Based on incoming Q2 2008 financial reports, the Tier-1 cable TV providers such as Comcast and Cablevision are continuing to pick up consumer VoIP subscribers at the expense of legacy phone companies including Verizon and AT&T. For example, based on VoIP serviceable homes within their territories, Comcast now has 12.5% voice market share and Cablevision reported 37.6% voice share to homes passed. To counter the cable companies' successes, phone companies are using DSL and fiber to the premise (FTTP) combined with their own video to make up a discounted triple-play package.

Targeting business customers and the SMB market in particular, tier-one cable providers are using their VoIP infrastructure to offer aggressive triple play and voice-data double play packages as they seek to attack the telcos’ business customer base. The battle for consumer VoIP and SMB voice data double play packages isn’t as intense yet in service areas covered by most Tier-2 and Tier-3 cable companies because most of these smaller cable providers haven’t yet deployed VoIP. But as telcos expand their triple-play coverage to consumers in more rural areas, the smaller cable companies are being forced to provide bundled voice to protect their consumer and SMB customer base.

Addressing this market, we recently spoke to SinglePipe Communications’ CEO Matt Phillips. SinglePipe is providing wholesale digital phone service to operators across the country, including CMA, Northland Cable Television and Ygnition, and its current wholesale customer base has more than 3 million homes passed. Along with wholesale consumer VoIP, SinglePipe also provides SIP trunking and hosted VoIP to SMBs, and SinglePipe is a CLEC in its own right.

When we asked Philips about the keys to success for companies like SinglePipe, he suggested that one key differentiator is that, as a registered CLEC his company can use its existing interconnect agreements to facilitate the cable companies’ new voice business. And, as was suggested by VoIP Logic with which we spoke last month, Phillips said that a solid operational support system (OSS) is also key, as is the integration of the OSS with customers’ existing back-office platforms. Phillips also noted that cable companies that want to target the business market will also need value-added reseller support, so SinglePipe finds and trains VARs as needed by their wholesale customers.

Steve Taylor is president of Distributed Networking Associates and publisher/editor-in-chief of Webtorials. Larry Hettick is a principal analyst at Current Analysis.