The leading European VoIP adopters over the course of 2006 were France, Germany, and the
Netherlands. According to Instat analyst, Keith Nissen, “The EU market increased by over 14 million subscribers last year largely due to local loop unbundling, the introduction of cable telephony and triple-play service bundles as well as operator consolidation.” 

By contrast the US added a mere four million new VoIP subscribers over the same period. Keith Nissen says US carriers “don’t seem interested in selling anything other than plain-old-telephone-service.” Read more.

Computer-based Voice over IP (VoIP) is nothing new, but Skype is the first such service to break into the mainstream, attracting millions of users worldwide. Skype had 1 million simultaneous users within six months of the release of its first version for Windows in July 2004. By the end of the third quarter of 2006, Skype had 136 million registered users, and the number of users online now regularly exceeds 8 million. These users generated about 6.6 billion minutes of traffic in the third quarter of 2006, and are on track to make over 27 billion minutes of PC-to-PC calls this year. About half of Skype’s traffic is international.

This has prompted worries that Skype–and similar services–could undermine the viability of the international long-distance market. However, while the volume of international traffic routed via Skype is significant, the quantity is still small when compared to a global switched and VoIP traffic base of 264 billion minutes. Computer-to-computer traffic between Skype users in 2005 was equivalent to 2.9 percent of international carrier traffic in 2005 and approximately 4.4 percent of total international traffic in 2006. Furthermore, not all of Skype’s traffic is a net loss for international carriers. Skype also offers a paid “Skype Out” service, which allows Skype users to place calls to traditional telephones. The service relies on wholesale international carriers, including iBasis, Cable & Wireless, and Level 3, to terminate this traffic to the telephone network.

Still, it’s clear that VoIP services will continue to gain in popularity. “Someday, all calls will be routed over the Internet,” commented Stephan Beckert, Research Director at TeleGeography. “But the numbers suggest that traditional international carriers aren’t going to disappear anytime soon.”

India’s incumbent international operator, VSNL, announced today that it had agreed to buy Teleglobe, the largest international voice over IP (VoIP) carrier in the world — and former Canadian monopoly overseas voice carrier. Should the deal meet with shareholder approval and pass regulatory review, the merged company — which also includes the recently integrated Tyco Global Network — would become one of the largest multinational providers of voice, Internet, and bandwidth services.
VOICE
Teleglobe became the largest carrier in the 30 billion minute international VoIP market when it acquired ITXC in 2004. Although VoIP represented under 15 percent of the global call market in 2004, it is growing at double to triple the rate of the traditional public switched voice market. Combined with Teleglobe’s wholesale voice operations around the world, VSNL will become the fifth largest carrier of voice minutes in the world.
INTERNET
Although VSNL is a significant carrier of voice minutes in its own right, its international Internet infrastructure has been limited to a few routes out of India. With the acquisition of Teleglobe, VSNL will be adding backbone Internet connectivity to 14 new countries, bringing its total to 17. Still, the combined VSNL and Teleglobe international Internet backbone puts it only in the top 30 of global backbone providers. This may change rapidly if VSNL builds out its Internet infrastructure to serve India’s growing demand for corporate bandwidth.
BANDWIDTH
By purchasing Teleglobe, VSNL will be pairing Teleglobe, a major wholesale services provider, with the Tyco Global Network, a major provider of wholesale submarine and terrestrial network capacity that VSNL acquired recently. As of early 2005, Teleglobe owned or controlled part of 90 submarine and terrestrial network systems, as well as satellite connectivity around the world. Although other carriers, such as AT&T and MCI, may connect to more individual city locations, few companies are known to control capacity on as many different systems.

source: TeleGeography

http://www.telegeography.com/products/tg

“International voice-over-IP traffic grew 23 percent in 2003, respectable by most standards, but far below the 80 percent growth rate of previous years. Global VoIP volumes appear to be reaccelerating in 2004, however, and should achieve 40 percent growth by the end of the year.

“The slowdown in 2003 was due, in part, to the growing maturity of the industry, and partially due to temporary setbacks in a few key destination countries,” said TeleGeography analyst Patrick Christian.

Despite this temporary slow-down, VoIP is still growing at twice the rate of traditional switched voice, and now accounts for 11 percent of international calls. According to TeleGeography’s latest research results, global voice traffic reached nearly 200 billion minutes in 2003, 22 billion of which was carried over the Internet. The impact of VoIP technology is greatest on routes into developing markets, where high settlement costs make VoIP a worthwhile alternative. For example, VoIP traffic to India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh more than doubled in 2003. In markets like these, VoIP can account for a quarter or more of incoming calls.”