FCC Releases New Data on Local Telephone Competition

This report summarizes the information collected about telephone services as of December 31, 2012. It demonstrates continued growth in subscribership to interconnected VoIP and mobile telephony services and continued decline in subscribership to traditional wired telephone services. In December 2012, there were 96 million end-user switched access lines in service, 42 million interconnected VoIP subscriptions, and 305 million mobile subscriptions in the United States, or 443 million retail local telephone service connections in total. Over the three-year period 2009-2012, interconnected VoIP subscriptions increased at a compound annual growth rate of 17%, mobile telephony subscriptions increased at a compound annual growth rate of about 4%, and retail switched access lines declined at about 9% a year.