Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) continues to gain users in the residential telephone service market, according to In-Stat. According to data from the high-tech market research firm’s newly launched Residential VoIP Tracker Service, more than 9 million US households now have at least one active VoIP user, with many households reporting the use of more than one VoIP service.

The firm’s new service utilizes a combination of end-user research and market analysis to estimate usage and market share among all of the major service providers, both facilities-based providers like Vonage and client-based providers like Skype, on an ongoing basis. Recent research from the service also revealed that:

• Vonage and Time Warner Cable continue neck-and-neck among facilities-based VoIP subscribers with an estimated 1.7 million and 1.6 million active households respectively.
• Skype continues to dominate among client-based VoIP services with 2.1 million active households, while Microsoft gained more than 1.1 million active households as of the end of Q3.
• In a recent survey, 49 % of current residential VoIP users reported that they had discontinued a traditional (non-VoIP) phone service when they got their VoIP services, including nearly 12 percent of respondents who report that their only VoIP service is client-based. This suggests that the rapid growth of users for client-based services like Skype and Yahoo! Messenger with Voice is also having an impact on incumbent service providers.
• Half of users report using their residential VoIP service either in part or in whole for business purposes, including more than 40 % of client-based VoIP users.