VoIP Ranking by Subscriber: Q2 2008

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

by Alex Goldman ISP-Planet Managing Editor [September 2, 2008]

Rank	ISP	Subs. (thousands)	Date & Source
1	Comcast Digital Phone* (circuit switched customers not counted)	5,700	[May 1, 2008] SEC 10-Q
2	Time Warner Digital Phone*	3,437	[April 30, 2008] Trending Schedules
3	Vonage	2,600	[May 12, 2008] SEC 10-Q
4	Cox* (business and residential)	2,460	[May 14, 2008] Press Release -- no update
5	CableVision* (cable VoIP under the Optimum Voice brand name)	1,766	[May 9, 2008] SEC 10-Q
6	Charter* (cable VoIP)	1,176	[May 12, 2008] SEC 10-Q
7	Insight Communications* (cable VoIP)	230	[May 15, 2008] Press Release [.pdf]
8	Mediacom* (cable VoIP)	222	[May 9, 2008] SEC 10-Q
9	SureWest	57	[May 12, 2008] SEC 10-Q
10	CBeyond (customer locations)	39	[May 12, 2008] SEC 10-Q
	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 is not growing. eBay has not published subscriber numbers for Skype.

Covad was acqired [.pdf] by private equity. It no longer reports numbers and has been removed from the list.

Cox did not publish subscriber numbers.

Perhaps because of this lack of competition, no major VoIP provider gets an acceptable grade from broadband reports for customer service (item 5) although Cablevision's offering is not shown.

I use magicJack. The price is compelling but the service is quirky. The AP claims it's the fastest growing phone company in the U.S., but we have no data.

AT&T Callvantage is one of many services for which we do not have subscriber numbers. 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.