Traditional wireline services under pressure: In-Stat
New research from market research firm In-Stat says that traditional wireline voice services are coming under increasing pressure from other services such as mobile wireless and Voice over IP. In-Stat indicates that wireless will hit a major milestone in 2005 when mobile wireless revenue surpasses that of traditional wireline services. It projects that cellular services will generate 51% of all voice services in the United States by the end of this year. "In-Stat also feels that cellular services will become even more competitive once they incorporate VoIP over Wi-Fi connections into cellular handsets. This will allow cellular subscribers to communicate using VoIP when their handset is in range of a Wi-Fi access point," reads a market alert from the company. The high-tech research firm also notes that total end-user revenue from both the consumer and business telecom segments will exceed US$215 billion by the end of last year. Other key findings are that cable operators are increasingly becoming strong competitors to switched wireline services; and that CLECs and other alternative services continue to force traditional players to lower prices just to keep their customer bases.