Steve’s Tech Journal

Back at last fall’s VoN show (Oct 2004), the going figure was that there were maybe a couple hundred VoIP providers in the US. This spring, that figure rose sharply, I think around VoN San Jose (March 2005) I heard 400, by VoN Canada (April 2005) the keynotes were saying 500 and it was quickly “rounded” to 600. Then in May I heard someone say 1100, and then there was a claim of 10,000 by some otherwise-respected journal (can’t find the link).

I watched these numbers, and the hype around them, with amusement and skepticism. It’s like the kids game of “telephone”, with each blogger and reporter in the chain adding their own exaggeration or rounding factor into the equation.

Well, I’ve had a few reasons in the last couple weeks to build a list of (primarily North American) VoIP Providers. I’ve learned a little bit, and thought I’d share it.

First off, this is a bit of a problem of definition — what exactly is a VoIP provider. I think we all agree that Vonage is such a critter. How about Skype, how about MSN Messenger? How about the wholesalers — ibasis, teleglobe, etc. For my purposes, I’ve taken the pragmatic approach of saying a VoIP provider is a Vonage-like company (congratulations Vonage, you have achieved Kleenex-like brand status in my lexicon), i.e. primarily in the business of POTS replacement, definitely in the business of PSTN compatibility.

Here’s a nice resource, the Voip Providers List. It is indexed by country. For instance, Rumania has 12, Germany 17, and Nigeria 6 (hope the gang at the Voip Security Alliance are making progress). This list shows USA has 405. Their worldwide database has 1277. However, some of these are wholesalers, some have categories like “hardware reseller”, or “billing provider”. Some of the web site links go nowhere. This leads me to believe we’re a lot closer to the couple hundred.

In fact, my current (early) list of the “serious ones” totals about a 8. Ready, here goes …

1. Vonage
2. Packet8
3. Broadvoice
4. ATT Call Vantage
5. Verizon VoiceWing
6. Broadvox
7. VoicePulse

I’m very open to pointers to resources, analysis, on this area. I’d love to build a list of estimated subs count and demographics by carrier. Please drop a line if you want to call my attention to other carriers, resources, blogs referencing this subject, or if you just think I’m way off base. Boy, this research stuff is time consuming. I have a new respect for industry analysts.