I don't think it surprises anyone to see a report that traditional copper-based phone systems run by telecom operators are seeing a decline in the number of subscribers.

As a resident in NJ, my local and long-distance options were limited to Verizon, and my monthly bill for both combined easily topped $100 a month. About nine months ago, I made the switch to Verizon's FiOS Internet service, and with it, Verizon's Voicewing VoIP telephony service. My combined Internet and voice bills went from $135 a month to $59.90. While I've noticed a few burbles here and there with the Voicewing service, for the most part, the difference in quality is difficult to discern. Not only did I increase my Internet speeds drastically from my old DSL service, I halved my monthly bill with no real difference in quality. What's not to like?

Obviously these types of savings will appeal to a multitude of people and the number of business and residential customers jumping from analog services to VoIP services will only continue to grow.

In my case, Verizon was lucky and landed both my Internet and telephony business. I guess I liked the idea of dealing with only one company, even if they are different divisions provisioning each service. I could have chosen another VoIP provider, such as Vonage, just as easily as I did Verizon's Voicewing. As VoIP service providers are somewhat difficult to differentiate, the trick for telecom companies hoping to replace their copper customers with VoIP customers will be in wooing them early and wooing them often with differentiated services.

If I were a Cablevision subscriber (which is the local cable company), I could just as easily ditched my Verizon local and long distance service and switched to a cable-provided voice, data and video service. With triple-play bundles making in-roads to greater numbers of customers who find the single bill appealing, telecoms need to make sure those defecting from their traditional services replace them with a variant offered by them or their affiliates.

 

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