Consumers, however, are expected to migrate to VoIP services in greater numbers eventually, as the major carriers offering VoIP over their high-speed Internet services step up marketing and bundle VoIP with other products.
But whether consumers will want to see advertising while talking on the telephone is open to debate. Service providers in the early days of the Internet, for example, offered dial-up access at no charge in return for advertising, Joe Laszlo, analyst for JupiterResearch, a division of Jupitermedia Corp., said. Those companies failed when the Internet-advertising market collapsed, and haven't made a comeback in the recovery,
"In much the same way, (VoIP) telephone-service companies have to be careful about offering consumers a value proposition where they're expected to put up with a significant amount of advertising," Laszlo said.
In addition, consumers generally trust paid services more than free services, and view the former as providing higher-quality products, Laszlo said.
"It's a tough call whether consumers want ad-supported phone services," he said.
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