According to Infonetics Research, the number of cable VOIP subscribers in
North America soared nine-fold in 2004 to about 500,000, while cable
broadband customers climbed 26% to 22.4 million from 17.7 million. The
research firm estimates North American cablecos boosted investment in VOIP
equipment to US$123-million from US$63-million.
"We forecast ample growth for the cable VoIP equipment market, especially as
PacketCable Multimedia matures, because it promises to further unite the
communication and entertainment realms and blur the line between PC and TV,"
said Infonetics analyst Kevin Mitchell.

Nortel posted its first and second-quarter results yesterday, which should
provide quick relief to anyone with insomnia. If analysts forced to pour
over the numbers can find any surprises, it would be a real shocker.
Frankly, Nortel needs to issue some boring, head-bobbing news to provide all
of us - analysts, employees, the media, customers - with a much-needed a
break. I mean, there is only so much corporate drama we can take. That said,
anyone expecting Nortel to have a nice, quiet year where it can focus on the
business will be disappointed. It still has three quarters of financial
results to release, an AGM - or two - to hold, class-action lawsuits to
battle, and a whack of investigations being conducted by the SEC, OSC, FBI
and RCMP. Can't wait for the Nortel movie!

VOIP guru Jeff Pulver has launched a new Internet telephony product called Bellster. I'm not totally clear on how it works but it looks like you can make locals calls to long-distance destinations by tapping into another person's telephone and their number. If you wanted to make a call from Toronto to Argentina, Bellster would connect you to another Bellster user in Argentina, who would then make a local call for you.
Like Skype, Bellster is certain disruptive but only time will tell if it will be sucessful.You have to give the PR-savvy Pulver credit for doing something creative. The man is a one-man VOIP industry with a blog, magazine, popular conferences and resesearch services.

Skype may not get the media coverage it had a year or so ago but the P2P telephony software maker appears to be steadily moving ahead, highlighted today by the launch of version 1.0 products for Mac OS X and Linux. Skype said it now has 23.9 million registered users, and signing up more than 130,000 new ones a day. The company said its Skype-Out, a pre-paid service that lets users make calls people on PSTN telephones, has 735,000 customers.
According to CNet, a recent report by Evalueserve said traditional local phone operators "could lose up to 30% of their revenues from people who are replacing them with Skype software.
Skype's an intriguing player in the telephony market because I'm still not sure whether it's a viable business or a company waging guerilla warfare with the help of millions of soldiers who like the idea of free calls. Is Skype destined to be niche player used to be long-distance calls by tech-savvy people, or a real business?
One of the keys may be Skype's ability to embed its software within telephony hardware - thereby eliminating the need for a personal computer to make calls. Whether it's cell phones, handheld devices or handsets, Skype could be very successful if - for lack of a better word - it becomes the telephony OS.