Wireless and VoIP Continue to Replace Wireline

Surveys of consumer and business voice communication trends have shown a steady decline in wireline usage, replaced by Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) subscriptions and wireless adoption.

One such survey is the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) annual Local Telephone Competition, formulated with data up through June 30, 2013. In this report, it was found that in June of 2010 there were 123 million end-user switched access lines in service, 29 million interconnected VoIP subscriptions and 279 million mobile subscriptions in the United States.

Meanwhile, 2013 data showed that switched access lines fell to 90 million (an annual decline of 10 percent), VoIP rose to 45 million (a compound annual growth of 16 percent) and mobile subscriptions rose to 306 million (a compound annual growth of 3 percent).

Of the wireline services, which include switched access lines and VoIP subscriptions, 57 percent were residential connections and 43 percent were business. Forty-seven percent of those residential customers were VoIP subscribers, as opposed to 15 percent of business subscribers.