Briefly Noted: Updates, Observations and Trends

Each month, we collect miscellaneous happenings, studies, trends or observations you might have missed. This month we feature the stampede to offer VoIP and share some statistics on worldwide broadband growth.

VoIP Profusion: Everyone's Doing It

Last month, ebay bought skype. This month a few more companies linked their names with VoIP. These include:

• Microsoft recently bought Teleo;
• AOL introduced their TotalTalk service earlier this month;
• Motorola is demonstrating the operation of Sonus VoIP over Motorola's Canopy wireless broadband system; and
• Google introduced the Beta of Google Talk.

With all these offerings, how is a consumer to choose what to use? ( www.ebay.com ) ( www.skype.com ) ( www.microsoft.com ) ( www.aol.com ) ( www.motorola.com ) ( www.sonus.com ) ( www.google.com )

Broadband Growth Shifting

Point Topic has issued their World Broadband Statistics for mid-2005 and has made some observations based on the new numbers. The worldwide growth rate of broadband is leveling off (although 16% growth between December 2004 and the end of Q2 2005 is still a pretty big number).

As broadband growth slows in the countries where it first took off--South Korea, Canada, Japan--broadband growth has been shifting to Europe, including the UK, France, Finland, Norway and Switzerland. See additional insights at the Point Topic website ( www.point-topic.com ).