Digital telephone lines reached almost 5.5 million on 30 September, driven by 0.5 percent quarterly growth in VoIP users on DSL networks and a 5.9 percent increase in VoIP subscribers on fibre. There are now over 2 million VoIP subscribers on DSL and more than 750,000 over fibre. Over the same period, cable networks lost 0.2 percent of VoIP subscribers, for a total of just over 2.6 million lines.
VoIP via DSL and fibre is growing due to KPN and its brands as well as Vodafone’s efforts to sell triple-play bundles, according to the researchers. KPN still has significant room to sell to its DSL broadband customers, as 31 percent don’t have VoIP yet.
Cable VoIP appears to be nearing saturation point. After reaching around 85 percent of broadband customers with a digital phone connection in 2014, the cable sector has since seen subscriber numbers as well as the penetration rate drop, due in part to continued broadband growth. Fibre VoIP is closing in on a similar saturation point, which should be reached in the first half of 2016, while DSL is not expected to see saturation until 2018. Overall, Telecompaper expects the number of fixed telephony connections to grow at a compound annual rate of 0.3 percent over the five-year period 2015-2019.
Telecompaper’s quarterly report also estimates retail revenues for the mass market (consumer and SOHO) fixed telephony market. These amounted to EUR 306 million for the third quarter of 2015, stable compared to the second quarter. The retail revenues include access and usage revenues from PSTN/ISDN/CPS/WLR services as well as VoIP services via cable, DSL and FTTH networks. It excludes revenues from unmanaged VoIP services like Skype, as well as installation fees and equipment sales.
