16 August 2006

The number of global subscribers to retail voice over IP (VoIP) services
jumped by 83 per cent during 2005, research revealed today.

According to data from
Point
Topic, VoIP subscribers rose from 10.3 million at the beginning of 2005 to
over 18.7 million by the end of the year.

"If you add in the PC-to-phone sector,
Skype and the
like, the number of global VoIP subscribers gets close to 24 million, which is
about 65 per up on the year before," said John Bosnell, senior analyst at Point
Topic.