The last few years have seen a tremendous growth in the field of Cable Voice over IP (VoIP), with the business services market being the biggest customer and the beneficiary in this field. Realizing the tremendous potential for revenue in this field, MetaSwitch (News - Alert) and Big River Telephone Company have come together to explore the possible avenues in this sector.

 

Currently, Big River offers a wholesale VoIP service, which is powered by Metaswitch. Using this service, regional cable systems operators can offer feature rich services to their business subscribers and add new sources of residential revenue for their companies. While these are the immediate benefits, in the long run the cable operators will be creating a complete package of Cable Voice over IP services, which will increase the customer loyalty and bring more revenue.

 

Cable operators have realized the imminent benefits available in this deal and are making a beeline to sign up with the Metaswitch/Big River deal. Prominent operators such as Eagle Communications, NewWave Communications and Vista III Media have already signed up for the deal and many more are in the process of signing up. In fact Big River expects to sign up operators throughout the United States based on the initial signing up of the prominent operators.

 

NewWave Communications is based in Sikeston, MO and it provides cable television, digital telephone and high-speed internet services to its customers in Illinois, Kentucky, Arkansas, North Carolina, South Carolina, Missouri and Tennessee. By launching MetaSwitch-powered digital telephone service in partnership with Big River, Newwave has already tasted tremendous success in the digital phone market.

 

And it’s a well known fact that Big River takes good care of all its partners while deploying its technology at their end. For example, while working with Newwave, they administered the entire process of adding voice to the Newwave’s existing bundle of services. The company makes sure that it brings the wealth of its experience to the fore while deploying new technologies for its partners. As a result, Newwave can now offer their residential and business customers, advanced features that go well beyond the standard telephone features offered by various other telephone companies.

 

According to researches, North American VoIP service revenue is set to grow to $13.3 billion in 2009. If you consider the fact that it was only $2.6 billion in 2006, you will get a clear picture of the market that is waiting to be explored. The players in this field have a great opportunity to cater to various segments as the market is equally split between residential and business consumers. Usually, a potential customer will be looking to switch to IP because of improved productivity, greater flexibility and an opportunity to earn more revenue by providing better customer service.

 

Based on the response from the major MSOs across U.S. and the projected market potential, Big River expects the voice over cable business to soon take over their embedded base of customers, which is the company’s main source of income at the moment.