VoIP Ranking by Subscriber: Q4 2007

Digital phone continues to advance, but subscriber data on some key players is still unavailable.

by Alex Goldman ISP-Planet Managing Editor [April 11, 2008]

Rank	ISP	Subs. (thousands)	Date & Source
1	Comcast Digital Phone* ((circuit switched customers not counted)	4,400	[February 20, 2008] SEC 10-K
2	Time Warner Digital Phone*	2,895	[February 6, 2008] Trending Schedules [.pdf]
3	Vonage	2,580	[March 17, 2008] SEC 10-K
4	Cox* (business and residential)	2,380	[February 13, 2008] Press Release
5	Skype (paid VoIP only, customers worldwide, date of this number unknown)	1,800	[July 27, 2005] Press Release
6	CableVision* (cable VoIP under the Optimum Voice brand name)	1,592	[February 28, 2008] SEC 10-K
7	Charter* (cable VoIP)	959	[February 27, 2008] SEC 10-K
8	Mediacom* (cable VoIP)	185	[March 14, 2008] SEC 10-K
9	CBeyond	35	[February 29, 2008] SEC 10-K
10	Covad (business VoIP only)	2	[February 26, 2008] SEC 10-K
	Note: data was unavailable for some VoIP service providers.
	Note: services with an asterisk * are digital phone, not true VoIP

The competitors are in trouble.

Vonage's patent woes are ongoing, and could affect subscriber numbers. Skype terminated its offer of free nationwide calling in North America, so we expect its subscriber numbers to decline. XO Communications did not provide subscriber data and may have been affected by the SunRocket flameout. United Online announced that its VoIP service is "being curtailed."

Covad is not growing its business fast, and the data pipe side of the business is stagnant or declining, depending on the product offered.

In spite of these problems, no major VoIP provider gets an acceptable grade from broadband reports for customer service (item 5). At press time, Optimum Voice had a high overall ranking but had not maintained that ranking long enough to earn a star from BBR.

AT&T Callvantage is one of many services for which we do not have subscriber numbers. Others include KeyOn and VoIP, Inc. and many on the VoIP Providers list below.

Paetec reported number of T-1s delivered but we cannot translate this into a subscriber number. It is clearly a major player in business services.

Update
Insight Communications released Q4 2007 results on April 16, 2007 [.pdf], after we had published our update. The company had 257,900 digital phone customers at year end, which would place it eighth on our list.