More United Kigndom IP Communications Stories

Though it varies widely from nation to nation, consumer VoIP adoption in Europe is increasing rapidly, a Washington, D.C.-based consulting and market analysis firm is reporting today.

 

Officials at TeleGeography Research, a division of PriMetrica, Inc., say that VoIP services are reshaping Europe’s fixed-line phone market. Last summer, nearly 30 million consumer VoIP lines had been in use in western Europe, up from just 20 million the prior year.

 

According to Patrick Christian, an analyst at the firm, Europe may have a single market, but it’s far from common.

 

“However, while the uptake of IP telephony services varies widely, VoIP has been a powerful spur to innovation, even in some countries with relatively modest numbers of VoIP subscribers,” he said.

 

TeleGeography says that Europe had about 35 million VoIP lines at the end of last year.

 

Here’s a nation-by-nation breakdown of VoIP penetration in households, comparing the second quarter of 2007 with the same three-month period in 2008:

 

 

As TMCnet reported today, one European VoIP service provider is hiking rates as it eyes a move toward so-called “triple play” packages, where consumers get phone, broadband and TV service for a monthly fee.

 

Stockholm-based TeliaSonera announced that customers in Europe and Asia will see telephony subscription prices rise about $16 per month.

 

Officials at say the change marks the first price increase in fixed telephony services in about eight years. The company serves Nordic and Baltic countries, in Spain and the emerging markets of Eurasia, including Russia and Turkey.

 

According to Stefan Trampus, head of broadband services at Telia, customers in recent years have seen the variable per-minute price of phone calls steadily fall, in some cases by as much as 50 percent.

 

“This fall, combined with the steady price of fixed subscriptions over the past eight years, has meant that consumers have been able to reduce their costs for fixed telephony,” Trampus said.

 

Telia’s infrastructure company, Skanova, has put a new price list in place for telecom operators using the copper network – the reason for the increase. With the change, Telia is offering customers combination packages for telephony, broadband and TV.

 

It’s been about a month since Skanova told its carrier customers that it would increase the price of access to the copper network. That increase is a result of the ongoing shift in technology and rising costs per connection, and is the reason behind the increase from Telia.

 

According to TeleGeography, the challenge presented by IP-based competitors has compelled incumbents to slash the price of traditional telephone services, to deploy higher-speed broadband networks, and to introduce new video-over-IP services.