Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) phone systems are revolutionizing the way people talk on the phone, in both residential and business environments. Because VoIP transfers phone signals as hyper-efficient packets of data over the Internet, VoIP service providers are able to provide professional phone systems at lower prices than landline providers with more free features and a higher quality of voice. Though this may sound like it is too good to be true, the market for VoIP is exploding with popularity. In fact, a new market research report published by Transparency Market Research forecasts that the VoIP services market will be worth $136.7 billion by the year 2020.
The report, titled “VoIP Services (Individual Consumers, Corporate Consumers, Mobile VoIP and Others) Market – Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast, 2014 – 2020,” calculated the 2013 market to be worth $70.9 billion alongside a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 9.7 percent. The report predicted that the fastest growing VoIP markets would be in Europe followed by the Asia Pacific market, where the CAGR is calculated to be around 13.6 percent.
VoIP phone systems are growing in popularity not only because they are more affordable than traditional landlines, but also because modern VoIP technology also makes them more powerful and reliable. Once broadband Internet connections became virtually ubiquitous in both homes and businesses, the necessary speed and bandwidth to carry connections was available for VoIP to flourish. Hosted VoIP systems can even provide smaller businesses with the same business-class Private Branch Exchange (PBX (News - Alert)) systems international enterprises use, at only a fraction of the cost of owning or operating the same equipment.
As VoIP becomes more popular, competition leads to lower prices for better service. Because of this simple fact, VoIP will continue to grow Internationally, to provide cheaper and better phone service than landlines can even come close to offering.