Time for one of my favorite VoIP actives: deciphering 8x8 Inc.'s quarterly results. Let's start with the second quarter's top line: $7.1-million vs. $2.5-million a year earlier. Sounds good but the bottom line also expanded: a loss of $5.6-million vs. a loss of $5.1-million. The company said the red ink is due to growth into new markets such as the U.K. The question is whether adding 20K subscribers in the quarter (93K vs. 73K as of the end of Q1) is a good return on investment. Another burning question is how much gas 8x8 has left in the tank given it now has $19.7-million of cash compared with $24.9-million at the end of the first quarter. For 8x8, the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow is Infonetics Research's forecast that there will be 24 million subscribers and $8.4-billion in VoIP revenue by 2008, compared with 1.1 million and $255-million respectively in 2004. The problem, however, is the cablecos (Time-Warner, Cablevision) are coming on strong while Vonage's market share has fallen to its lowest level in nine months, which is not the best thing for a company trying to a $600-million IPO. Click here to check out some the ominous things Infonetics analyst Kevin Mitchell told Om Malik recently about VoIP start-ups. By the way, investors seem underwhelmed by 8x8's results as the shares climbed one cent to $1.70.