British Telecom is relatively new to the VOIP world but it seems that they are getting good results out of their endeavor.  Based on a report published by the Edinburgh News online, BT has hit a million VOIP users – pretty impressive considering that the service has been around for a relatively short period of time.  Here is the report:

AROUND one million BT customers are making calls over the internet, the company’s boss revealed today.

In an interview to mark five years in the job, BT chief executive Ben Verwaayen said the group had seen an “explosion” in Voice over Internet Protocol usage - and had hit its one million target six months ahead of schedule.

Mr Verwaayen said: “Six months ago we came to the market and said we expect a million active customers by the summer of 2007. We are very proud to announce now that by the end of 2006 we reached the one million already. We are really seeing a market that is taken by storm.”

Mr Verwaayen dismissed fears that growing internet calling traffic would hurt BT’s revenue, noting that only 15 to 20 per cent of its sales depended on conventional voice calls.

He also noted that the firm was always looking for new acquisitions to grow its global services division.

The former state telephone provider offers free VoIP calls within the UK during evenings and weekends as part of its deals alongside broadband and phone line rental.

If you think about things a little more, this kind of news should not be surprising at all.  After all, the increase in VOIP usage has been the trend in other parts of the world – and why not?  We all know the benefits of VOIP services as compared to the traditional telephony – especially when it comes to pricing.  This is all the more significant for those individuals or groups who make a lot of overseas calls.  Using VOIP in this manner can cut their costs by half – or even more, in some cases.

Another thing is that with the name and the reputation that British Telecom has, the fact that it offered VOIP service is a positive thing for the technology.  Their name has somehow lent more credence to VOIP as a phone service.  With this kind of success in BT’s books, I don’t think that we should be surprised to see more companies following suit in the near future.

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