Providing Market Intelligence for 40 Years

Investor's Business Daily

Web Grabs That Phone

Parks Associates says 40 million U.S. households will have speedy Internet access at the end of 2005. That's key, because VoIP service requires broadband hookups.

And 24 million U.S. households will have home networks, mostly wireless, by the end of this year, Parks Associates says.

VoIP's emergence poses a threat to big local phone companies. In the mid-1990s, some PC owners used VoIP software to make cheap international calls. New startups, led by Skype, have taken PC-based VoIP to a higher level. They've improved the voice quality and reliability of Internet phone calls.

From the article "Web Grabs That Phone," by Reinhardt Krause.

Previously In The News

Netgear Leads In Home Networking Devices

The range issue reflects a larger trend in home networking, Soares says. According to Parks Associates, 2011 will be the first year when the average American home will have more consumer-electronic...

FarmVille, Angry Birds Set New Course for Games

Social and mobile games probably aren't drawing sales away from the console games business, but are "expanding the pie," said Pietro Macchiarella, an analyst with Parks Associates. "They attract pe...

A Holiday Present: High-Def TV Prices Falling

With visions of sweet profits dancing in their heads, HDTV vendors rolled out new features the past several months to entice people to pay top dollar for new televisions. Consumers didn't bite wide...

A Fresh Push To Link It All In The Home

Apple, which is switching to Intel chips by mid-2006, came out with its first media center-type PC in October. The new iMac G5 features the Front Row media experience. Front Row gives users a simpl...