Consumers cutting VoIP?

There’s an interesting new survey out by Alcatel-Lucent that’s raising some eyebrows within the VoIP industry.

The reason?

The report noted that a portion of the respondents deemed paid VoIP services to be expendable, whilst a land line connection (and a cellular phone) was an essential. This is in stark contrast with a series of surveys and reports that have continually shown decreasing land line adoption rates and higher levels of churn.

Of course this is just one survey, but it does point to an often echoed point that VoIP service providers have to do more than offer a low cost to continue to earn the loyalty of consumers. Perhaps this is just one signal that the era of VoIP simply being a low cost alternative is over and that the industry, as a whole, needs to continue to drive innovations such that there is more to VoIP than price.

While it’s unlikely this will happen tomorrow, if survey responses like these become the trend, innovation within this space might start to turn-up again.