Global economic challenges have slowed sales of IP phones, but the movement toward IP telephony systems continues. While corded IP phones remain the standard in business, Wi-Fi/cellular handsets continue to grow, as new In-Stat research indicates that shipments of these dual-mode devices approached some 247 million units in 2010.
“In the past, cellular operators earning their revenue from a per-minute service plan would not support a handset that would use Wi-Fi to move those minutes off of the cellular network, without getting something in return,” says Norm Bogen, VP Research. “Over the past few years, cellular operators have yielded to consumer demand for VoIP services on their cellphones and have formed partnerships with VoIP vendors, such as Skype, to keep traffic on their network.” Recent research by In-Stat found the following:
