, launching, launching trials, or considering launching VoBB service.

"For many incumbent operators, this will not be a tempting scenario due to the prospect of cannibalizing existing revenue streams," Jan Hein Bakkers, senior research analyst for IDC's European Telecommunications and Networking research said in a statement. "Nevertheless, they will be forced into this market at the risk of losing out on customers altogether."

The report also found that although VoBB was primarily used to provide secondary line services at the end of 2004, it will increasingly be used as the primary line through 2008, as unbundling becomes more common and cable operators embrace VoBB services to complete their triple-play bundle.